American Pageant Chapter 16 APUSH Review
Slavery in America
- Bacon' s Rebellion in Virginia (1676) leads to shift from indentured servants to black slavery.
- 1780s: Slavery issue of debate at the Constitutional Convention
- 3/5th Compromise
- Slave Trade ends in 1808
- Fugitive Slave Act
- Following the American Revolution slavery slowly ends in Northern and middle states.
- Slavery band in northwest territory with northwest ordinance 1787.
- The north and South were able to postpone a major sectional crisis with the in 1820.
King Cotton
- Southern economy reliant on cash crops such as tobacco, rice, and cotton
- Eli Whitey cotton gin makes the cash crop economy profitable.
- Demand for land for cotton production leads to huge increase in demand for slave labor
- Market Revolution: northern industry demand for southern cotton
- Prosperity of North, South, and England built on backs of slaves
Increase in Cotton Production

Expansion of Slavery
- Western expansion and the issue of slavery will cause an increase in sectional conflict.
- Missouri compromise of 1820.
- Compromise of 1850.
- Kansas Nebraska Act 1854.

Antebellum South:
- Primarily agrarian society: "King Cotton"
- Lack of industrialization
- $$ invested in slave labor
- 25% of population owned slaves
- Majority of southerners were not slave owners
- Southern whites support and defend institution of slavery
- Hopeful they will one day own slaves
- Racism: Felt higher than slaves in southern society
- Southern politics was in many ways a oligarchy
- Government by the few wealthy
- Plantation owners
- Southern large slave holders control southern politics
- Southern plantation owners 2) Small slaveholders 3) Yeoman farmers 4) people of the pine barrens
- Contrast with the north
- Lack of immigration to the south
African American Communities
- African American population in the North
- About 250,000
- Tensions with Irish immigrants
- Competition over low skilled jobs
- Free black population in the South
- About 250,000
- Many restrictions on daily life
- Especially after Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831
Slavery
Chattel slavery
- Slaves were treated as property
- “Uncle Tom's Cabin": brought the issue of families being broken up to a mass audience
By the eve of the civil war most slaves were in the deep south
Slaves were not afforded any social, political, or civil rights
- Illegal to learn to read or write
African American culture emerged as a blending of African and American cultural influences
- African American religion (especially after 2nd GA)
- Black Christianity [Baptists & Methodists]:
- African practice of responsorial style of preaching.
- Drawing on West African traditions
- Importance of music in black culture. [esp. spirituals].
Resistance to Slavery
- Forms of Resistance
- Work slowdowns
- Negligence
- Break equipment
- Run away: Underground Railroad
- Slave Revolt
- Slave revolts were not common
- Stono Rebellion (1739): South Carolina slaves runaway to Florida
- Denmark Vesey (1822): massive revolt planned in South Carolina
- Nat Turner (1831): Revolt in Virginia killed 60 people
- Southerns react
- Harsher laws: “Black Codes”
- Slave Patrols
Abolitionist Movement
- Quakers were earliest opponent slavery
- American Colonization Society: transport freed slaves back to Africa (1822 Monrovia, Liberia)
- David Walker- "Appeal to thee Colored Citizens of World" (1829 called for violent uprising
- William LIoyd Garrison (1833) American Anti-Slavery Society called for immediate uncompensated emancipation. - Published "The Liberator"
- Sojourner Truth & Frederick Douglas: former slaves who advocated for abolitionism.
- Liberty Party (1840)
Southern Reaction: Defense of Slavery
- Gag Resolution in Congress (1836-1844)
- Ban on anti-slavery petitions being discussed in Congress
- Repealed by John Quincy Adam in 1844
- Bans on teaching slaves to read or write
- Southern states adopt strict slave codes
- Nat Turner revolt
- Anti-slavery messages banned from Southern mail
- Pro-slavery argument by George Fitzhugh
- Slaves as family
- Better than "wage slavery"
- civilized inferior people