Chapter Ten

The South and Slavery,

1790s—1850s

Chapter Focus Questions

How did the slave system dominate southern life?

What were the economic implications of "King

Cotton"?

How did African Americans create communities

under slavery?

What was the social structure of the white South?

Why was the white South increasingly defensive?

Natchez Under-the-Hill

Natchez and Natchez Under-the-Hill were adjacent

communities.

Natchez was an elegant planter community.

Natchez Under-the-Hill was a mixed community of

rivermen, gamblers, Indians, and

blacks that was a potential threat to racial control.

Rumors of a slave insurrection plot led the planters

to drive the gamblers and other undesirables away.

This 1855 illustration of black stevadores loading heavy bales of cotton onto waiting steam

boats in New Orleans is an example of the South’s dependence on cotton and the slave labor

that produce it.

Cotton and Expansion into the Old

Southwest

Map: The South Expands, 1790-1850

Eli Whitney’s and Catherine Greene’s cotton gin made cultivating short-staple

cotton profitable, revolutionizing the Southern economy.

After the War of 1812 Southerners expanded into Western Georgia, Alabama and

Mississippi, driving out the Indians who already lived there,

A generation later they poured into Louisiana and Texas.

Each surge of expansion ignited a speculative frenzy.

MAP 10.1 The South Expands, 1790–1850 This map shows the dramatic effect cotton

production had on southern expansion. From the original six states of 1790, westward

expansion, fueled by the search for new cotton lands, added another six states by 1821, and

three more by 1850.

Slavery the Mainspring - Again

Map: Slave Population, 1820-1860

Between 1790 and 1860, the slave

population grew from 700,000 to four

million.

Map: Cotton Production, 1820-1860

The expansion of cotton was concentrated

in the rich soil sections of the South known

as the black belt

MAP 10.2a Cotton Production and the Slave Population, 1820. In the forty-year period from

1820 to 1860, cotton production grew dramatically in both quantity and extent. Rapid westward

expansion meant that by 1860 cotton production was concentrated in the black belt (so called for its

rich soils) in the Lower South. As cotton production moved west and south, so did the enslaved

African American population that produced it, causing a dramatic rise in the internal slave trade. SOURCE:Sam Bowers Hilliard,Atlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture (Baton Rouge:Lousiana State University Press,1984).

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map

MAP 10.2b Cotton Production and the Slave Population, 1860.

FIGURE 10.1 Cotton Exports as a Percentage of All U.S. Exports, 1800–1860 One

consequence of the growth of cotton production was its importance in international trade. The

growing share of the export market, and the great value (nearly $200 million in 1860) led southern

slave owners to believe that “Cotton Is King.” The importance of cotton to the national economy

entitled the South to a commanding voice in national policy, many Southerners believed. SOURCE:Sam Bowers Hilliard,Atlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture (Baton Rouge:Louisiana State University Press,1984),pp.67 –71.

A Slave Society in a Changing World

The growth of the cotton economy

committed the South to slavery.

In other parts of the nation, attitudes toward

slavery were changing.

Congress banned the slave trade in 1808 so

the South relied on natural increase and the

internal slave trade.

FIGURE 10.2 Distribution of Slave Labor, 1850 In 1850, 55 percent of all slaves worked in

cotton, 10 percent in tobacco, and another 10 percent in rice, sugar, and hemp. Ten percent

worked in mining, lumbering, industry, and construction, and 15 percent worked as domestic

servants. Slaves were not generally used to grow corn, the staple crop of the yeoman farmer.

The Internal Slave Trade

Planter migration stimulated the slave trade.

Slaves were gathered in pens before moving

south by train or boat.

On foot, slaves moved on land in coffles.

The size of the slave trade made a mockery

of Southern claims of benevolence.

The immense size of the internal slave trade made sights like this commonplace on southern

roads. Groups of slaves, chained together in gangs called coffles, were marched from their

homes in the Upper South to cities in the Lower South, where they were auctioned to new

owners. SOURCE:Library of Congress.

Sold “Down River”

Cotton helped finance northern industry and trade.

Chart: Cotton Exports as a Percentage of All Exports

Cotton and slavery tied up capital leaving the South lagging behind the North in urban population, industrialization, canals, and railroads.

Cotton created a distinctive regional culture.

The opening of western lands contributed to the instability of slave life.

Many slaves were separated from their families by sale or migration and faced new hardships in the West.

Sold “Down River”

The slaves’ first challenge was to survive because:

they lived in one-room cabins with dirt floors and a few furnishings

neither their food and clothing was adequate and were frequently supplemented by the slaves’ own efforts

To survive, slaves learned how to avoid punishments and to flatter whites.

