The South and the Slavery Controversy”

~ 1793 – 1860 ~

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Slavery Review• 1619-1st slaves brought to Jamestown

• Decline in indentured servitude led to colonists looking for a new source of labor

• A few of the earliest African immigrants gained their freedom and became slave owners themselves

• Racial discrimination against free blacks and slaves began with slave codes in 1662

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Cotton Is King

1. Before the 1793 invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, slavery was a dying business

• The South was burdened with depressed prices, unmarketable goods, and over-cropped lands.

• After the gin was invented, growing cotton became wildly profitable and easier, and more slaves were needed.

2. The North transported the cotton to England and the rest of Europe, so they were in part responsible for the institution of slavery as well.

3. The South produced more than half the world’s supply of cotton

• Giving it an advantage over England, an industrial giant, which needed cotton to make cloth

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The South believed that since England was so dependent on their cotton that, if a civil war was to ever break out, England would support the South

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The Planter “Aristocracy”• In 1850, only 1,733 families owned more than

100 slaves each• These formed the wealthy aristocracy of the

South, with big houses and huge plantations.

• The Southern aristocrats widened the gap between the rich and the poor and hampered public-funded education by sending their children to private schools

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• The plantation system shaped the lives of southern women.

Mistresses of the house commanded a sizable household of mostly female slaves who cooked, sewed, cared for the children, and washed things.

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Slaves of the Slave System• Cotton production spoiled the earth &

cotton producers were always in need of new land.

• The economic structure of the South became monopolistic

• as land ran out, smaller farmers sold their land to the large estate owners.

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• Over speculation in land and in slaves caused many planters to plunge deep into debt. (financial instability)

• Slaves were valuable, but they were also a gamble, since they might run away or be killed by disease. $1200 investment

• King Cotton led to a one-crop economy whose price level was at the mercy of world conditions (England).

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• Southerners resented the Northerners growing fat (getting rich) at their expense while they were dependent on the North for clothing, food, and manufactured goods.

• The South rejected immigrants from Europe, who went to the North, making it richer and more populated.

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The White Majority• Most of the south was made of land owners

that owned one or two slaves

• these small scale farms often had owners and slaves working side by side in the fields (typical of most of the south)

• Lower on the social ladder were the slave-less subsistence farmers that raised corn and hogs and strongly disliked the “snobocracy

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a. Some of the poorest were known as “poor white trash”, red necks”, and “hillbillies”

b. It is now known that these people weren’t lazy, just sick, suffering from malnutrition and parasites like hookworm.

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• Even the slave-less whites defended the slavery system

• They all hoped to own a slave or two some day (their version of the “American Dream”),

• They took perverse pleasure in knowing that, no matter how bad they were, they always “outranked” Blacks.

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Free African Americans: Slaves Without Masters

• By 1860, freed slaves in the South numbered about 250,000.

• In the upper South, these Blacks were descended from those freed by the idealism of the Revolutionary War (“all men were created equal”).

• In the deep South, African Americans that were free were typically mulattoes (slave mother, white father who was usually a master) freed when their masters died.

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• Many free African Americans owned property; a few owned slaves themselves.

• Free Blacks were prohibited from testifying against whites in court

• In the North, there was blatant discrimination directed towards free African Americans as well

• several states– denied their entrance– denied them the right to vote – barred them from public schools.

• Free African Americans were especially hated by the Irish, with whom they competed for jobs.

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Plantation Slavery

• Although slave importation was banned in 1808, smuggling of slaves continued due to their high demand

• By 1860, the illegal smuggling of slaves was no longer needed as natural reproduction provided enough necessary laborers for the South

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• Slaves were an investment, and thus were treated better and more kindly and were spared the most dangerous jobs like putting a roof on a house, draining a swamp, or blasting caves.

• Usually, Irishmen were hired to do that sort of work.

• The Deep South and the states of South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana accounted for half of all slaves in the South.

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• Breeding slaves was not encouraged, but women who gave birth to many children were prized.

– Some were promised freedom after ten children born.

• Slave auctions were brutal, with slaves being inspected like animals and families often mercilessly separated

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about a women being cruelly separated from her children at a slave auction in her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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Life Under the Lash• Life for slaves varied from place to

place (Old South not as brutal as the newer cotton regions of the Deep South)

• Regardless, life as a slave meant hard work, no civil or political rights, and brutality if orders weren’t followed.

• Laws that tried to protect slaves were difficult to enforce.

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• Lash beatings weren’t that common, since a master could lower the value of his slave if he whipped him too much.

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• On the larger plantations of the Deep South, family life was more stable resulting in a unique slave culture

• Forced separation of spouses, parents and children seem have been more common in the upper South, among smaller farms. WHY???

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A typical slave auction

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• Slaves also related to the themes of Christianity (Moses and the Exodus)

• Christian hymns as signals and codes for news of possible freedom

• While working, many field hands sang songs that emphasized bondage (“Let my people go.”)

• African cultural heritage was also displayed in responsorial preaching: a give and take of dialogue adapted from the ring shout dance

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The Burdens of Bondage• Slaves were denied the dignity of being

able to make their own decisions and were denied the right to literacy

• Educating slaves was seen as an evil because it might inspire rebellion

• Slaves defied their forced labor in a variety of ways, taking care to make trouble without getting punished too badly.

