AP Chapter 11Cotton, Slavery and the Old

South

The chapter is about the Old South—different from the North. The South began the 19th century agricultural and it remained overwhelmingly

agrarian by the 1860’s—The South grew but did not develop.

The Cotton Economy

South had a shift

• Why?• Decline of tobacco• Rice• Sugar• Short staple cotton—grew in many different

soils and climates• Cotton Gin

Cotton is King

• 1820-500,000 bales of cotton• 1850 3 million• 1860 5 million—bringing in over $200 million

per year in exports• A shift in the slave population

Southern Trade and Industry

• Industry and commerce was there, it just grew slowly—most were associated with agriculture and served the needs of the plantation economy.

• Iron Works—Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond• Flour mills• Lumber mills

Problems and Reasons for slow growth

• Transportation—Mississippi River, few canals and a smattering of rail lines

• Great profitability in cotton• Only so much money to invest• Southern climate less suitable for industrial

development• Some said the Southerners just don’t work as

hard

A Special Way of Life

• Southerners thought of themselves as Cavaliers—with a life based on chivalry, leisure and elegance. Concerned more with “a refined and gracious way of life”.

• Chivalry -courteous and considerate behavior• Why might that be?

Colonial Economic Relationship

• “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.”

• Ak. Journalist Albert Pike• The De Bow’s Review—editor wrote about the

southern economic dependency and warned of the dangers

White Society in the South

• The Planter Class—Planter Asistocracy-20 slaves or more-only ¼ of the white Southerners owned slaves-of the 2 million white families in the South, only 1 in 40, or 50,000were families of planters

• Very small minority—but dominated the political landscape and social events—left a lasting image of the South

• Like Medieval towns—a business community-built elegant homes, entertained lavishly—behaved very much like European nobility

The Southern Lady

• Many similarities between middle class northern woman and the affluent white southern woman—home centered, serving needs of husband and children—no rights

• “The right to protection involved the obligation to obey” --George Fitzhugh

Middle Class Women

• Lived on farms, isolated from people outside from families, less likely to have access to education—1/4 of all white women over 20 were illiterate.

• The slave labor system had a mixed impact on white women—spared them of labor but threatened many relationships with their husbands—infidelity

The Plain Folk

• These were the typical white southerners—no slaves, small farms, no education—over half of the country’s total illiterate population came from the South.

• Though they were deferential to the Planter class—tied to the system—access to cotton gins, markets, financial assistance, kinfolk,

The Hill People

• Some people did resist the social system of the South—the Hill people of the Appalachian ranges east of the Mississippi—slavery was unattractive—it threatened their sense of their own independence—nationalistic, personal freedom,

Lowest Class of Whites(Trash)

• White trash or Crackers owned no land, worked at odd jobs, hunted for food, suffered from diseases—so poor and so little strength to protest—ate clay—worse off than the slaves who looked down on them.

• And yet they did not look down on the social order—the hope and dream of one day they could own slaves, the pecking order—at least they were white

• The one thing that unified all classes together in the South was the perception of race

The Peculiar Institution

• Only existed in US, Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico

• Isolated the South from other northern states—as isolation increased so did the committed to defend it

• Within the South itself, the institution of slavery had paradoxical results—

• Separated yet joined together—dependent on each other for survival

• The institution was established and regulated by law with Masters having all the power and slaves powerless

• A huge body of laws that governed the slaves: Slave Codes

No Typical Slave Style

• Enforcement was spotty until Nat Turner• Even with slave codes in place, some slaves

did acquire property, learn to read, marry…some lived in strict rigid condition, other given more latitude

• Life under Slavery Page 383• Slavery in the Cities—slaves worked on

contracts, hired out by masters, not supervised very much

• Freed African Americans—about 250,000 in the South by 1860

• Slave Trade—deplorable, banned in 1808 but smuggling occurred

• Slave Resistance

Culture of Slavery

• Resistance was only part of the slave response to slavery—another was an elaborate process of adaptation—they developed their own unique culture with which they could sustain a sense of racial pride and unity.

Language and Music

Pidgen-mixture of African words and English--Words like bogus, phony, gumbo, funkyCuisine—deep fat frying, gumbos, Music-yodeling, spirituals, the use of falsettos,

the “call and response” pattern in sermons—music also served as a means of communication, jazz, the use of drums and the banjo

Religion

• Although a separate slave religion was not suppose to exist, all were mainly Christians with a mixture of African or West Indies influences—ex. Voodoo

• Af. Am. Religion was more emotional, emphasized the dream of freedom and deliverance

Slave Family

• Despite certain legal restrictions a “nuclear family” consistently emerged among slaves. They operated differently—black women began child bearing at a younger age, family ties were no less strong than those of whites. Extended families were distinctive characteristics of the black family and were “adopted” kinship

• http://youtu.be/pDukq8npXBk•