The South and Slavery AP CHAPTER 10. COTTON AND EXPANSION IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST The South was the ideal place to grow cotton Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin made.

The South and Slavery

AP CHAPTER 10

COTTON AND EXPANSION IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST

• The South was the ideal place to grow cotton

• Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin made growing cotton very profitable

• After the War of 1812 Alabama and Mississippi became ideal places for growing cotton

• Industrial Rev. made spinning and weaving of cotton easier and the demand for cotton grew

SLAVE SOCIETY IN A CHANGING WORLD

• 1808 importation of slaves became illegal

• Demand for cotton led to a higher demand for slave labor in the South

• King Cotton was supreme in the south and southerners relied on the slave labor

• South lagged behind the north in industrialization so cotton was their main source or revenue

• Slave states were losing their political dominance b/c their population was not keeping up with the North's

• More than half of the slave owners owned more than 5 slaves but 75% of the slaves lived in groups of ten or more

• Internal Slave Trade- owners sold the slaves to the people in the Old Southwest

• Owners sold slaves and separated families only for profits

• Most slaves were sold in their teens and separated from their families

• Slaves were inspected at auctions and buyers seldom cared about keeping families together

• 75% of all slaves were field workers and worked from “can see to can’t see”

• When they were to old to work they took on other tasks like taking care of the children

• House Servants- provided all of the services necessary to maintain the home but were the 1st to flee

• Some slaves were artisans, weavers, seamstress, carpenters and blacksmiths

• Slaves were property who were bought, sold, worked but never abused (according to the owner)

• Slave population grew from a high fertility rate

• Slaves were often in poor health and average life expectancy in 1850 was 30-33

• Most southern states it was against the law to teach the slaves how to read and marriage was illegal

• Owners encouraged marriage (to keep them calm) and kids (to sell them off)

• 1 in 5 marriages ended and 1 in 3 kids were sold off

AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION

• African Americans were deeply religious and it was a form of unity among them and a method of expressing their feelings

• 2nd Great Awakening- religious revival among slaves and southerners in the 1790s

• Religion gave slaves a method of survival

REVOLT, RESISTANCE AND FREEDOM

• Harriet Tubman freed 60-70 slaves along the Underground Railroad

• Nat Turner Revolt- preacher and a slave led a revolt in 1831 killing 55 whites

• Turner was later captured and executed

• Gabriel’s Rebellion- failed revolt in Virginia

HARRIET TUBMAN

• Black Codes were passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of free black people

• Blacks were often falsely accused of crimes

• Many poor southern whites were tenant farmers

• Yeoman- small independent farmers of the South

• Communities would often come together to do large tasks

SMALL SLAVE OWNERS

• Largest group of slave owners were small yeoman farmers

• Slave owning elite made up 2.5% of the population and had political control

• Treatment of slaves varied from owner to owner

• Beatings, rape, whippings were all common

DEFENSE OF SLAVERY

• Defenders of slavery felt it was a Constitutional right

• Denmark Vesey’s Conspiracy- attempt to seize Charleston and escape to Haiti but was betrayed by fellow slaves

• South began to close ranks in defense of slavery after Nat Turner’s Revolt

• Northerner William Lloyd Garrison wrote the Liberator which became the leading antislavery newspaper

• Many southerners disliked anyone that attacked slavery

• Few owned slaves in the South but it was a way of life for them

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

CONCLUSION

• Cotton Gin and the rise in demand for cotton led to the continuation of slavery in the South

• Slavery was a way of life in the South

• African Americans used religion as a source of unity and an escape from the brutality of daily life