• They worked as slowly as they could without getting lashed.

• They stole food and sabotaged expensive equipment.

• Occasionally, they poisoned their masters’ food.

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Resistance

• 1800 insurrection by a slave named Gabriel in Richmond, Virginia was ill fated

• In 1822, freed slave, Denmark Vesey and 30 followers were executed after a failed uprising in South Carolina

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Nat Turner’s rebellion• In 1831, a slave named Nat Turner led a

violent rebellion in Virginia

• As a preacher, he felt he had been chosen to lead the slaves out of bondage

• A solar eclipse in August, was a signal he believed was from God to start the uprising

• Nat Turner and 80 others killed 60 whites on 4 plantations before most of the slaves were captured

• Nat Turner hid for a few weeks but was eventually captured, tried and hanged

• In retaliation, whites killed almost 200 blacks (many of whom had not been involved with the rebellion)

• The rebellion strengthened many Southern whites defense of slavery and to more strongly control their slaves

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Early Abolitionism• In 1817, the American Colonization Society

was founded for the purpose of transporting slaves back to Africa

• In 1822 The Republic of Liberia was founded for former slaves to live.

• Most slaves had no wish to be transplanted into a strange civilization after having been partially Americanized.

• By 1860, virtually all slaves were not Africans, but native-born African-Americans.

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• In the 1830s, abolitionism gained support as part of the Second Great Awakening Reform movement (Charles Grandison Finney).

• Theodore Dwight Weld inspired by Finney, traveling the north, preached the abolition of slavery & wrote a pamphlet, American Slavery As It Is.

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Radical Abolitionism• Wendell Phillips refused to eat cane sugar

or wear cotton cloth, since both were made by slaves.

• Sojourner Truth, a freed Black woman who fought for black emancipation and women’s rights

• Martin Delaney, one of the few people who seriously reconsidered Black relocation to Africa, also fought for Black rights.

William Lloyd Garrison

• He started his own newspaper, The Liberator, in 1831

• He advocated emancipation—immediate freeing of all slaves

• He founded the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833

• Many white Americans who supported abolition did not like Garrison because he was a radical who attacked churches and the government for not condemning slavery

• He advocated secession and argued that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document

• In the very first issue of his anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison stated, "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."

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David Walker• A free African-

American• 1829 Appeal to the

Colored Citizens of the World

• Advised blacks to fight for freedom rather than wait for the end of slavery

• Encouraged the use of violence to end slavery

Frederick Douglass

• As a slave, he was illegally taught to read and write by his owner’s wife

• He realized knowledge was power

• He escaped while working in a Baltimore shipyard

• Douglass used his gift of public speaking to urge politicians to end slavery

• He started his own newspaper, The North Star, to gain support for his ideas

• Goal--"abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the colored people, and hasten the day of freedom to the three millions of our enslaved fellow countrymen."

• Douglass and others backed the Liberty Party in 1840, the Free Soil Party in 1848, and the Republican Party in the 1850s

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The Grimke Sisters

• Sarah and Angelina

• Daughters of a South Carolina slave owner

• Angelina supported abolition with her publication, An Appeal to Christian Women in the South

• Women became involved in the abolitionist movement by raising money, distributing abolitionist literature and collecting signatures to petition Congress

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Wendell Phillips

Frederick Douglass

William Lloyd Garrison

Sojourner Truth

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The South Lashes Back

• 1830 was a turning point--slave states tightened slave codes and prohibited freedom of slaves either voluntarily or compensated

• Southerners began to emphasize slavery’s “positive good”--used the Bible to defend slavery

• Slaves were saved from the jungles of Africa and brought to America where they gained the blessings of Christian Civilization

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• They also noted the situation of northern free blacks who were persecuted and harassed, as opposed to southern black slaves, who were treated well, given meals, and cared for in old age.

• Slaves were better off then the factory workers and children, so they must be “happier” with their situation and lives

• Proslavery arguments only further isolate the South from the North and Western World

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• In 1836, Southern House members passed a “gag resolution” requiring all antislavery appeals to be tabled without debate, (a threat to free speech and right to petition the government?)

• Southerners also resented the flood of propaganda in the form of pamphlets, drawings, etc…

• Violent repression of freedom of the press resulted

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The Abolitionist Impact in the North• For a long time, abolitionists like the extreme Garrisonians were unpopular, since many northerners had been raised to believe the values of the slavery compromises in the Constitution.

• Also, his secessionist talks contrasted against Webster’s cries for union.

• The South owed the North $300 million by the late 1850s, and northern factories depended on southern cotton to make goods

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• Lewis Tappan’s Home in New York was vandalized by an angry mob

• In 1835, William Lloyd Garrison miraculously escaped the Broadcloth mob that dragged him around the streets of Boston.

• Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy of Alton, Illinois, had his printing press destroyed four times and was killed by a mob in 1837; he became an abolitionist martyr.

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• It became politically dangerous for ambitious politicians to associate themselves with Garrison’s style of abolitionism

• By the 1850s, abolitionist outcries influence northern minds

• Many northerners were beginning to question the geographic expansion of slavery but they were not willing to abolish slavery outright