Causes of the Civil War and Antebellum AmericaJon HaleCollege of Charleston

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

Evidence that Henry Ogden Holmes invented a cotton gin prior to Whitney

developed a saw-toothed gin in 1787 at Kinkaid Plantation in Craven County.

Expired on March 14, 1794

Whitney was granted his patent on that same date. 

After the cotton gin, cotton became America’s leading crop. In 1790, 1,500 pounds of cotton

Slaves concentrated in Virginia (tobacco), South Carolina and Georgia (rice)

By 1800, 35,000 pounds. 

By 1815, production had reached 100,000 pounds. 1820, slavery had spread westward to Mississippi. 

In 1848, production exceeded 1,000,000 poundsBy 1865, 4 million slaves lived in the South. 

Denmark Vesey Uprising

35 local African Americans tried, convicted, and executed

Two died in custody

40 African Americans were tried and deported

Nat Turner Rebellion, 1831

The Citadel“Act to Establish a Competent Force to Act as a Municipal Guard for the Protection of the City of Charleston and its vicinity." (1822)

The act provided that a suitable building be erected for the deposit of the arms of the State, and a guard house.

John C. Calhoun

John C. CalhounSeeks protect of “peculiar institution”

Protest tariffs on imported manufactured goods

Relies on Jeffersonian notions of states rights

William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879

"I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

American Colonization Society

The Liberator, est. 1831

Abolitionism in South Carolina

A.E. Grimke, abolitionist and Quaker, born to South Carolinian slaveholders

Articulated message in “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South”

Roberts Smalls and the Reconstruction Educational Reformers

Robert Smalls of Beaufort, South Carolina proposes a universal education for all students

Joins a cohort of elected black politicians that build a system of public education in the South

“Sherman's march through South Carolina--advance from McPhersonville,” Harper’s Weekly, (March 4,

1865)

“Ruin in the Heart of Charleston” Harper’s Weekly (July 8, 1965)