The Slave South, 1790s-1860s Notes
The Slave South, 1790s-1860s
Readings
Reading the American Past, chap. 13
13-1: Madison Hemings Recalls Life as Thomas Jefferson’s Enslaved Son: Details Hemings' account of his life and relationship with Thomas Jefferson.
13-2: After the Sale: Slaves Going South from Richmond: Describes the experiences of slaves being sold and transported to the Deep South.
13-3: Plantation Rules (by Bennet Barrow): Outlines the strict rules and regulations imposed on slaves by plantation owners.
13-4: Fanny Kemble Learns about Abuses of Slave Women: Recounts Kemble's observations and the stories shared by enslaved women about their harsh treatment.
13-5: Nat Turner Explains why he became an Insurrectionist: Provides insight into Turner's motivations and justifications for leading the Southampton Slave Rebellion.
King Cotton
US cotton production was minimal at the start of the 19th century but became dominant by the mid-19th century.
By the mid-19th century, the US was the biggest cotton producer in the world, driving economic growth and solidifying the institution of slavery.
Factors explaining this vast increase in production:
Land: Availability of fertile land in the South, particularly in the newly acquired territories.
Labor: Enslaved Africans and their descendants provided the labor force needed for cotton cultivation.
Technology: Innovations like the cotton gin significantly increased the efficiency of cotton processing.
The Age of Revolution and the Decline of Slavery
Economic and political factors:
Revolution destabilizes the economy: Disrupted trade and economic systems, creating uncertainty about the future of slavery.
Soil depleted in Chesapeake: Exhaustion of soil in established tobacco-growing regions led to declining productivity.
Perspectives suggesting slavery would weaken in the US:
“Wither away” idea: The belief that slavery would gradually disappear as it became economically unsustainable.
“Colonization” idea tied to ending slavery: Proposals to resettle freed slaves in Africa or other locations.
The Smithian critique about the unproductiveness of slave labor: Arguments that free labor was more efficient and economically viable than slave labor.
Industrial vision: The idea that industrialization would replace agriculture and render slavery obsolete.
Equality: Enlightenment ideals of equality and human rights challenged the moral legitimacy of slavery.
King Cotton and the Revival of Slavery
Technology:
Eli Whitney and the cotton gin revolutionized cotton production by making it easier and faster to process cotton.
Increased production in bales of cotton:
1790: 3000
1815: almost a half million
1860: almost 3 million bales, underscoring cotton's central role in the Southern economy.
Increase in slaves population:
1.5 million in 1820
4 million in 1860, reflecting the growing demand for labor in the expanding cotton economy.
Prices & Profits
Increasing monetary value of slaves:
1844: 600
1860: 1,800, indicating the rising economic importance of enslaved labor.
Profitability:
1859: costs about 30 for upkeep and about 60 made per slave.
100\% profit a year (does not factor in the cost of the slave), highlighting the immense profitability of slave labor for plantation owners.
Reproduction of the Slave Population
Attack on the slave trade
Illegal entry of slaves
Internal slave trade
Natural increase
Regulation and Outlawing of Slave Trade
Britain attacks the slave trade, using its naval power to suppress the transatlantic slave trade.
US follows suit in 1808, prohibiting the importation of slaves but not internal trade.
1803-07: many slaves shipped in as there is a fear that in 1808 trade will end, leading to a surge in slave imports.
Illegal entry of slaves (not enforced until Lincoln; New Orleans and Florida points of illegal entry), which continued despite the legal prohibition.
The law does not prohibit internal trade or coastal sea movement of internal trade—this some slaves carried by sea to N. Orleans and Charleston and then sold, facilitating the expansion of slavery within the US.
Reproduction of the Slave Population
Natural increase
For success, we need second generation & an even sex ratio (both of which hard to realize), posing challenges to maintaining the slave population.
Planters’ explanation: better treatment (data does show that some slaves had more calories than English working class), which aimed to increase birth rates among enslaved women.
Slave “Breeding”
Upper south loses dominance in production; produce slaves to compensate; Thomas Drew claims VA exports 6000 slaves in 1832, shifting the economic focus from crop production to human commodification.
