The South and the Slavery Controversy, 1793

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Chapter 16

• The South and the Slavery Controversy, 17931860

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I. Cotton Is King!

• Quick profits in cotton led an economic cycle of
  buying more slaves and land to grow more cotton,
  so they could buy more slaves and land.
• Northern shippers made a lot of money from cotton
  trade as well.
• They loaded tons of cotton bales in Southern
  ports and shipped them to Europe, where they
  would purchase European goods to sell back in
  America

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• After 1840, the South produced more than half the
  worlds cotton supply.
• Britains most important industry was cotton
  cloth, from which one-fifth of its population
  drew its livelihood.
• 75 of this supply came from the South.
• Southern leaders believed that if war ever broke
  out between North and South, Northern warships
  would cut off the Souths cotton exports. The
  British in turn would be under such economic
  strain that they would be forced to break the
  Northern blockade, and the South would win.

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II. The Planter Aristocracy

• Southern planter elite made the South more like
  an oligarchy than a democracy.
• Oligarchy is a government by the few.
• Largely due to this aristocracy the gap between
  rich and poor continued to increase.
• Southern women were also impacted by the
  plantation system.
• Relationships between mistress and slave ranged
  from affectionate to atrocious.

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III. Slaves of the Slave System

• The economic structure of the South became
  increasingly monopolistic.
• Smaller farmers were forced to sell to the
  bigger.
• Financial instability with a one-crop economy,
  many that bought more and more land and slaves
  put too heavy invested in capital.
• The south resented the fact that they were born
  in Yankee-clothes, had to listen to
  Yankee-manufacturing, and were laid to rest in
  Yankee-coffins.

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IV. The White Majority

• Only one-fourth of white southerners owned slaves
  or belonged to a family that owned slaves.
• The majority of Southern farmers had little
  impact on the market (if any) and were mainly
  subsistence farmers. They raised hogs and corn,
  not cotton.
• These whites without slaves had no direct
  economic stake in preserving slavery, but they
  were the loudest defenders of the slave system.

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By 1860 whites who owned no slaves equaled
6,120,825
Figure 16-1 p341
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V. Free Blacks Slaves Without Masters

• Free blacks in the South were looked at as a
  third race.
• Prohibited from working certain jobs and
  testifying in court.
• Vulnerable to being thrown back into slavery by
  slave traders.
• Free blacks were a constant reminder of what
  could happen through emancipation and so they
  were despised by the defenders of slavery.

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• Free blacks in the North were also unpopular.
• Several states prohibited entrance.
• Prohibited from voting.
• Some barred from public schools.
• Northern blacks were despised by the Irish
  immigrant who competed with them for the same
  jobs.
• Much of the northern agitation against the spread
  of slavery grew out of racial prejudice, not
  humanitarianism.

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• Some have observed that white southerners (who
  were raised by slave women,) liked the black as
  an individual but despised the race. The white
  northerner, on the other hand, professed to like
  the race but disliked the individuals.

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VI. Plantation Slavery

• After the slave imports were outlawed in 1808,
  many were still smuggled into the South in the
  years leading up to the Civil War.
• Most of the increase in slave population came
  from natural reproduction. Some women received
  their freedom after having 10 kids for the
  master.
• Slave owners held around 2 billion of their
  capital in slaves by 1860. This did lead many
  slave owners to treat their slaves differently.

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• Slaves were look at as investments worth around
  1800 each.
• Slave owners didnt want to risk death with their
  investments.
• They would rather an Irishmen who was getting
  paid for the job die than their slave that was
  already paid in full.

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VII. Life Under the Lash

• Strong willed slaves were sent to breakers to
  get put in line.
• Savage beatings that left physical marks however
  hurt resale values. They made it look as though
  the slave was too strong willed.
• A majority of blacks lived on large plantations
  of twenty or more. Family life on these
  plantations were mostly stable, however, on
  smaller plantations forced separations of family
  members was common.

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VIII. The Burdens of Bondage

• 90 of all slaves were illiterate.
• With no incentive, why should slaves work hard?
  They slowed the work down to the bare minimum to
  protest.
• In 1831, Nat Turner led an uprising that killed
  about 60 Virginians (mostly women and children)
  before it was squashed.

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• The Spanish slave ship Amistad (1839) was seized
  by enslaved Africans off the coast of Cuba. They
  attempted to sail back to Africa, but were driven
  to shore on Long Island. After 2 years of
  imprisonment and several trials, former president
  John Q. Adams secured their freedom arguing
  before the Supreme Court in 1841. The Africans
  returned to Sierre Leone, in West Africa.

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IX. Early Abolitionism

• Some early abolitionist efforts were to
  transplant blacks back to Africa.
• The American Colonization Society (1817) was
  established for this purpose.
• In 1822 the Republic of Liberia was established
  for former slaves. Its capital, Monrovia, was
  named after President James Monroe.
• Most slaves were native-born and had no desire to
  leave their country.

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Table 16-1 p355
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