USH 11/13/20

Wealth divides people in the south

White people were more divided by their religion

Black people were divided by who was free and who wasn't

Only 6% of black people were free

Race divides all southerners by caste

Planters were at the top of the caste (10%)-held about 20-50+ slaves

Wealth comes from selling land, slaves, and cotton

Plantations were run as businesses, and owners didn't typically live there

Most people in the north think that everyone in the south is like this

Society was built through paternalism

The owners were important but also were overseers and controllers of the people below them

Smaller slave owners (?%)-20 or less slaves

These slaves were treated worse because there wasn't a large amount of people to spread out the work and there wasn't as much money

Yeomen farmers (50+%)-held 2-0 slaves

Most of the south were yeomen farmers

The farmers couldn't own slaves because they were poor

They were poorer than the lower class in the north

Conditions for yeomen were terrible and if they had slaves, they were even worse

These yeomen farmers went along with the system because they thought there was a hope of being a slaveowner in the future

These yeomen farmers also accepted it because if the slaves weren't the lowest, then the yeomen would be

Poor whites were at the very very bottom

These poor whites were pushed onto not fertile land

These poor whites were worse than the slaves on the plantations

These people were living off of moonshine and whatever they could get together

Planters, small slaveowners, yeomen farmers, poor whites, free blacks, and slaves

This created the African American culture

90% of slaves lived on plantations or farms

Slaves were working 6 days a week

Most slaves were field workers with a few in other industries

If slaves lived in the city, then they were generally freer, but still slaves

The slaves in the south were having families

The north thought slavery would die out because of the pretense of the Caribbean slaves dying out and not having families, but this wasn't true

African-Americans couldn't be legally married but they had common law partners

Most slaves on a plantation had a community of other slaves around them

When a slave was brought to a new plantation, they were adopted by one of the families or communities there

Christianity became a cornerstone of their culture, which was melded with the African religion

Sometimes slaves would worship with the owners

Slaves wanted to have their own churches

Slaves were allowed to have their own service but the whites monitored them

These services were stories and hopes of being freed from slavery

African refrains were incorporated into services, games, and work

The churches become important and a center of their community

Whites looked more towards business leaders and politicians, and blacks would look up to ministers

There were rebellions often, but not a lot a lot

It wasn't good to be a slave running away from a plantation because there would be sever punishment

People didn't want to leave their families behind

Maybe runaway slaves would end up in a lower position than if they stayed on the plantation

Instead, they would work slow, sabotage tools, or poison their masters

Runaway slaves were often assisted by the Underground Railroad

Songs and stories told about a life with equality and hope

Stories used animals as a way to say that they were smarter than their masters

Slavery became much more racial

US tightened southern slave laws a lot

By 1860, there really couldn't be any free blacks because they were almost enslaved

Abolition movement happens in the north, although it doesn't consist of a lot of people

There were misconceptions about the other on both sides

Planters needed the slaves for their crops and were scared of the abolitionist movement

Abolitionists sent mail to the southern post offices to overwhelm them, and eventually stopped all mail incoming from the north