American Society 18301860

1
American Society 1830-1860

• Southern Society
• African American Culture and Life in Slavery

2
Reform Movements in South

• Time of reform movements in North and West
  abolitionism, womens rights, reform of
  hospitals, educational reform, temperance, etc.
• South did not experience as strong of reform
  movements
• Slaveholders
• Many slaves were Christians and southern whites
  feared interracial churches and communities so
  did not advocate social reform through churches
  in south
• Women prevented from developing strong networks
  due to distance and sparse population
• Environment homes are more spread out, not as
  strong of a sense of community (remember from our
  discussions about colonial society some trends
  continue)
• Personal reform (temperance) advocated but not
  social reform because of slavery

3
South

• Many Souths
• Stereotypes of South
• Static, backward v. dynamic north
• Values of tradition, intolerance and family
  loyalty verses northern values of materialism,
  individualism and faith
• South as more religious and conservative
• Low-country rice and cotton regions with dense
  slave populations
• Mountainous regions of small farmers
• Plantation culture
• Subsistence agriculture
• Semitropical wetlands Grasslands Cities Rural
  Areas
• Also remember that there were many Norths and
  many Wests -- diversity throughout the country

4
Southern communities and culture

• Slave Society
• Slave Society v. Society with Slaves
• What is the difference?
• What are effects of this?
• Everyone and everything affected by institution
  of slavery
• Slaveholding and non-slaveholding whites, slaves
  and free African Americans
• Was South Distinctive?

5
Slave Society

• How did slavery affect social, political,
  economic development in the South?
• Social
• Racial ideas
• Political
• Economic

6
Slave Society and Social Structure and
Organization

• Plantation as a self-sufficient social unit
• Plantation would take care of itself
• Even less focus in south on social services or
  public programs
• Few resources to improve disease control and
  public health
• Lawbreaking tended to be crimes of violence, not
  crimes against property
• Jails mostly housed whites why?

7
Slave Society

• Southern world view
• A system of thought and meaning
• Values, beliefs, rationalizations
• Justifications for slavery
• Proslavery arguments
• Racism (this differed from other societies
  justifications for slavery in the past)
• Promoted as positive good not necessary evil
  in the 1830s
• Historical argument ancient societies as well
  as use of, or misuse of, the Bible
• natural status of blacks
• Whites as intellectual race and blacks as race
  more inherently physical and destined for labor

8
Justifications for Slavery

• 1851 there is as much difference between the
  lowest tribe of negroes and the white Frenchman,
  Englishman or American as there is between the
  monkey and the negro
• 1854 Men are not born entitled to equal rights.
  It would be far nearer the truth to say that
  some were born with saddles on their backs and
  others booted and spurred to ride them (p.
  330-331)
• Why did people believe statements like this?
• Economic pressures can certainly cause resentment
  and look for someone to blame
• The rhetoric to justify slavery clearly based on
  racism and racist ideas Why?
• How does this relate to other areas of our
  history?

9
Justifications for slavery

• Practical, economic justifications
• Slaves as economic necessity and as symbols of
  prosperity
• Defended as matter of property rights
• Slaves as property

10
Race, class and gender

• Historians attempting to be either race or gender
  or class historians have found it impossible
• Cannot ignore the interplay of all factors
• Race, class and gender all work together to shape
  a society
• Many northerners just as racist as white
  southerners strongly believed blacks were
  inferior but economy different and slaves not
  beneficial so slavery ended
• To get whole story, need all factors
• Society is complex

11
Southern Society and Communities

• Not just wealthy plantation owners and slaves
• Large class of working class and poor whites (and
  other races/ethnicities)
• Class Divisions prominent in South as well

12
Southern Society and Communities

• Class Divisions
• Laura Edwards Gendered Strife and Confusion
• Poor whites and free blacks had much more in
  common than poor whites had with plantation
  owners
• Class could have brought these two groups
  together
• Why didnt this happen?

13
Class and Race Issues in the South

• Which is predominant for individuals?
• Which plays a larger role for individuals?
• What does it depend on?

14
Class in the South

• Three-quarters (75) of white southern families
  owned no slaves
• Middle and lower class
• Landless whites
• Lived in towns
• Owned small stores and businesses
• Some artisans and craftsmen
• Yeoman farmers

15
Farmers in South

• Culture
• Folk culture based on family, church and local
  region
• Scots-Irish and Irish backgrounds
• Religious revivals
• Got together for quilting bees, logrollings, and
  hunting for food and sport
• Recreation and leisure
• Many small farms were self-sufficient or tried to
  remain as self-sufficient as possible making
  own clothes, growing food
• Family and religion very important

16
Farmers in South

• Mens work many worked for wages
• Many desired economic stability
• Sought to enter slaveholding class some even
  bought slaves with wages even if they didnt have
  a farm for them to work on status symbol
• Women
• Work and family responsibilities
• Worked in fields (astonished travelers from
  Europe who proclaimed that small farmers
  rendered their wives slaves of the soil
• Nursing, medical care, preparation of food

