Slavery

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Slavery Southern Antebellum Society
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Yeoman A funny word

• Yeoman (plural Yeomen)
• Not Yoeman, nor Yo-Man, nor Yowman
• DefinitionAn independent farmer.
• What makes one independent?
• Another definition A self-working farmer
• So did yeomen own slaves?
• Some didbut would only be 1-2 they worked
  alongside them
• What percentage of the Souths population were
  Yeomen?
• Approximately 80

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Yeoman Farmer
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Andrew Jacksons HousesSocial Mobility Did
Exist in the South
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Harmony actually existed between Slaveowners
Non-Slaveowners

1. Non-slave owners aspired to become slaveowners
2. If slavery exists, theres always somebody lower
   than you
3. Kin most non-slaveowners had at least 1
   relative that did own slaves
4. Political power is held by the common man all
   yeoman farmers could vote slaveowners were
   taxed for their property (slaves)
5. Economic transactions occurred between non-slave
   and slave ownersrenting of cotton gins for
   example

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Good SocietyArgument

• By 1830s slavery seen as a positive good
  benefits rising for N S
• One of long-term effects of economic
  profitability of slavery via Whitneys cotton gin
• Replaced Jeffersonian view that slavery was a
  necessary evil with no real solution

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COTTON IS KING!

• 50 of all exports after 1840
• S produces 50 of worlds cotton supply
• 75 of BR cotton comes from S BR is worlds
  leading industrial power

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• Before Ind. Rev., most Southern planters made
  little profit from slave labor
• BUT, invention of cotton gin by ELI WHITNEY made
  slave labor profitable throughout the South
• Positive Effect
• Production increased cotton is biggest export
• Negative Effects
• More Americans began to think of slavery as a
  positive good - less criticism of slavery
• Slave labor quintupled between this invention
  the Civil War

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Where did slaves work?

• Cotton 55 percent
• Tobacco 10 percent
• Sugar/rice/hemp 10 percent
• Servants 15 percent
• Trades/industry 10 percent

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Slave Crops
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Cotton4.5 million bales (1860)
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Slave Distribution
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RATIO OF SLAVEHOLDERS TO FAMILIES, (1860)

• STATE SLAVEHOLDERS TOTAL FAMILIES
  PCT
• MISSISSIPPI 30943 63015 49
• SOUTH CAROLINA 26701 58642 46
• GEORGIA 41084 109919 37
• ALABAMA 33730 96603 35
• FLORIDA 5152 15090 34
• LOUISIANA 22033 74725 29
• TEXAS 21878 76781 28
• NORTH CAROLINA 34658 125090 28
• VIRGINIA 52128 201523 26
• TENNESSEE 36844 149335 25
• ARKANSAS 11481 57244 20
• Total 316632
  1027967 31

Works out to 1 in 3 families actually owned
slaves 31 of families in the South
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PLANTERARISTOCRACY

• Government by the few in the South
• Wealth power concentrated in the hands of an
  elite upper class cottonocracy
• 1,733 families own 100 slaves

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SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH

• Planter Aristocracy on top (Whigs)
• Lesser Masters (less than 10 slaves- most own 1
  or 2)
• Yeoman Farmers (subsistence farmers - usually
  Democrats)
• Majority of white population by 1860
• crackers, hillbillies, clayeaters
• Aspire to slaveowning
• Non-slaveholding whites (approximately 1/4 of all
  southern whites)
• Poor white trash- mountain whites (will support
  Union during war)
• Slaves

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FREE BLACKS

• South 250,000, 1860
• Manumission
• Upper after Rev. War
• Deep mulattos manumitted in willls
• Some purchased freedom
• Black slaveowners
• Status none 3rd race, must carry papers
• Some black slaveowners.

• North
• Victims of prejudice segregation
• Schools, voting, housing, conflicts with Irish
• Anti-black feeling actually worse many times in N
• Little contact with blacks
• Friends of race, but dont like individuals

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SlaveCodes

• Slave laws are state laws most define them as
  property can be bought, sold, mortgaged, etc.
• Cant testify, cant own property, cant have a
  family, etc.
• Note though that slaves WERE seen as people not
  property in the criminal systemso slave could be
  tried for crimes and it was also illegal to
  commit crimes against slaves murder for ex.

