The South and Slavery: Economy, Society, and Abolitionism

1. The South and the Slavery Controversy 1793-1860 Pageant Chapter 16

2. 1. Introduction • We will be addressing three main questions over the next several chapters: • 1) Is the United States dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal? • 2) How did the Civil War come about? • 3) What were its results?

3. 2.a-c. Southern Economy and Social Structure • 1793 • Eli Whitney invents the Cotton Gin • The U.S. prospers, but problems arise • Planters continued to rely on slave labor because land was plentiful and the southern soil was very fertile. • “King Cotton” amounted to 50% of U.S. exports and provided more than 50% of the WORLD’s cotton. • 75% of Britain’s cotton came from the South. • Negatives of the Southern plantation system: • 1) The South was run by a rich aristocracy which made a very wide gap between the rich and the poor. • 2) There was no tax-supported education; so only the rich were educated.

4. Plantation House - Natchez, Mississippi

5. 2. d. Southern Economy and Social Structure • Most slaves were owned by large scale planters • The average slave holder held a few slaves each and worked with their slaves in the fields • 1850 – there were 345,000 slaveowning families – this was 25% of the Southern white population • Of those, 7,929 owned more than 50 slaves • 2% of slaveowners owned more than 50 slaves • A tiny minority held the majority of slaves • 75% of southerners owned no slaves at all • Surprisingly, whites who didn’t own slaves were even looked down upon by slaves who had rich masters but…even the most wretched poor southerner still supported slavery. Why? • The way the South was run meant that owning a slave would make you prosperous • The logic of southern business gave many whites the illogical belief that they were superior to the slave

6. 3.a-d. Conditions of Slavery • The slave trade had been outlawed in 1808 • But through natural reproduction, the slave population had grown to 4 million by 1860 • Unlike the North, wealth in the South was measured in land and slaves • Slaves had no political or civil rights • 1) They were sold as property at auctions • 2) They weren’t paid for their labor; not getting whipped or beaten was their incentive • Black famlies were surprising resilient stayed intact often; religion was Christian mixed with African roots

7. 4. Abolitionism • The Quakers (who we talked about during the Colonial Era) was the first group to advocate abolitionism. • In the 1820s, a movement rose up attempting to send African-Americans back to Africa, to the West African country of Liberia. • The movement attracted some – including Abraham Lincoln • It didn’t work out. By that time, these were no longer Africans, but now African-Americans, with their own culture • Abolition became bigger after Britain abolished slavery in the West Indies in 1833 and the spirit of the Second Great Awakening

8. 4. Abolitionism • Abolitionists took center stage • William Lloyd Garrison – a radical white abolitionist • Wanted the North to secede from the South • High strung and religious • Frederick Douglass – a “practical” abolitionist • Not as fiery as Garrison; he believed slavery could be solved peacefully by looking to politics to end slavery legislatively

9. William Lloyd Garrison

10. Frederick Douglass

11. 4. Abolitionism • So how did the North feel about slavery? • Northerners did not have the fiery independent state’s rights ideology of the South – most were strict Unionists • They were raised to believe the Constitution, and everything in it, slavery included, was a lasting bargain • They also made serious cash off Southern cotton • Abolitionists were often the targets of mob outbursts and even murder • Even politicians against slavery avoided the subject, one of these being Abraham Lincoln • Early on (1800-1830s), abolitionists were treated with hostility, but by 1850, the North began to cry out in greater numbers for the end of slavery in the U.S.