MAP 10.3 Internal Slave Trade Between 1820 and 1860, nearly 50 percent of the slave

population of the Upper South was sold south to labor on the cotton plantations of the Lower

South. This map shows the various routes by which they were “sold down the river,” shipped

by boat or marched south. SOURCE:Historical Atlas of the United States (Washington:National Geographic Society,1988).

Life of a Slave

Some slaves worked as house servants.

Some slaves were skilled workers.

Seventy-five percent of slaves worked as field hands, from sunup to sundown, performing the heavy labor needed for getting out a cotton crop.

Not surprisingly, many suffered from poor health.

This engraving from Harpers Weekly shows slaves, dressed in new clothing, lined up outside

a New Orleans slave pen for inspection by potential buyers before the actual auction began.

They were often threatened with punishment if they did not present a good appearance and

manner that would fetch a high price. SOURCE:U.S.slave market,ca.1863, in New Orleans.Courtesy of Culver Pictures,Inc.

Thomas Jefferson used this revolving bookstand with five adjustable bookrests at Monticello.

It was built of walnut in 1810 by slaves from the plantation whom Jefferson had trained as

skilled carpenters. SOURCE:Revolving bookstand, Monticello joinery,c.1810.Walnut.Monticello:Owen photograph.

Building the African American

Community

Slaves created a community where an

indigenous culture developed, influencing all

aspects of Southern life.

Masters had to learn to live with the two key

institutions of African American community

life: the family and the church.

Slave quarters built by slave

owners, like these pictured on a

Florida plantation, provided

more than the basic shelter (a

place to sleep and eat) that the

owners intended. Slave

quarters were the center of the

African American community life

that developed during slavery. SOURCE:Remains of Slave Quarters, Fort George Island, Florida,

ca.1865.Stereograph.(c)Collection of The New York Historical Society.

Slave Families

Slave marriages were:

not recognized by law

frequently not respected by masters

a haven of love and intimacy for the slaves

Parents gave children a supportive and protective kinship network.

Slave families were often split up.

Separated children drew upon supportive networks of family and friends.

African American Religion

Slaves were not permitted to practice African religions,

though numerous survivals did work their way into the

slaves’ folk culture.

The first and second Great Awakenings introduced

Christianity to many slaves.

In the 1790s, African American churches began emerging.

Whites hoped religion would make the slaves obedient.

Slaves found a liberating message that strengthened their

sense of community and offered them spiritual freedom.

African cultural patterns persisted in the preference for night funerals and for solemn

pageantry and song, as depicted in British artist John Antrobus’s Plantation Burial, ca. 1860.

Like other African American customs, the community care of the dead contained an implied

rebuke to the masters’ care of the living slaves. SOURCE:John Antrobus,Negro Burial The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Freedom and Resistance

Most slaves understood that they could not escape bondage.

About 1,000 per year escaped, mostly from the upper South.

Running away and hiding in the swamps or woods for about a week and then returning was more common.

Harriet Tubman was 40 years old when this

photograph (later hand-tinted) was taken.

Already famous for her daring rescues, she

gained further fame by serving as a scout,

spy and nurse during the Civil War. SOURCE:The Granger Collection.

Slave Revolts

A few slaves organized revolts.

Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey organized large-scale conspiracies to attack whites in Richmond and Charleston that failed.

Nat Turner led the most famous slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831.

Turner used religious imagery to lead slaves as they killed 55 whites.

After Turner’s revolt, white southerners continually were reminded by the threat of slave insurrection.

This drawing shows the moment, almost two months after the failure of his famous and

bloody slave revolt, when Nat Turner was accidentally discovered in the woods near his

home plantation. Turner’s cool murder of his owner and methodical organization of his revolt

deeply frightened many white Southerners. SOURCE:Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Free African Americans

By 1860, there were nearly 250,000 free

African Americans, mainly working as

tenants or farm laborers.

In cities, free African American

communities flourished but had a precarious

position as their members lacked basic civil

rights.

One of the ways Charleston attempted to control its African American population was to

require all slaves to wear badges showing their occupation. After 1848, free black people also

had to wear badges, which were decorated, ironically, with a liberty cap. SOURCE:Courtesy of the American Numismatic Society of New York.

The Middle Class

A commercial middle class of merchants,

bankers, factors, and lawyers:

arose to sell southern crops on the world market

lived in cities that acted as shipping centers for

agricultural goods

Poor White People

Between 30 to 50 percent of southern whites were landless.

These poor whites lived a marginal existence as laborers and tenants.

