7.3 Notes

@@The South’s Cotton Kingdom@@

  • Industrial Revolution increased the demand for southern cotton
    • People needed more cotton to make cloth
  • South had good weather and soil for growing cotton

%%Eli Whitney Invents the Cotton Gin%%

  • Eli Whitney
    • Young Teacher for Connecticut
    • Planned to be a tutor on a plantation in 1793
    • Tinkerer loved to fix things
    • Built a machine to help clean cotton called the Cotton Gin
    • This machine could do the work of 50 people cleaning cotton by hand
    • This machine brought a economic growth

%%The Cotton Kingdom and Slavery%%

  • In 1792 planters grew only 6,000 bales of cotton a year
  • In 1850 thew were producing more than 2 million bales
  • After war in 1812 cotton planters started to move west
    • As the Cotton Kingdom spread so did slavery

%%How Did the North and West Promote Slavery?%%

  • Slavery was a southern institution
  • Northern and Western factories, business, and banks indirectly promoted the enslavement of people through their commercial links with the south

@@Reliance on Plantation Agriculture@@

  • Cotton was souths most profitable cash crop
    • The south also profited on rice, sugar cane, tobacco, and the nations livestock
  • Rice
    • Grown along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia
    • Required expensive irrigation and drainage systems and warm most all found mainly along the coast
  • Sugar Cane
    • Was important in Louisiana and Texas
    • Required expensive irrigation and drainage systems and warm most all found mainly along the coast
    • Cane Grows needed machinery to grind their harvest
    • Small farms could not afford
  • Tobacco
    • Export of south since 1619

%%Limited Southern Industry%%

  • Southern factories made many agricultural tools
    • Machine - Cotton gin, planters, and plows
    • Hand held - Ironware, hoes, and a jute/hemp cloth

%%Southern Cities%%

  • Fewer than 8% of white southerners lived in towns of more than 4,000 people

%%Economically Dependent%%

  • Few industrial jobs
    • People had few ways to escape the poverty of life on a small farm
  • South became very dependent on the north and Europe

@@What Was life like for African Americans in the South@@

  • Free African Americans had faced harsh discrimination.

%%Free African Americans%%

  • Most free AA were were the descendants of enslaved people who were freed during and after the American Revolution
    • Others bought freedom
  • In 1860 more than 200,000 free AA lived in the south
    • Most lived in Delaware and Maryland
    • Slavery was in a declined in these areas
  • White slave owners did not like to free AA living in the south
    • Feared that free AA set a dangerous example
    • Cause AA to revolt
  • Free AA were not allowed to vote or travel
  • Norbert Rillieux
    • Invented a machine called that revolutionized the way sugar was refined
  • Henry Blair
    • Patented a seed planter

%%Enslaved African Americans%%

  • 1860 1/3 of AA made up the souths population
  • When they were teenagers they worked 12-14 hours a day
  • Although facing discrimination African families were not forced to separate

@@How Did Enslaved African Americans Resist@@

  • AA struck back at the system that denied both their freedom and wages
  • Many AA tried to escape to the north
    • Very few made it to freedom
    • Journey was very long and dangerous
  • Gabriel Prosser
    • An enslaved AA
    • Organized an uprising in Richmond, Virginia but it failed
  • Denmark Vesey
    • A free AA
    • Planned a revolt in 1822
    • He was betrayed before the revolt began
  • The Stono Rebellion
    • A rebellion that took place in South Carolina in 1739
    • Resulted in the deaths of some 30 enslaved AA rebels and a similar number of white colonists
  • Nat Turner
    • Led a uprising in 1831
    • Was a slave worker on a plantation in Southampton Country, Virginia
    • He believed his mission was to get revenge on plantation owners
    • His actions increased southern fears of uprisings for AA
  • Uprisings against slavery were very rare
    • White southerners kept a careful track of AA and were well armed
    • An uprising of AA had almost no chance of success