COTTON, SLAVERY, & THE OLD SOUTHHIST 103: Chapter 11

Upper South

Deep South“Cotton Kingdom”

Tobacco - difficult on soil

- prone to price change

Sugar - profitable

- intensive labor - long growing season

Rice - lucrative &

stable - long growing

season

VARIETIES OF COTTON IN THE SOUTH

Long-Staple Cotton

Short-Staple Cotton

Sea Island lucrative

Grown in Limited Areas

hardier/coarse grown in varying climates more difficult to process

COTTON PRODUCTION: SC, GA, AL, MS, LA, TX, AR

COTTON: NUMBERS NEVER LIE

“Cotton is King”

2/3 of all U.S. exports was cotton

COTTON: $200 million per year

RICE: $2 million per year

1820: 500,000 bales of cotton 1850: 3,000,000 bales of cotton 1860: 5,000,000 bales of cotton

1820 1860

Alabama 41,000 435,000

Mississippi 32,000 436,000

Virginia 425,000 490,000

SOUTHERN TRADE AND INDUSTRY

insignificant compared to agriculture

De Bow’s Review

Textile Manufacturing

Brokers

Transportation

“ From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child born in the South to the shroud

that covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes to us from the North.

Albert Pike (Arkansas Journalist)

WHY DIDN’T THINGS CHANGE?

1. ___________________ of the agricultural system

2. Capital investments left little for other investments

3. Southern _________ ethic

4. Southerners discouraged the ____________________

Profitability

work

growth of cities

WHITE SOCIETY IN THE SOUTH - PLANTER CLASS

Dominated Southern Societycotton, sugar, rice, tobacco

defined as: 40-50 slaves 800 acres or more

Short-term Aristocrats

code of chivalry 1. reputation for honesty & integrity 2. reputation for martial courage & strength 3. self-sufficiency 4. patriarchal dominion over the household 5. willingness to use violence to defend slight to perception

“Culture of Honor”gravitated to military service and military education

Preston Brooks SC

Charles Sumner MA

“ The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste

in his sight -- I mean the harlot, slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of

assertion is then too great for this senator.

-Charles Sumner (MA)

What did Sumner say?

“-Charles Sumner (MA)

[He] "touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He

cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder."

Preston Brooks SC

Charles Sumner MA

WHITE SOCIETY IN THE SOUTH - SOUTHERN LADY

Smaller Plantation Lady

- spinning, weaving, agricultural tasks

Planter Lady- most elite

- husbands more dominant - little to do (servants do most of the work)

- ornament for the husband

isolated from the public world

“Women, like children, have but one right, and that is the right to protection. The right to protection involves the obligation to obey.

- George Fitzhugh (social theorist)

WHITE SOCIETY IN THE SOUTH - PLAIN FOLK

Hill People- opposed to the planter elite - did not support secession

Yeoman Farmers

- 3/4 did not own slaves - largest percentage of white southerners

- had very little actual political power but still supported planters

Poor Whites- swamps, marshes, pine barrens

- foragers & hunters

“From childhood, the one thing in their condition which has made life valuable to the mass of whites has been that the (blacks) are still their inferior.

- Frederick Law Olmsted

THE SLAVEOWNERS

12 wealthiest counties in the South

Adams County, Mississippi wealthiest county in the United States

Truths About Slaveowners Most slaveowners owned few slaves Most slaves were with few owners

1 in 20 white families owned 20+ slaves — planter class 2%-3% of Southern white men owned over 50% of the slaves — elite planter

Top Slaveholders Col. Joshua John Ward (SC) - 1130 slaves

Dr. Stephen Duncan (MS) - 858 slaves J. Burneside (LA) - 753 slaves

** William Ellison Jr. (SC) - 60 slaves **

“OUR PECULIAR INSTITUTION”

Southern slavery was distinctive & special

Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, South

MASTER SLAVE

Slavery - isolated the South from the rest of the US

- isolated whites from blacks

the word “slavery” had negative connotations and was, in some states, illegal to use on the

floor of the legislature

THE LAWS OF SLAVERY

Defining Race- trace of African ancestry = black

Slave Codesestablishment and regulation of slavery in the states

- hold property, leave property without permission, congregate, be out after dark, work on Sunday

- marriage and divorce of slaves was not legal action punishment: different in each

How were the slave codes enforced?poorly

controlled by plantation owner most slaves enjoyed some freedom and autonomy

WHAT MAKES SLAVERY

“OUR PECULIAR INSTITUTION”?

