APUSH Ch. 11 Terms

Short Staple Cotton

A variety of cotton with shorter fibers that could grow in the upland interior regions of the South, unlike long staple cotton which required coastal conditions. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 made short staple cotton profitable by efficiently removing its sticky seeds, leading to the rapid expansion of cotton cultivation and slavery across the Deep South.

Cotton Kingdom

The term describing the vast cotton-producing region of the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas) that dominated the American economy from roughly 1800-1860. Cotton became the nation's leading export and created immense wealth for planters while entrenching the institution of slavery.

De Bow's Review

An influential pro-slavery magazine published in New Orleans (1846-1880) by James D.B. De Bow. It promoted Southern economic development, defended slavery as beneficial to both races, and advocated for Southern nationalism and commercial independence from the North.

Cavalier Image

A romanticized myth that Southern planters descended from English nobility and cavaliers (Royalist supporters during the English Civil War), in contrast to supposedly Puritan, middle-class Northerners. This created a self-image of aristocratic refinement and chivalric honor that justified planter social dominance.

Planter Aristocracy

The wealthy elite class of large slaveholders (typically owning 20+ enslaved people) who controlled Southern politics, economy, and society. Though numerically small—only about 12,000 families owned 50 or more slaves—they wielded disproportionate power and set cultural standards for the region.

Southern Lady

The idealized image of upper-class white women as pure, pious, submissive, and domestic. Southern ladies were expected to manage households, embody moral virtue, and uphold family honor while remaining subordinate to men. This ideal masked the real work many performed overseeing enslaved workers and plantations.

Plain Folk

The majority of white Southerners—small farmers who owned few or no slaves. They worked their own land, grew subsistence crops plus some cotton or tobacco, and generally supported slavery despite not benefiting economically from it, partly due to racial solidarity and aspirations of upward mobility.

Hill People

White farmers in Appalachian and upland regions who practiced subsistence farming with little connection to the plantation economy. They owned few or no slaves, often resented planter dominance, and some areas (like East Tennessee) showed Unionist sympathies during the Civil War.

Poor White Trash

A derogatory term for the lowest class of white Southerners who owned no land and lived in poverty. They were stigmatized by both planters and yeoman farmers as lazy and degraded, but their existence complicated pro-slavery arguments that slavery benefited all whites.

Task System

A labor system common in rice and sea island cotton cultivation where enslaved people were assigned specific daily tasks. Once completed, they could use remaining time for their own garden plots or activities. This allowed slightly more autonomy than the gang system.

Gang System

The dominant labor system on cotton, sugar, and tobacco plantations where enslaved people worked in groups under constant supervision from dawn to dusk. It was highly regimented, allowed minimal personal autonomy, and aimed to maximize productivity through continuous labor.

House Slaves

Enslaved people who worked in the planter's home as cooks, maids, butlers, nurses, and personal servants. They often had better material conditions than field workers but faced constant surveillance, sexual exploitation, and the psychological burden of intimate proximity to their enslavers.

Slave Traders

Professional dealers who bought and sold enslaved people, often separating families. They were generally despised even by slaveholders as crude and dishonorable, yet performed an essential function in the slavery system, especially after the international slave trade was banned in 1808.

Sambo

A racist stereotype depicting enslaved people as childlike, docile, lazy, and happy with their condition. Planters used this caricature to justify slavery as benevolent paternalism, though it contradicted their simultaneous fears of slave resistance and rebellion.

Gabriel Prosser

An enslaved blacksmith who organized a large-scale rebellion near Richmond, Virginia in 1800. The plot involved potentially thousands of enslaved people planning to seize the city, but was betrayed before execution. Prosser and approximately 26 others were hanged, leading to stricter slave codes.

Denmark Vesey

A free Black carpenter who planned an elaborate rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822. A formerly enslaved person who purchased his freedom, Vesey organized thousands of participants before the plot was revealed. He and approximately 35 others were executed, and South Carolina imposed harsher restrictions on free Blacks and enslaved people.

Nat Turner

An enslaved preacher who led the most significant slave rebellion in U.S. history in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831. His revolt killed approximately 60 whites before being suppressed. Turner was captured and hanged, and the rebellion prompted severe retaliation against Black people and more repressive slave laws throughout the South.

Slave Music

Spirituals, work songs, and other musical traditions enslaved people created blending African rhythms and forms with Christian themes and American influences. Music provided emotional expression, preserved cultural identity, maintained community, and sometimes encoded messages about resistance or escape.

Pidgin

A simplified language combining elements from multiple languages, used for basic communication between groups without a common language. In the slavery context, it refers to the mixed African-English languages that emerged on plantations, eventually evolving into creole languages like Gullah.

Preston Brooks/Charles Sumner Incident (Brooks vs. Sumner)

The May 22, 1856 caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks on the Senate floor. After Sumner delivered an anti-slavery speech insulting Brooks's cousin, Brooks beat him nearly to death with a cane. The incident symbolized the breakdown of political civility over slavery and polarized the nation further.