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Economic Weaknesses of Plantation System

• Land intensive leads to soil depletion
• Cotton production is monopolistic
• Involves huge capital investments in land and
  labor
• Discourages economic diversification
• Reliance on cotton no manufacturing
• Discourages immigration
• Slave labor, high cost of land, Europeans dont
  know cotton farming

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PLANTATION ORGANIZATION

• Gang System was typical
• OwnerPlanter (owns 20 slaves)
• OverseerDay-to-day authority figure
• Occasionally would be a trusted slave (Jeffferson
  Davis)
• DriverSlave Foreman
• Field HandMen and women

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SlaveTrade

• Apprx. 900,000 sold in U.S. sold down river
  split many families
• Apprx. 20 of wealth from slavery comes from the
  internal slave trade

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Slave Prices
Price of slaves quintuples from
1800-1860 35,000 to 40,000 in todays prices
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Plantation SlaverySlave Quarters
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Slave Weddings
Marriages not officially recognized
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Plantation Slave Life

• Work from kin to kint (dawn to dusk)
• Kept in ignorance (9/10 illiterate)
• Whippings but why not beaten bloody on a
  regular basis?
• Religion a big part of slave life Sunday off
• Forms of resistance
• Work slowdowns
• Theft
• Sabotage (arson, crop destruction, tool breaking)
• Runaways rebellions
• Gabriel Prosser Conspiracy 1800 revolt that
  never actually happened .hanged anyway
• Denmark Vessey Conspiracy 1822 SC, over 30
  hanged

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Nat Turners RebellionVirginia, 1831

• Preacher / slave
• 40 slaves killed over 60 whites (in bed at night)
• Turner eventually caught, hanged, skinned
• Sets off mob revenge lynchings of blacks
• Effect solidified the greatest fears in the
  South and caused the end of abolitionism in the
  South

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Fugitive Slaves

• Running away was most common way of resisting
  slavery
• Most ran away for a short time due to feeling
  they had received an unjust punishment or to look
  for a family member
• Whipped 10 times for each day they were gone

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Slave Diseases

• Drapetomia
• Disease that caused them to run away the cure
  is to whip it out of them
• Dysaethesia Aethiopica
• Caused slaves to be rascals
• To be insubordinate commit minor sabotage
• Cure was whipping or isolation

Dr. Samuel Cartwright Leading internationally rec
ognized scientist from MS that studied slaves
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EARLYABOLITIONISM
British Colonization Society symbol

• Quakers were first
• as early as Revolutionary War
• 1816 American Colonization Society
• Liberia, 1822 (capital Monrovia)
• 15,000 transported
• Most didnt want to go by 1860, most slaves
  were American born
• Lincoln favored this early on
• 1830s influences BR emancipation in 1833 2nd
  Great Awakening
• Theodore Weld, Grimke Sisters

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Anti-Slavery Alphabet
QUAKERS are the early leaders in the abolitionist
movement.
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RADICAL ABOLITIONISM

• William Lloyd Garrison
• Sees Constitution as an agreement with hell
• The Liberator, 1831
• Comes out same year as Turners rebellion
  Garrison seen as a terrorist
• American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833
• Garrison
• Wendell Phillips
• Elijah Lovejoy

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William Lloyd Garrison (1801-1879)

• Slavery undermined republican values.
• Slavery was a moral, notan economic issue.
• Immediate emancipation with NO compensation to
  owners.
• Full and complete equal rights for blacks.
• Despised in S, but also seen as too radical in N

R2-4
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The Tree of SlaveryLoaded with the Sum of All
Villanies!
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Other White Abolitionists
Elijah Lovejoy
Wendell Phillips
James Birney

• Liberty Party.
• Ran for President,
• 1840 1844.

Theodore Weld
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Northern Reaction to Abolitionists

• Most treat abolitionists as radicals
• The North has a significant economic interest in
  Dixie!
• Violence
• Lewis Tappans house ransacked in 1834
• Broadcloth Mob drags Garrison through Boston
  streets in 1835
• Rev. Elijah Lovejoy killed in IL in 1837

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Black Abolitionists
David Walker(1785-1830)
1829 ? Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the
World
Fight for freedom rather than wait to be set
free by whites violence is only way to freedom
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Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
1845 ? The Narrative of the Life Of
Frederick Douglass 1847 ? The North
Star Believes in power of education
Differs from Garrison in that he does NOT want to
do away with Constitution
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Sojourner Truth (1787-1883)or Isabella Baumfree

• Aint I a woman?

1850 ? The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
R2-10
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Harriet Tubman(1820-1913)

• Helped over 300 slaves to freedom.
• Known as the Black Moses
• 40,000 bounty on her head.
• Served as a Union spy during the Civil War.

Moses
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Leading Escaping Slaves Along the Underground
Railroad
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The Underground Railroad
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The Underground Railroad

• Conductor leader of the escape
• Passengers escaping slaves
• Tracks routes
• Trains farm wagons transporting
  the escaping slaves
• Depots safe houses to rest/sleep

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Events securing Southern support of slavery

• Defeat of VAs emancipation proposals (1831)
• Nat Turners Rebellion (1831)
• Nullification Crisis (1832)
• Proslavery efforts to defend the peculiar
  institution
• Christianity arguments
• Defense of master-slave relationship as
  father-child relationship
• Myth of happy slave vs. the oppressed N
  industrial worker
• Government crackdown on free speech (Jackson)
• 1835 Postmasters restrict transmission of
  abolitionist literature through the mails in
  response to rioting in SC where mob burned
  abolitionist propaganda
• 1836 Gag Rule in House all anti-slavery appeals
  tabled

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SLAVE CONCENTRATION BY 1860
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What is the Mason-Dixon Line?