The Rise of King Cotton

1. The Rise of King Cotton

2. Why did the institution of slavery command the loyalty of the vast majority of ante-bellum whites, despite the fact that only a small percentage of them owned slaves? (73) • Slavery was the dominating reality of all southern life. Assess the validity of this generalization for TWO of the following aspects of southern life from about 1840 to 1860: political, social, economic, and intellectual life. (84)

3. I. Slavery and the Southern Economy A. Saving Slavery • Slavery in economic decline in 1790s: coastal soil exhaustion, undependable foreign markets, rice no go inland, cotton bottled up • 2 dramatic changes: 1) Ind. Rev., 2) cotton gin • 1 slave, 1 day, 1 lbs. cotton • w/ cotton gin: 1:1:50 lbs • w/water power: 1:1:1,000 lbs

4. B. Expanding the Empire • Expands into GA + Carolina piedmont (backcountry) • 1800: crosses mountains • VA becomes slave breeder selling excess pop. West (Miss., Alabama, LA, Ark.) • VA supports 1808 ban on slave trade for profits • 1792: 13,000 bales/yr; 1860: 5 million bales/yr • 12 wealthiest counties in US in South

5. II. Moonlight and Magnolias? Free Southern Social Structure A. Myth and Reality • Myth of moonlight and magnolias: most whites on large plantations worked by 100s slaves live leisurely, civilized, honorable • Smiling house servants, cheerful field gangs

6. Reality • 1860: only 25% own slaves at all • Of 25%: 1/2 owned ≤ 5; 75% ≤ 10 • From top: 1% slaveholders ≥ 100; 12% ≥ 20 • 20 key: min. required specialized plantation labor

7. B. White Society 1) Planters (≥ 20 slaves) • Specialized ag. (cotton, tobacco, sugar) w/ extensive ÷ labor: field, house servants, pasture staff, artisans (plantation largely self-sufficient) • Genteel lifestyle: Extended visits, parties, balls; southern hospitality • “Wealthy” problematic: chronic debt • Capital tied up in land + slaves; borrow against crop

8. 2) Small Slaveholders • Diff. to generalize: • Diff. geography: uplands (no/few aspirations greatness), delta + low country (ambitious, younger: led push into West)

9. 3) Yeoman Farmers • Largest group (3/4 of whites in 1860) • Landowning (50-200 acres), no slaves (might hire during busy times cements relationship w/planters, part of southern paternalism), subsistence (esp. up country), few market transactions • Valued independence, folk culture (family, church, region)

10. 4) “People of the Pine Barrens”: Landless Whites • Crackers (think “Deliverance”) • 10-20% of whites, no slaves, no land (squatters) • Not always primarily farmers (some corn, foraging, hunting) • Poor (20-40% South received aid from State); regarded as lazy, shiftless • Resisted hiring out to yeoman: comparison to slaves (Northern “wage slaves”) • Expansion of cotton kingdom harmed: closing off of public lands/fences impacts hunting and foraging

11. C. Yeoman Political Demands • Although majority, little political power reapportion legislatures + expand voting rights more democratic than planters liked • Increasing tension: slaves more expensive (esp. post 1808) + less land West social mobility stifled But, remarkably little class conflict: • 1) diff. groups in diff. areas little interaction • 2) united by white supremacy + racism aspirations to planter status + slave ownership, despise slaves

12. D. Free Blacks • Either descendents of slaves freed (1780s–90s) or runaways • Most landless, rural laborers • A few able to own land & slaves (usually wife & kids; not allowed to free them by law) • In LA & Gulf, mulattos from days of French and Spanish • Community centered on church (esp. African Methodist Episcopal) and faced ever-more restrictive southern laws • “One drop” rule constant fear of re-enslavement

13. III. Planter Ethos: Culture of Honor • Value system: aristocratic, paternalistic (planters as fathers of society), stressed family (kin), social status, leisure, accomplishment, gentility, and honor • Honor: cluster of ethical rules; right behavior and worth based on others’ perceptions • Evaluated by: family bloodline (purity + position in clear hierarchy), physical characteristics (race, gender, physique, skill) • “Tweaking the nose”

14. V. attuned to insults + physical courage duels (only acceptable response to insult) • Deep reverence of and fear for white women: women in command of bloodline (miscegenation) • Oath taking as male bond didn’t sign contracts (difficult to formalize business arrangements, banking, etc.)

15. Anti-bourgeois: rejected profit; acquisitive but to reaffirm honor to be able to provide hospitality, own land + slaves (basis white male power) • Regard bourgeois North as effeminate, untrustworthy, dishonorable • Northern workers as “wage slaves”

16. IV. The Habit of Command • Great irony: Owners completely dependent on slaves • Believed selves to be ferociously independent need to demonstrate command/control and superiority (of blacks and whites) • Theatrical demonstrations of slave submission

17. Planters claimed paternalism limited cruelty, but: • 1) female slaves forced to work in fields (violates notions of femininity) • 2) nuclear families broken up (violates ideal of fatherly protection) • 3) severe punishments (in addition to fundamental cruelty of the system): slave breakers • Frederick Douglass and Mr. Covey

18. Antebellum South marked by conflicting values: independence/dependence, gentility/violence • More dependent whites felt toward blacks more violent became