Chapter 16

1. Chapter 16

2. Missouri Compromise • “But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper…But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” • Thomas Jefferson, April 1820, Monticello Virginia.

3. Planter Class • Minority within a minority • Only ¼ of all slaveowners • Plantations organized like feudal manors • Extensive division of labor [all slaves] • Generated large income • Mansions built at great expense • Wealth measured by slaves in most cases • As much as $1,700 per field hand • Sometimes scrimped on lifestyle to afford more slaves • Constantly trying to increase land holdings • Debt common until Cotton crop sold • Market fluctuated, price [and profit] uncertain • Hard to “live large” with uncertain income

4. Plantation Wives • Many kept the books, worked hard • contrary to the stereotype • Managed household, supervised slaves • Provided early childhood education • Reminded daily in many cases of husband’s infidelity • Mulatto slave children • Symbolic of looser sexual standard for men in South • Humiliating to wife, in spite of which plantation women supported the South all through Civil War

5. FAQ Why did the majority of Southerners [who were not slave owners] continue to support slavery? Why did so many southerners fight so fiercely in the civil war for an institution in which they did not participate? They feared freed slaves would take jobs from whites. They figured reprisals from freed slaves for the deprivation of years of slavery. • Theories: • Some hoped to become slave owners • Some accepted racial basis of slavery • Accepting slavery meant accepting permanent social subordination for blacks which meant for poor whites that there was always somebody worse off .

6. 1850 typical slave experience • Worked on plantation with at least 10 others • Probably side by side men and women in fields • Women might work in the house, care for master’s children • Work day dawn to dusk • Housing • Typically log shack, no mattress • Expected to plant some garden for own food • Discipline • Frequently administered by an overseer • Usually with a whip

7. The Slave Family • Marriages encouraged, but no legal recognition • really more encouraged to breed new slaves • Buying and selling disrupted families • Wives frequently at the master’s call • Families sometimes split • Non-related older persons sometimes fill in as “aunt,” ”uncle,” “cousin,” etc. • Sometimes fictitious relationships created as parents are sold away

8. Slaves Off the plantation • Large demand for manual labor, not enough whites to do it across the South • Some slaves hired out, acquired skills • Some in machinery operation • Wages given to owners • Some resentment from free blacks as slaves generally hired out cheaper • Free Blacks in the old South • Most were urban • Some earned decent living, a very few got rich • Liberties restricted drastically for both slaves and free men after Nat Turner’s rebellion

9. Abolitionist Movement • 1831 William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator • Newspaper dedicated to the total abolition of slavery • Garrison exposed to great personal risk for his views • Not all supported social equality for blacks in fact most didn’t • abolitionists frequently hated by other whites • Some Religious leaders raged against alcohol whispered against slavery one such was Lyman Beecher • Frequently people who supported rights for blacks were unwilling to support women’s rights this issue also divisive to the movement

10. The Liberator • 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." And Garrison was heard. For more than three decades, from the first issue of his weekly paper in 1831, until after the end of the Civil War in 1865 when the last issue was published, Garrison spoke out eloquently and passionately against slavery and for the rights of America's black inhabitants.

11. The Grimke Sisters • The Grimke sisters, freed their slaves, became outspoken opponents of slavery even speaking in public at a time when women didn’t do so • Bombarded Congress with petitions. • Southern dominated House of Representatives actually instituted the gag rule which made it contrary to House rules to debate slavery or mention the word • Southerners began to use the phrase “our peculiar institution” rather than slavery • The Grimke sisters of South Carolina were two early female abolitionists and women's rights activists, traveling throughout the North, lecturing about their first-hand experiences with slavery on their family plantation. Receiving abuse and ridicule for their abolitionist activity, as later women active in a range of reform activities would find, they both realized that women would have to create a safe space in the public arena if they wanted to be effective abolitionists and reformers. So in an often to be repeated story, they both became women's rights activists.