Hist 110American Civilization I

Instructor: Dr. Donald R. Shaffer

Upper Iowa University

Lecture 8Rise of the Cotton South (1)

Slavery in the United States was an endangered institution immediately following the American Revolution Low tobacco prices and

revolutionary ideology led to making it easier in the Upper South for owners to free their slaves legally

Only the fear of a race war, which many slaveholders believed to be the inevitable consequence of general emancipation, kept the institution alive

Cotton It was the advent of widespread

cotton cultivation that revitalized slavery by making it enormously profitable

Cotton did not become an important crop until the 19th century because it was difficult and expensive to process

Sticky seeds imbedded in the fiber of short staple cotton could only be removed laboriously by hand

Thomas Jefferson, himself a

slaveholder, summed up the

their dilemma best in 1820:

“We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let

him go”

Lecture 8Rise of the Cotton South (2)

Cotton Gin What caused the explosion in cotton

cultivation was the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 by Eli Whitney

The cotton gin mechanized the separating seeds from cotton fiber, vastly reducing costs and speeding processing

This change made slaves and slavery much more valuable than before the invention of the cotton gin

Realities of cotton cultivation Cotton was a hard crop on the soil,

quickly exhausting it This fact and the growing demand

for cotton in British and American textile mills led to the rapid spread of cotton plantations west

Indeed, by the eve of the Civil War (see map opposite) one of the biggest concentrations of cotton plantations was in the Mississippi Valley

Lecture 8The Internal Slave Trade

Vast numbers of slaves were needed on cotton plantations

With the end of American participation in the international slave trade in 1808 slaves could no longer be supplied legally from abroad

The result was the development of an internal market, in which slaves were bought from slaveholders in the old slave states unsuited for cotton cultivation and sold to planters further southwest growing cotton

The result was a massive forced migration of African Americans that shifted populations concentrations west

Sometimes planters simply left the old slave states taking their slaves with them

More often slaves were bought piecemeal by slave traders in the old slave states and transported to frontier plantations

The result was often slave families being broken up, children being separated from their parents or husbands and wives being sold away from each other

Images of the internalslave trade

There existed in the antebellum South two distinct planter cultures

Eastern patrician An older planter culture based in the

old slave states (Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas)

Aristocratic and genteel in nature and distrustful of ordinary people and democracy, seeing hierarchy as natural

Increasingly, they saw slavery not as a necessary evil, but a positive good for both slave and slaveholder

Western cotton A newer planter elite grew up in the

West in the decades before the Civil War

They were market-driven entrepreneurs, more interested in building their wealth than showing it

These planters pushed their overseers and slaves relentlessly to grow as much cotton as possible

Lecture 8 Cultures of the Planter Elite

Which picture representswhich group of planters?

Lecture 8Yeoman and Tenants

Three quarters of white southern families owned no slaves

Many of these yeoman lived a hardscrabble existence, struggling to make ends meet either as small landowners or as tenants

They were proud though of their self-reliance, especially those yeoman who owned a bit of land

They lived lives though shaped by the dominance of the planter elite over southern society

Yeoman families followed the example of planters in their patriarchal system of family relations—with the oldest male (paterfamilias) firmly in charge

They also suffered from the fact that the planter elite refused to pay taxes to support public education—creating a legacy of illiteracy and ignorance

Yeoman family

The planter elite, in the era of rising democracy, found that it had to reckon with ordinary white Southerners at election time Many legislators owned slaves, but

the very wealthiest planters held only about 10 percent of the seats and tended to be distrusted

The antebellum South was a “Herrenvolk Democracy” in which political rights were widespread but limited to whites

Still, while ordinary whites had to be appeased, with the presence of so many slaveholders among politicians, legislatures tended to adopt policies favorable to the slaveholding class

Indeed, prior to the Civil War there was a constant tension between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in most southern states

Lecture 8Herrenvolk Democracy

Events such as 1831 Nat Turner’s

Rebellion and the fear of further

slave revolts united southern whites

in their Herrenvolk Democracy

Lecture 8Religion and Black Culture

Slaves developed their own culture in the decades before the Civil War which was a complex blend of Euro-American and African influences

Slave religion exemplified this cultural mixture

Many slaves were converted to evangelical Protestantism during the 2nd Great Awakening

Christianity appealed to slaves because of its emphasis on the equality of human beings before God

Old Testament figures like Moses also inspired the slaves to hope for their own liberation as a people

African-American religiosity Even as they adopted the religion

of their owners, the slaves brought their own more emotional style of worship to it, leaving a permanent influence on evangelical Protestantism in America

Black preacher addressing a group

of slaves—note the presence of

the slave owner and his wife(why are they there?)

Lecture 8The Family and Black Culture

Family was another important institution of slave culture, reflecting both Euro-American and African influences For example, slaves followed the

African practice of not marrying first cousins, unlike their owners among whom first cousin marriages were common

Family was an important in perpetuating slave culture, teaching the young how to cope with the dehumanizing aspects of bondage

Slaves families were constantly under pressures by slaveholders undermining parental authority, the sexual exploitation of slave women, but especially by families being broken up by sale, inheritance, renting, etc Fictive kin: slaves adapted to the

pressures through granting family status and roles to unrelated slaves

Extended slave family inSouth Carolina around the

timeof the Civil War

Lecture 8Coercion and Resistance (1)

Slavery was ultimately a way of organizing labor

While theoretically the power of slaveholders over the slaves was absolute in reality it was limited by practical considerations

For example, in South Carolina’s rice plantations owners found it advantageous to give their slaves considerable control over their own work as long as daily work quotas were achieved

The gang labor system used in cotton plantations required the constant threat of the lash to operate

Slaveholders also had to deal with the threat of passive and active resistance

Slaves feigned illness, slowed down the pace of work as much as they cold get away with, stole or destroyed property, poisoned their owner’s food, etc

There was also the constant possibility of slave revolt

Illustration presenting slavery as a

benign institution in which theslaves were happy and content

Lecture 8Coercion and Resistance (2)

Slave revolts were uncommon Most slave revolts, with the

exception of Nat Turner’s rebellion, were uncovered before they started

Yet it was the fear of them that was the key, especially the successful slave revolt that created Haiti in the 1790s

In the short run it led to repression, in long run it made slaveholders more careful in how they treated their slaves

Slaves trying to escape slavery were more common

The slaves with the best chance of escaping slavery lived in the Upper South and near the Florida border when it still belonged to the Spanish

The Underground Railroad really did exist, but most slaves had to escape without its assistance and most were recaptured

Slaves that were recaptured were punished, but again the threat made slaveholders act more carefully

Photograph of scars from whippings on a slaves back

Lecture 8 Free Blacks

Not every African American before the Civil War was a slave

Just under 500,000 African Americans were free on the eve of the Civil War

About half of those lived in the North, and the rest lived in the South

In the North free blacks were marginalized, in most states not allowed to vote and relegated to menial employment

In the South, most free blacks in the Lower South lived in cities, in the Upper South most free blacks could be found in the countryside

One historian has described them as “slaves without masters”

Meaning they live very restricted lives always facing the threat of re-enslavement

Free black man being expelledfrom a northern railway car

before the Civil War