A planter brags that his slaves are good “breeders.”
Girls become pregnant at 13 or 14; by age 20 some gave birth to 5 children; In one market a baby worth 200, illustrating the economic value placed on enslaved children.
Childbearing age female slaves are more expensive.
Rumors of “breeding farms.”
Slaves as collateral for loans, further entrenching the institution of slavery in the financial system.
Reading American Past, 13-4: Abusive Treatment Slave Women
13-4: Fanny Kemble Learns about Abuses of Slave Women.
In this reading, slave women come to Fanny Kemble (slaveowner’s wife) and complain about the conditions they live in, including treatment during pregnancy and after, shedding light on the sexual exploitation and physical abuse faced by enslaved women.
Biblical Justifications for Slavery
God tells Moses that the ancient Israelites should take male and female slaves.
The Book of Genesis: Noah cursing his son Ham's descendants to be slaves.
Bible: Abraham and many prophets owned slaves.
Jesus never talks to slave owners or condemns slavery.
Aristotle claims that some are born to serve others, using religious and philosophical arguments to defend the practice of slavery.
Plantation Owners’ Rejection of Equality & Embrace Social Hierarchy & Slavery
James Henry Hammond
Hammond was Governor of South Carolina
He rejected abstract concepts such as equality, advocating for a social order based on hierarchy and privilege.
Preferred empiricism: what have societies looked like?
Hammond attacks capitalism: a labor system that represses labor.
Hammond claimed that American slaves were treated better than the English working class, attempting to justify slavery by comparing it to other labor systems.
Slaves: Work, Legal Status, and Resistance
Productivity and slavery: a modern economic system.
Forms of resistance, including sabotage, work slowdowns, and escape.
Nat Turner and the Southampton Slave Rebellion, 1831, a major slave uprising that struck fear into the hearts of slaveholders.
Slaves’ Productivity: Adam Smith & Williams’ Thesis
A. Smith claimed that wage labor was more productive than slave labor owing to the profit motive in the former.
Williams’ thesis: slavery ends in the industrial age because it’s backwards.
New Scholarship on Slave Labor Productivity
New scholarship has emphasized the productivity of slave labor, division of labor on large plantations, and management, challenging earlier assumptions about the inefficiency of slave labor.
Planter James Henry Hammond struggle to supervise.
Hammond has a difficult time making slaves compliant.
One struggle is labor gangs versus piece work.
Slaves like piece work; can finish early.
Hammond dislikes it because it gives slaves independence.
Reading the American Past, 13-3: Issue of Controlling Slave Labor
13-3: Plantation Rules (by Bennet Barrow)
Why Barrow thinks slaves should be available to work all the time.
Why Barrow doesn’t want slaves to leave the plantation.
Why Barrow doesn’t want slaves to produce anything for themselves, even on their free time, highlighting the total control that slaveholders sought to exert over enslaved people.
Barrow’s Writings Reveal He Whipped His Slaves
In the excerpt (13-3) it appears that Barrow used the carrot rather than the stick to motivate slaves to work.
However, his other writings reveal that he whipped his slaves, on average, about twice a week.
Whippings were done in public to send a message to other slaves.
However, Barrow noted that whippings didn’t seem to change behavior.
Barrow complained about the way other masters treated their slaves and viewed himself as a kind master.
One takeaway from this: masters seemed to assume that whipping was necessary to compel slaves to work, despite evidence to the contrary.
Another Aspect Productivity: Efficient Allocation of Labor
Internal slave trade:
1810-1820: 120,000 slaves sold from the upper to the lower south, as the center of cotton production shifted.
Emergence of slave traders (control 70\% of the trade).
Slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest is a rags-to-riches story.
200 traders in N. Orleans
Another form efficient allocation:
Planters “rent” slaves at down times when they are not needed, ensuring a constant supply of labor.
Impact of Slave Trade on Families
Slaves from upper south traded and shipped west.
Breaks up families.
20\% of children sold by age 16.
30\% of children live with a single parent.
50\% of children live with both parents.
