Chapter 11: Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South

Decline of the Tobacco Economy

The market for tobacco was extremely unstable.

It exhausted the land quickly, causing the old tobacco-growing regions to switch to new crops (wheat.)

Tobacco cultivation was moving westward to the Piedmont area.

Old Tobacco-growing Regions

Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina

Crop Cultivation in the Coastal South

South Carolina, Georgia and Florida → Rice

The Gulf Coast (Louisiana and Texas) → Sugar

Other regions of the coastal southeast → Long-Staple Cotton

Long-staple Cotton

Also known as Sea Island Cotton.

Grown only in the coastal regions of the Southeast.

Short-staple Cotton

Hardier and coarser strain of cotton & more adaptable in a variety of climates and soils.

Spread of Cotton Production

Moved westward

South Carolina and Georgia → Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas

Nicknames for the cotton producing regions of the South

lower South, Deep South, Cotton Kingdom

“Cotton is king!”

A Growing Business Class

The South was developing a business class of manufacturers and merchants, but it would never reach the level of the Industrial North.

Southern Industry & nonagricultural sector.

Upper South → Flour milling, textile, and iron manufacturing.

New Orleans , Charleston, Mobile, Savannah → “factors”

Common professional people → lawyers, editors, doctors, and etc.

Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond

A leader in iron manufacturing in the South.
Comparable to the best iron mills in the North.

“Factors”

Brokers/merchants that marketed the planters’ crops/served as bankers

Inadequacy: Infrastructure

Southern banking was primitive, and unable to allow development of services and structures for industrial development.

Canals were nonexistent, roads were crude, and railroads failed to interconnect the South.

Inadequacy: Effects

Sea and river transport remained the most common mode of transportation.

Being limited to bodies of water hindered development.

Railroads in the South

Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah, and Norfolk → Memphis & the Northwest

The Virginia Central & the Memphis and Charleston Railroad

Albert Pike

“From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child born in the South to the shorud that covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes to us from the North.“

James B. D. De Bow

Resident of New Orleans.

Wrote De Bow’s Review

“I think it would be safe to estimate the amount which is lost to us annually by our vassalage to the North at $100,000,000. Great God!“

De Bow’s Review

Magazine that advocated the commercial and agricultural expansion in the South.

Said the “colonial relationship” was dangerous.

Highlighted how the South depended on the North

• Was printed in the North because there wasn’t a large enough printer in the South to do it

Cavaliers/Cavalier image

Southerners

People happily free from base.

The idea that they were more concerned with a gracious and refined way of life rather than industrial development

Yankees

Northerners

Planter Aristocracy

Plantation owners were economically, politically, and socially dominant in the South.

Plantations were quite isolationist, so planters began to travel or host grand social events.

The Truth of the Cavalier Image

Planters invested almost everything into their land and slaves, so in reality they lived modestly.

Aristocratic Values

Those who weren’t planters were often members of the military.

They viewed the military like medieval knights, like those in Walter Scott novels.

They had worked hard to get to where they were. Because of this, they were determined to defend slavery

Honor & Dueling

Southern men adopted codes of chivalry, and would defend their honor through duels,

Cult of Honor

The South was extremely against anything challenging manhood, dignity, social station.

EX: South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks, rode into the chamber of the US Senate and beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner.

Subordinate Status of Women

Protecting women was an extremely important task for Southern men. This meant men were even more dominant over women.

George Fitzhugh

One of the South’s most important social theorists in the 1850’s.

George Fitzhugh Quote

Women, like children, have but one right, and that is the right to protection. The right to protection involves the obligation to obey.

“plantation mistress”

Southern women were ornaments for their husbands, and were not given access to the public world.

Women primarily got education so that they could be good wives.

Other Burdens Southern Women Faced

High birth rate, high infant mortality, mulatto children (insult to wives)

“plain folk”

Typical white southern farmer, also known as a yeoman farmer or plain folk.

Owned few slaves, owned their own land, and had to partake in subsistence farming instead of market crops.

Limited Educational Opportunities

The elementary and secondary schools of the South were fewer and inferior to those in the Northeast.

"Hill People”

Those who lived in the Appalachian ranges east of the Mississippi/”hill county”/”backcountry”

Opposd the planter elite, disapproved of slavery, had older political views

Close Relations with the Plantation Aristocracy

There were classes, but they were tied really close because of familial bonds. The poorest man could be a cousin to the richest man.

Crackers/Clay eaters

Sand hillers or poor white trash, they took no part in the plantation economy of the south, as they owned infertile lands, and supported themselves by foraging or hunting

Frederick Law Olmsted Quote

“From childhood, the one thing in their condition which has made life valuable to the mass of whites has been that the —— are yet their inferiors”

“Peculiar Institution”

Slavery

Legal Basis of Slavery

Slavery was enforced by law. (Slave codes)

Slave codes were extremely restrictive.