17
Working class in South

• 25-40 of whites were working class
• Unskilled laborers
• Worked on farms or in towns
• Some were immigrants, mainly Irish
• Heavy and dangerous work such as building
  railroads or digging ditches
• 1860 300,000-400,000 whites lived in poverty in
  the south (1/5th of total population)

18
Free Blacks in South

• About 250,000 free blacks in the South in 1860
• Life often not much better than slaves
• Upper South Chesapeake area
• Many were descendants of men and women manumitted
  by their owners in 1780s as result of religious
  principles and revolutionary ideals
• Free blacks also runaways many who escaped
  remained in the south

19
Free Blacks in South

• Many whites desperate to stop or restrict this
  growing free black presence
• Laws free blacks could not
• Own a gun
• Buy liquor
• Violate curfew
• Testify in court
• Assemble, except in church
• free is a relative term free from slavery,
  but not discrimination
• Despite these laws, some free blacks did buy land
  and work as craftsmen

20
Free Blacks in South

• Few free blacks prospered
• Bought slaves
• 3,775 free black slaveholders in the South
• Who did they buy?
• Most purchased their own wives and children
• Fought in court for right to manumission but not
  allowed to legally free their family

21
Free blacks in South

• Communities and culture
• Large proportion of mulattoes offspring of
  wealthy white planters
• Not all freed their offspring, but many did and
  gave their children an education and financial
  backing
• Churches very important to building communities
  and cultural traditions
• Hardships one drop of black blood made them
  potentially enslaveable
• Why not move north?

22
Planters

• Top of southern social pyramid
• Slaveholding planters
• Most lived in comfortable farmhouses, not the
  large mansions that is depicted in popular
  culture
• 1850 50 of slaveholders had fewer than five
  slaves 88 had fewer than 20 slaves
• Average slaveholder was farmer, not aristocrat
• Culture
• Genteel culture
• Lavish parties
• fashions

23
Gender ideology in the South

• Ideas of gender
• Ideas of family
• Paternalistic ideology
• Effect on white women and
• black slaves both men and women

24
Southern paternalism

• What is this?
• How did it impact slavery?
• Everyone affected
• Women
• Wives
• Daughters
• Men
• Unskilled laborers
• Poor merchants or working class craftsmen

25
Southern paternalism

• Paternalistic ideology
• Custodians of general welfare of society
• Caretakers of black slave families
• Not an oppressor, but as a benevolent guardian of
  an inferior race
• Many slaves encouraged this benevolence and acted
  like this attitude was appreciated
• Paternalism also affected treatment of white
  women wives and daughters

26
Southern paternalism

• Connection to Virtue
• What was virtuous republic?
• Similarities, differences
• What about today?

27
Paternalism ideology

• Paternalism as justification for slavery
• Paternalism to reinforce superior status of white
  men
• Paternalism to keep women in place
• Paternalism to keep African Americans in place
• Paternalism to reinforce race, class and gender
  boundaries

28
Political Cartoon Idealizing Slavery

• Here, a slave is depicted saying, "God Bless you
  massa! you feed and clothe us. When we are sick
  you nurse us, and when too old to work, you
  provide for us!"
• The slave owner is saying, "These poor creatures
  are a sacred legacy from my ancestors and while a
  dollar is left me, nothing shall be spared to
  increase their comfort and happiness."

29
Effects of Paternalism

• Idealized view of slavery
• In the 19th century, northern apologists
  published prints with images and text that
  presented an idealized version of slavery. This
  1841 print by E. W. Clay is a characteristic
  example. It shows a white couple and their
  children smiling upon an elderly black couple,
  while slaves dance merrily in the background. The
  image shown here is half of a larger print that
  contrasts the experience of American slaves with
  that of factory workers in Englandwith the
  implication that American slaves had better
  lives.

30
Slave Life and Labor

• Everyday conditions
• Diet was plain and monotonous and lacking in
  nutrition
• Few material comforts only bare necessities
• Lacked sufficient clothing, lacked shoes
• Lived in one-room cabins
• Unhealthy environment
• crowding and lack of sanitation infection,
  diseases
• Routines and control
• Hard work, long hours
• Women worked in fields as much as men, even
  during pregnancy
• Children seen as future of slave system and
  considered valuable to slaveholders
• Violence against slaves
• Whippings common on large plantations
• Beatings symbolized authority and tyranny

31
Slave-Master Relationships

• Relationship based on inequality
• Prevailing attitudes were distrust and antagonism
• Good relationships carried benefit for slaves
• Many resisted slavery in this way
• Fascinating stories

32
Slave Culture

• When clock time was up, slaves time was their
  own
• Worked in garden plots, tended to hogs, even
  hired out their labor
• Helped to support family and had psychological
  benefits
• Small personal space - slaves developed own sense
  of property ownership

