ANTEBELLUM SLAVERY

1
ANTEBELLUM SLAVERY

• Southern Economy
• King Cotton
• Plantation Life
• Non-Gentry Class
• Slave Family

2
Southern Economy

• Upper South Tobacco, diversified crops
• Lower South rice, indigo, sugar, cotton
• Cotton Growth Cotton Gin, short staple
• Shift South 1830s Cotton Belt,
• King Cotton 1840 1.35 m bales, 1860 4.5
• ¾ of worlds cotton, over 50 US exports
• Huge Profits 10 year over year

3
Southern Economy II

• Second Middle Passage 1 million sold
• into Deep South, many families split-up
• Price of male slave increases up to 2,000
• Concentration of Plantations
• 1860 25 of South whites owned slaves
• Only about 3 had 20 to 50 slaves
• Great Planters political control of South
• Transportation relied on rivers, few rails
• Education much less than north

4
Plantation
5
Slave Auction
6
Auction Posting
7
Plantation Life and Culture

• Chivalry English aristocracy the model
• Paternalism Father of extended family
• The plantation was an independent unit
• Slave Hierarchy house slave, field slave
• Gang Labor Overseer, Driver, task system
• Punishment Reward
• Stick whipping and threat of sale
• Carrot own plot, less hours, rent out

8
Non Gentry Class

• Small slave owner 88 below 20 slaves
• Most 2 or 3 slaves worked, ate, slept w slave
• Yeoman Farmer 75 whites no slaves
• Hills, backwoods, rented land, diverse crops
• poor white trash, Ozarks, Appalachians
• Why support Gentry? 1) racial hierarchy
• 2) had many rights, 3) dreamed of owning slaves
  4) did not want to compete with freed slaves

9
Slave Houses
10
4 Africans to N. America (pg 75) 500,000 /11
million, 4 m in 1860
11
Slave Family

• Standard of Living lower than north, but not
  much lower than N. working class
• Family over 50 nuclear family, child worked at
  10, plantation family
• Religion Christianity(after 1840s) African
• influences, black church source of strength
• Slave economy garden, home man.
• Slave Resistance open and clandestine
• Nat Turner 1831,