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 MissouricompromiseMissouri compromise 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