Antebellum South

• Included those states that permitted slavery, including certain border states that did not                                      join the                                  Confederacy                                         in 1861.
• Slave Brands
• Slave Rebellions Throughout the Americas

• Red states
• Before 1860, the world depended on Britain’s mills for cloth & Britain depended the American South for its cotton fiber
• New soil was constantly needed because cotton production exhausted the soil
• By the 1850s, cotton provided 2/3 of all U.S. exports and tied the South’s economy to its best customer, Britain
• Wealth in the South was measured in terms of land and slaves
• Slaves were treated as a form of property
• Slave Auction                           notice, 1823

• Southern whites were sensitive to the fact that slaves were human beings
• In colonial times, slavery had been justified as an econ. necessity
• In the 19th century, apologists for slavery used historical & religious arguments to support their claim that slavery was good for both slave & master
• 1 mil. slaves 1800 à 4 mil. slaves 1860
  • Cotton boom increased demand
  • High birth rate
  • Some illegal smuggling
• In the Deep South, slaves made up 75% of the pop. in some states
• Fear of slave revolts led to stricter slave codes
  • restricted their movements & education
• Slaves were employed doing whatever their owners demanded of them
  • The majority worked in the field
  • Many became skilled craftsmen
  • Others worked as house servants, in factories, & on construction gangs
• Many slaves sold from the Upper South to the cotton-rich Deep South
• Scarlet & her Mammie
• Hollywood glorification
• By 1860, the value of a field slave had risen to almost $2,000.
• Heavy investment in slaves meant South had much less capital than the North to undertake I.R.
• Graniteville Textile Co.                            
  • founded in 1845
  • South’s 1^st attempt at                      industrialization in                                  Richmond, VA
• Conditions of slavery varied
• Some slaves were humanely treated others were routinely beaten
• Families could be separated at anytime
• Women vulnerable to sexual exploitation
• Slaves posing in front of their cabin on a Southern plantation

• All revolts were quickly & violently suppressed but even so, they had a lasting impact:
  • Gave hope to enslaved African Americas
  • Drove southern states to tighten already strict slave codes
  • Demonstrated to many, especially Northerners, the evils of slavery
• By 1860, as many as 250,000
  • Some emancipated during the Am. Rev.
  • Some were mulatto children whose white fathers liberated them
  • Some purchased their freedom
• Most lived in cities
• By state law they were not equal w/whites (barred from voting & certain jobs)
• In constant danger of being kidnapped – had to show legal papers to prove free status
• To be near family members who were still slaves
• The South was home
• Thought life in the North would be just as bad
• Although the ¾ of white southerners did not own slaves they defended the slave system
• Increasingly isolated & defensive about slavery
• Society dominated by the planter aristocracy
• Southern gentlemen’s code of chivalry
  • Sense of personal honor
  • Defense of women
  • Paternalistic treatment of those deemed inferior
• The planter elite valued a college education for their children more so than in the North
  • Acceptable professions for a southern gentleman were limited to farming, law, the ministry, and the military
• Lower classes generally did not receive schooling beyond the elementary levels
• Slaves were strictly prohibited by law from receiving any instruction in reading or writing
• The slavery issue affected church membership
• Methodist and Baptist churches supported slavery
  • Gained in membership 1840s split w/northern brethren
• Declining memberships
  • Unitarians who challenged slavery
  • Catholics & Episcopalian who took a neutral stand

 

 took a neutral stand