ORGANIZING SLAVES

Large Plantationsoverseer - supervisor of the slaves

head driver - responsible/trusted slaves foremen - subdrivers, assist head driver

Task System (rice) vs. Gang System

Small Plantations - supervised by owner

How would the relationship differ on a small plantation?

LIFE UNDER SLAVERY - PLANTATIONS

Slave Life

Slave Women

Slave Health

Slave Discipline

House Slaves

provided enough to live & work Diet: cornmeal, salt pork, molasses, gardens cheap clothing & shoes slave quarters: small/crude

healers (nurses, doctors) labored in the field with men cooked/cleaned/raised children

less healthy than Southern whites population grew naturally, slower than whites children - did not do hard work until teens HIRED LABOR - $1/day vs. $1000s

by overseers paid relative to work done

less physically demanding small - house & field large - house

LIFE UNDER SLAVERY - CITIES

Autonomy of Urban Slavery

often master couldn’t always supervise errands, work for the business, common laborer

time & ability to mingle with free blacks/whites

Work

mining, lumber, docks, construction, drive wagons, textile mills, blacksmiths, carpenters

whites disapproved of slaves in cities

Segregation or sold to country

FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS

Were there free African Americans in Southern states?

250,000 free BUT

50% in Maryland and Virginia

How did slaves attain freedom? How much freedom did they have?

1. manumit 2. purchased

States discouraged freedom post 1830

little freedom, lived in poverty, lack access to jobs, couldn’t

legally assemble

THE SLAVE TRADE

Domestic Slave Trade

Trade from the Upper South to the Lower South 1. move with owners as they moved

2. sold by owners to slave traders

Foreign Slave Trade Article I, Section 9, Clause 1

ended in 1808smuggled into the 1850s

Natchez (MS), New Orleans (LA), Mobile (AL), Galveston (TX)

Traded at:Dehumanization of the Slave Trade

$500 - $1700 for young male field hand What about young females?

gray hair dyed, oil withered skin, conceal defects

ATTEMPTS AT MUTINY

Amistad - 1839 - Cuba

captured by a United States government ship to return to Cuba or be sent back to Africa?

Creole - 1841 - Virginia and Bahamas

Sambo - acted out a role that was expected of a slave

slave rebel - remained forever rebellious

THE RESISTING SLAVES

- sabotage - refusing to work

Slave patrols for runaways

How did slaves run away?

What were the typical forms of resistance?

THE SLAVE REVOLTS

Gabriel Prosser - 1800

1000 rebellious slaves outside Richmond, VA Prosser & 35 others executed

Denmark Vesey - 1822

word leaked about potential revolt

Nat Turner - 1831

slave preacher led a band of armed blacks Southampton County, VA

killed 60 white men, women, and children 100+ blacks were executed

CULTURE OF SLAVERY

Pidgen - slave language

~ slaves arriving in the United States had different languages ~ slave music became critical (pass the time, religious)

Religion

~ by the 19th century most were Christians Baptist or Methodist

autonomous churches banned by law black church — more emotional, joyful

Christian images inspire freedom segregation in joint services

THE SLAVE FAMILY

Nuclear Family

became the dominant kinship model

Slave Customs

did not condemn premarital pregnancy often lived together before marriage

married after conceiving child

1/3 of families broken up by slave trade

paternalism - relationship between slaves & owners of mutual dependence