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Explore the dominance of cotton in the South, its ties to slavery, and resistance efforts. Learn about key figures like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison as they fought for abolition. Delve into the complex dynamics of Southern society, economy, and the controversies surrounding slavery in the 19th century. Discover the impact of cotton trade on American exports, the treatment of slaves, and the roots of the Civil War. Uncover the brutal realities and the fight for freedom in a divided nation.
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Cotton is King – why cotton • While the north was expanding industrialization and technology, the south remained predominantly agricultural. The main cash crop of the south was cotton. • There was a very large demand for cotton in Britain and New England where the manufacturing of cotton into cloth and then sewn into clothes. • A cotton farmer did not need to own a gin, they could rent one or take their cotton to the local commercial gin. Nor did a cotton farmer have to own slaves. They could rent slaves.
Cotton is King • Cotton accounted for half the value of all American exports after 1840 which was more than half of the world’s supply of cotton. • Most of U.S. cotton was shipped to England to fuel the textile factories (due industrial revolution), England was the world’s producer of cotton cloth. • 75% of England’s cotton came from the U.S. South. • The north reaped huge profits as well because they were the shippers of the cotton. They’d pick up the cotton, ship it to England and buy needed manufactured goods for sale in the U.S.
Southern Society (1850) “Slavocracy”[plantation owners] 6,000,000 The “Plain Folk”[white yeoman farmers] Black Freemen 250,000 Black Slaves3,200,000 Total US Population --> 23,000,000[9,250,000 in the South = 40%]
Slavery • Members of the planter aristocracy dominated society and politics in the South. • Plantation agriculture was economically unstable and wasteful. • Most white southerners were subsistence farmers. • The majority of southern whites owned no slaves because they could not afford the purchase price. • Some southern slaves gained their freedom as a result of purchasing their way out of slavery. • The great increase of the slave population in the first half of the nineteenth century was largely due to natural reproduction.
Changes in Cotton Production 1820 1860
Slave Accoutrements Slave MasterBrands Slave muzzle
Slave Accoutrements Slave leg irons Slave tag, SC Slave shoes
Slaves posing in front of their cabin on a Southern plantation.
Slave Resistance • Slaves fought the system of slavery by: • Slowing down the work pace • Sabotaging expensive equipment • Pilfering (Stealing) goods that their labor had produced • Running away when possible. • Escape via the Underground Railroad.
Quilt Patterns as Secret Messages The Monkey Wrench pattern, on the left, alerted escapees to gather up tools and prepare to flee; the Drunkard Path design, on the right, warned escapees not to follow a straight route.
Slavery • For free blacks living in the North, discrimination was common. • Perhaps the slave's greatest psychological horror, and the theme of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, was the enforced separation of slave families. • By 1860, slaves were concentrated in the “black belt” located in the Deep South states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. • As a substitute for the wage-incentive system, slaveowners most often used the whip as a motivator.
Slavery • Forced separation of spouses, parents, and children was most common on small plantations and in the upper South. • As a result of white southerners' brutal treatment of their slaves and their fear of potential slave rebellions, the South developed a theory of biological racial superiority.
Wendell Phillips • So highly regarded were his oratorical abilities that he was known as "abolition's Golden Trumpet". • Like many of his fellow abolitionists, Phillips took pains to eat no cane sugar and wear no clothing made of cotton, since both were produced by the labor of Southern slaves. • It was Phillips's contention that racial injustice was the source of all of society's ills. • Like Garrison, Phillips denounced the Constitution for tolerating slavery.
William Lloyd Garrison • William Lloyd Garrison pledged his dedication to the immediate abolition of slavery in the South. • William Lloyd Garrison published in Boston the first issue of an antislavery newspaper.
Frederick Douglass- • Frederick Douglass- black abolitionist who escaped slavery at the age of 21.
Elijah P. Lovejoy • Elijah P. Lovejoy-was murdered by a mob in Alton ,Illinois for his abolitionist views. He was considered a martyr by the abolition movement. • His murder was a sign of the increasing tension within the country leading up to the Civil War, and it is for this reason that he is considered by some to be the "first casualty of the Civil War.“
Southern Slavery--> An Aberration? • 1780s: 1st antislavery society created in Phila. • By 1804: slavery eliminated from last northern state. • 1807: the legal termination of the slave trade, enforced by the Royal Navy. • 1820s: newly indep. Republics of Central & So. America declared their slaves free. • 1833: slavery abolished throughout the British Empire. • 1844: slavery abolished in the Fr. colonies. • 1861: the serfs of Russia were emancipated.
The US compared to the Western World • In arguing for the continuation of slavery after 1830, southerners placed themselves in opposition to much of the rest of the Western world.
Abolitionist Movement • 1816 --> American Colonization Society created (gradual, voluntary emancipation. British Colonization Society symbol
Abolitionist Movement • Create a free slave state in Liberia, West Africa. • No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North in the 1820s & 1830s. Gradualists Immediatists
Abolitionism • William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the The Liberator, first appeared in 1831 and sent shock waves across the entire country • He repudiated gradual emancipation and embraced immediate end to slavery at once • He advocated racial equality and argued that slaveholders should not be compensated for freeing slaves.
The Liberator Premiere issue January 1, 1831
Abolitionism • Free blacks, such as Frederick Douglass, who had escaped from slavery in Maryland, also joined the abolitionist movement • To abolitionists, slavery was a moral, not an economic question • But most of all, abolitionists denounced slavery as contrary to Christian teaching • 1845 --> The Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass • 1847 --> “The North Star”
Black Abolitionists David Walker(1785-1830) 1829 --> Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World Fight for freedom rather than wait to be set free by whites.
Sojourner Truth (1787-1883)or Isabella Baumfree 1850 --> The Narrative of Sojourner Truth R2-10
The Underground Railroad • “Conductor” ==== leader of the escape • “Passengers” ==== escaping slaves • “Tracks” ==== routes • “Trains” ==== farm wagons transporting the escaping slaves • “Depots” ==== safe houses to rest/sleep
Growth of slavery GROWTH OF SLAVERY
Growth of slavery GROWTH OF SLAVERY
Gag rule was passed in Congress which nothing concerning slavery could be discussed. • Under the gag rule, anti-slavery petitions were not read on the floor of Congress • The rule was renewed in each Congress between 1837 and 1839. • In 1840 the House passed an even stricter rule, which refused to accept all anti-slavery petition.On December 3, 1844, the gag rule was repealed