Common Slave Codes

Forbade enslaved people to hold property, to leave the premises without permission of the slaveholder, to be out after dark, congregate with other slaves except at church, carry firearms, or to hit white people.

They were also not permitted to learn how to read or write in most areas.

Reality of Slavery

Some slaves lived in prison like conditions, while others could learn how to read and write. Conditions and punishments depended mainly on the owner.

“Head drivers”

trusted and responsible slaves that acted as overseers as foreman.

They also acted with several subdrivers.

Task System

Slaves were assigned a task every morning, and were free the rest of the day once they completed it.

Gang System

Slaves were divided into groups and compelled to work until the overseer was satisfied.

Life Under Slavery

Slaves recieved enough necessities to live and work

Lived in slave quarters

Slave Women

Provided medical care- “healers”/midwives/mothers

Worked in the field with men but also chores in the house

1808

Intenational slave trade in America becomes illegal

Continued to smuggle slaves

Living Conditions of Slaves

Lower life expectancy

Material conditions could have been better than those of some northern factory workers

Conditions were better than slaves in the Caribbean and South America

Growing cotton was less intensive than growing sugar

Owners had an incentive to make sure the slaves were alive to do work.

Household Servants

Slaves often did housework, along with manual labor.

On large estates the could also live close to the slaveholder as nursemaids, housemaids, cooks, butler,s or coachmen.

Elizabeth Keckley

Enslaved woman who bought freedom for herself and her son from money she earned from sewing.

She would also later become a seamstress, personal servant, and companion of Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House.

John Randolph

400 of his slaves were freed in 1833 when he died

Tightented Restrictions on Free Blacks

Caused by Nat Turners’s revolt, a growing (and therefore more threatening) population of free blacks, and a growing abolitionsist movement in the North.

Became virtually impossible for owners to set slaves free

Free blacks lived in complete poverty, but preferred it over slavery

Domestic Slave Trade

Professional slave traders often moved slaves throughout the South

Dehumanized slaves, separated relationships

Central Slave Markets

Natchez, New Orleans, Charleston, and Mobile

Foreign Slave Trade

Badly conducted

Importing slaves became prohibited 1808

William L. Yancey

“If it is right to buy slaves in Virginia and carry them to New Orleans, why is it not right to buy them in Cuba, Brazil, or Africa?”

The Amistad

53 slaves took charge of a ship transporting slaves.

The ship was captured by the US Revenue Service.

John Quincy Adams argued that they could not be returned to slavery because the Amistad was foreign trade which was illegal.

The slaves were freed.

1841 Slave Ship

In 1841 slaves took over and steered the ship to the British Bahamas where slavery was illegal. The slaves were freed.

“happy with their lot”

Slaveowners post-emancipation argued that slaves were generally content.

They were generally not content.

Sambo

The deferential slave who acted out the role that the White world expected of them

Slave rebel

Refused to accept slavery and remained forever rebellious

Gabriel Prosser

In 1800 he organized 1,000 rebellious slaves, but was stopped before they could stage an uprising

Denmark Vesey

In 1822 this person and a following of a rumored 9,000 slaves were preparing to revolt- again they were found out and stopped before they could actually act

Nat Turner

In 1831 he led a band of African Americans who went house to house in Southampton County, Virginia, killing 60 Whites.

Running away

Primary form of slave resistance

Underground railroad

System created by Whites to help slaves escape from the South

Slave patrols

Stopped any wandering Blacks and checked if they had a permit.

If they did not they were arrested.

Employed bloodhounds to help

Refusal to work hard

Most important method of slave resitance

Stole tools, broke tools, performed tasks improperly

Pidgin

Simple common slave language

Developed to help slaves communicate with eac other

Drew primarily from English

Slave songs

Used to pass time

Could be emotionally rich and politically challenging

Baptist/Methodist

Main denominations of African Americans- usually the same as their owners

Evolved into slaves’ own version of Christianity

Freedom/Deliverance

Main emphasis of slave religion

“call us home,” “deliver us to freedom,” take us to the Promised Land”

Whites assumed they were talking about an afterlife, but slaves used it to express their dream of freedom in the present world

Central to Prosser, Vesey, and Turner

Slave Families

The “nuclear family” was its main structure

Slave Marriages

Slaves lacked legal marriage

Women bore children at younger ages

Did not condemn premarital pregnancy

Couples lived together before marriage

Marriages often occured between slaves living in differnet plantations

Kinship Networks

This became a strong/important idea among slaves

1/3 of all Black families were broken apart by the slave trade

Reuniting with people became a main cause for slaves trying to escape

Paternalism

Relationship between slaves and their masters

Provided food/clothing/shelter, security, protection

Could be harsh or kind

VItal instrument of White control