Fictive kinship as a response (even though whites claim blacks have no family values to justify sale), demonstrating the resilience of enslaved communities in the face of forced separation.
Western Expansion of Slavery
Western movement aids the planter class more than poor whites, and we also have western movement expanding slavery: the South and the expansion of slavery westward: factors:
Transport: steamboat (can now have ships go upstream) & rails
By the 1830s, 3/4 of cotton production in western parts of the south and only 1/4 in the coastal south.
Slave Codes/Law
Codes were negative, explaining what slaves could not do:
Slaves could not leave the plantation.
Could not possess a gun.
Could not visit homes of free blacks or whites.
Could not assemble independently.
Could not learn to read, all aimed at controlling and suppressing enslaved people.
“Negative” Slave Codes (Continued)
Slaves had no standing in court.
Could not be a party to a lawsuit.
Could not offer testimony, except against slaves and free blacks.
Could not make contracts.
Property ownership generally forbidden.
Slaves cannot strike whites, even in self-defense.
Killing a slave was rarely regarded as murder, denying enslaved people basic legal rights and protections.
Free Blacks in the South
Free blacks: 260,000 in 1860 (North & South).
The number of free blacks grows, but the percentage of blacks that are free shrinks because the slave population grows faster than free backs.
More than half in the south, but the vast majority in the upper south.
Live away from the plantation; many free blacks live in cities.
Restrictions on Free Blacks in the South
Banned from trades and professions.
In most of the south, free blacks cannot: vote, have arms, buy liquor, assemble, speak publicly, vote, be educated, testify against whites.
Free blacks required to pay tax and have a white guardian and carry freedom papers, limiting their autonomy and rights.
RESISTANCE: Turner Revolt, Southampton VA, 1831
CONSEQUENCES:
Violence: in 1 day over 100 blacks killed
One man bragged he killed 10-15.
Indiscriminate killing of blacks (some free blacks) from S. Hampton County.
Turner memorabilia: after death, his body cut up and distributed; possible to buy Turner wallets made from his skin; his bones were family heirlooms, illustrating the dehumanization and brutality faced by enslaved people.
Consequences on Debate to End Slavery in VA
The law to abolish slavery in VA does not pass (gradual emancipation and colonize to Africa).
Justification: negative consequences of slavery on poor whites. Planters have too much power.
Consequences Turner on Debate to End Slavery in VA
Slavery strengthened legally.
Ban on black preachers.
Prohibit blacks from learning to read (revolt at time Walker’s book).
Prohibit free blacks from migrating to the state.
Maryland passes similar laws, tightening restrictions on enslaved and free black people.
Reading the American Past, Document 13-5
13-5: Nat Turner Explains why he became an Insurrectionist
What did the community think of him when he was a child?
Years earlier, he had escaped. But he returned to his plantation. Why?
What did others think about the fact that he returned?
What inspired him to revolt?
He attacked his master even though he said he was a good master. How might we explain that?
Social Hierarchy Amongst Whites in the South: Extreme Inequality in the White South
Planters (loose definition: own 20 or more slaves)
Slaveowners (typically own less than 10 slaves)
Yeomen (white independent farmers who don’t own slaves)
Poor whites: don’t own land; work for others
Statistics on Slaveowners in 1860 (8 Million Whites in South)
Only 1 of 4 whites owned a slave or belonged to a family that did.
By 1860, slavery in the upper south was in decline.
About 10,000 families belonged to the “planter” class.
Fewer than 3000 families had 100 slaves.
About half of all slave owners had less than 5 slaves.
About three-quarters of all slaveowners had less than 10.
More Stats: Concentration Slave Ownership
1830: 40\% of families own slaves
1860: just under 25\% of families own slaves
The percentage of whites who owned slaves decreased over time.
The slave population growing faster than the white population.
Which points to even greater concentration in ownership.
Connections Between Economic and Political Power
Planters are as low as 1\% of the population in some states and can be over 50\% of the politicians at the state and/or national level.
Slaveowners (planters & slaveowners) are only 1 in 4 (population) but hold the vast majority of political positions.
Non-slave-owning whites are 75\% of the population but a tiny