33
Slave Culture

• Daily lives, slaves created ways to survive and
  to sustain their culture
• Need for hope
• Found hope in communities and families
• Built a community knitted together by stories,
  music, religion, leadership, food and cooking,
  music, singing and dancing

34
Slave Culture

• By 1800, fewer and fewer slaves were
  African-born large percentage were American born
• African influences remained strong in cultural
  traditions
• Clothing and hair styles of West Africa
• Music, religion and folktales were important
  parts of everyday life
• Keep tie to past
• Cultural adaptations reflected mixture of
  African and Europeans and American culture

35
Slave culture

• Developed a sense of racial identity
• Remember our discussion of African societies
  language, customs and traditions were distinct
  and differed among African states and kingdoms
• By antebellum period, ethnic identities gave way
  as American slaves saw themselves as single group
  unified by race
• What is the effect of this?

36
Slave culture

• Religion was very important
• Adapted Christianity into instrument of support
  and resistance
• Religion of justice and deliverance
• Quite different from masters religion
• Christianity as religion of personal and group
  salvation
• African traditions incorporated singing and
  dancing
• Physical movement and music important aspects
• Slave songs
• sorrow songs
• Speak of hope and new beginnings
• Mixture of sorrow and joy

37
Families in Slavery

• Personal relationships and forming families very
  important
• Many slaves not allowed to marry by law
• Many masters did permit slaves to live with
  families slaveowners expected slaves to form
  families and have children to reproduce slaves

38
Families in slavery

• Kinship traditions
• Avoided marriage between cousins (commonplace
  among aristocrats)
• Named children after relatives of past
  generations
• Emphasized importance of family histories
• Networks and extended families

39
Women in slavery

• Sexual abuse and rape by white masters always a
  threat threat to themselves and to their
  families
• 1860 405,751 mulattos in the US (12.5 of
  African American population)
• Confused world of desire, threat and shame
• Buying of slaves for sex

40
Domestic Slave Trade

• Separation by violence or sale was feared among
  slave families
• Struggled to keep children and families together
• Slave trading was a large and profitable business

41
Slave Resistance and Rebellion

• Violent and Nonviolent resistance
• Many forms of resistance
• Many slaves argued that non-violent resistance
  would have more effective results
• (similar to some of the Lakota leaders who
  opposed fighting and wanted to abide by treaty)

42
Slave Resistance and Rebellion

• Strategies of Resistance
• Did not think full-scale revolution would work
• Tried to alter work conditions
• Slacking off as strategy
• Sabotage of equipment
• Carelessness about work
• Theft of food, livestock or crops
• Got drunk on stolen liquor
• Put mercury poison in food for mistress
• Fought for rights in Court
• Laura Edwards Gendered Strife and Confusion
• Sued to get marriages legally recognized
• Sued to own their time on Sundays

43
Slave Resistance and Rebellion

• Resistance
• Violence and attacking overseers
• Many hanged for these violent attacks
• Escape as a form of resistance
• 80 of runaways were men
• Very few actually made it to freedom in the North
  or Canada

44
Slave Resistance and Rebellion

• Nat Turner
• Learned to read when young -Encouraged by first
  owner to read Bible
• His father escaped to freedom
• Became a preacher
• August 22, 1831 Virginia
• Led band of rebels from farm to farm
• Severed limbs, crushed skulls or killed with guns
• Turner and followers killed 60 whites of both
  sexes and all ages in 48 hours
• Retaliation whites killed slaves at random all
  over region
• Turner caught and hanged
• 200 African Americans lost lives as result of
  rebellion
• Virginia legislature debated emancipation
  gradual abolition lost 73-58

45
Slave Life

• Memories of a Slave Childhood
• Primary document handout
• Small group discussions

46
Tensions and Divisions in the South

• South wasnt united
• Cannot simply compare North and South
• Examine complexities of society
• Many tensions and social divisions within
  Southern society

47
Tensions and Divisions in the South

• Slavery and Wealth and Social Status
• Aristocratic Values v. frontier individualism
• Class issues and controversies among whites
• Tensions, divisions seemingly everywhere at every
  time
• Is this still true?

48
Population in the South

• In 1860 there were approximately
• four million slaves
• eight million whites
• 262,000 free blacks living in the South.
• The majority of slaves were concentrated in the
  "plantation belt" that began in North Carolina
  and spread along the coast extending south and
  west through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
  Mississippi, Louisiana, and into eastern Texas.

49
Tensions

• Tensions may be a constant force in society
• However, tensions certainly more predominant at
  some times rather than other times
• 1840s-1860 is one of those times

50
North and West and South

• All affected by same events in society and in
  politics
• Yet, effects from these events differed
• Complexity of situation
• Examine some events to see how various groups
  understood them and reacted to them
• Next, will look more closely at societies in the
  North and West