They engaged in complex and sometimes clandestine relations with slaves.

Some yeomen hoped to acquire slaves themselves, but many were content with self sufficient non-market agriculture.

Yeomen supported slavery because they believed that it brought them higher status.

Chart: Slaveholding and Class Structure

The goal of yeoman farm families was economic independence. Their mixed farming and

grazing enterprises, supported by kinship and community ties, afforded them a self-

sufficiency epitomized by Carl G. von Iwonski’s painting of this rough but comfortable log

cabin in New Braunfels, Texas. SOURCE:Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library.Yanaguana Society Collection.

Yeomen Values

Two-thirds of all southern whites lived in nonslaveholding families.

Most yeomen were self-sufficient farmers.

The strong sense of community was reinforced by close kin connections and bartering.

Small Slave Owners

Most slaveholders owned only a few slaves.

Bad crops or high prices that curtailed or increased income affected slave-holding status

Middle class professionals had an easier time climbing the ladder of success.

Andrew Jackson used his legal and political position to rise in Southern society. Beginning as a landless prosecutor, Jackson died a plantation owner with over 200 slaves.

FIGURE 10.3 Slaveholding and Class Structure in the South, 1830 The great mass of the

southern white population were yeoman farmers. In 1830, slave owners made up only 36

percent of the southern white population; owners of more than fifty slaves constituted a tiny

2.5 percent. Yet they and the others who were middling planters dominated politics, retaining

the support of yeomen who prized their freedom as white men above class-based politics. SOURCE:U.S.Bureau of the Census.

The Planter Elite

Most slaveholders inherited their wealth but sought to expand it.

As slavery spread so did the slave-owning elite

The extraordinary concentration of wealth created an elite lifestyle.

Most wealthy planters lived fairly isolated lives.

Some planters cultivated an image of gracious living in the style of English aristocrats, but plantations were large enterprises that required much attention to a variety of tasks.

Plantations aimed to be self-sufficient.

The Plantation Mistress

Following southern paternalism, in theory, each plantation was a family with the white master at its head.

The plantation mistress ran her own household but did not challenge her husband’s authority.

With slaves to do much of the labor conventionally assigned to women, it is no surprise that plantation mistresses accepted the system.

This scene is part of a larger mural, created by artist William Henry Brown in 1842, which

depicts everyday life at Nitta Yuma, a Mississippi cotton plantation. The elegant white woman,

here seen elaborately dressed to go riding, depended for her leisure status on the work of

African American slaves, such as this one feeding her horse. SOURCE:William H.Brown,Hauling the Whole Week ’s Picking (detail), 1842.Watercolor.The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Coercion and Violence

The slave system rested on coercion and violence.

Slave women were vulnerable to sexual exploitation, though long-term relationships developed.

Children of master-slave relationships seldom were publicly acknowledged and often remained in bondage

This Louisiana slave named Gordon was

photographed in 1863 after he had

escaped to Union lines during the Civil

War. He bears the permanent scars of the

violence that lay at the heart of the slave

system. Few slaves were so brutally

marked, but all lived with the threat of

beatings if they failed to obey. SOURCE:National Archives and Records Administration.

Developing Proslavery Arguments

Slavery gave rise to various pro-slavery arguments including:

in the post-Revolution era, Southern whites found justifications in the Bible or classical Greece and Rome

the Constitution recognized slavery and that they were defending property rights

by the 1830s arguments developed that slavery was good for the slaves.

George Fitzhugh contrasted slavery, which created a community of interests, with the heartless individualism that ruled the lives of northern factory workers.

This 1841 proslavery cartoon contrasts healthy, well-cared-for African American slaves with

unemployed British factory workers living in desperate poverty. The comparison between

contented southern slaves and miserable northern “wage slaves” was frequently made by

proslavery advocates. SOURCE:Library of Congress.

Changes in the South

Despite efforts to stifle debate, some southern

whites objected to slavery.

The growing cost of slaves meant that the

percentage of slaveholders was declining and

class divisions widening.

Hinton Rowan Helper denounced the

institution.

Population Patterns in the South, 1850

Map: Population Patterns in the South, 1850

In six southern states, slaves comprised over

40 percent of the total population.

MAP 10.4 Population Patterns in the South, 1850 In South Carolina and Mississippi, the enslaved

African American population outnumbered the white population; in four other Lower South states, the

percentage was above 40 percent. These ratios frightened many white Southerners. White people also

feared the free black population, though only three states in the Upper South and Louisiana had free black

populations of over 3 percent. Six states had free black populations that were so small (less than 1

percent) as to be statistically insignificant.