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 Missouri 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