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Slavery and the Old (Antebellum) South: The Cotton Kingdom

Slavery and the Old (Antebellum) South: The Cotton Kingdom. Building the Cotton Kingdom. White Gold (King Cotton). Textile manufacturing around the world ¾ of world supply came from the southern United States Over ½ of total exports from U.S. by 1850

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Slavery and the Old (Antebellum) South: The Cotton Kingdom

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  1. Slavery and the Old (Antebellum) South: The Cotton Kingdom

  2. Building the Cotton Kingdom

  3. White Gold (King Cotton) • Textile manufacturing around the world • ¾ of world supply came from the southern United States • Over ½ of total exports from U.S. by 1850 • $ used to purchase imported manufactured goods

  4. Value of Cotton Exports As % of All US Exports

  5. Southern Economy • Limited industry • Southern banks loaning $ for slaves and land • Less than 10% of manufactured goods • Discouraged immigration • Inhibited technological advances • Short rail lines (point A to point B) • Cotton Gin, Flat bottom Rear Paddle Steamboats

  6. The Expansion of Slavery in a Global Economy • In 1860 the American South, if independent, would have been one of the wealthiest countries in the world based on the revenue of the cotton trade. • Cotton cultivation and its expansion depended on technological development, land, labor, demand, and a global system of trade.

  7. This is the triangle slave trade.slaves were legally trafficked between Africa and the United States (until 1808) and Latin America.

  8. Slavery in Latin America • Europeans depended on African slavery in their New World colonies. • African slaves were imported to replace the indigenous populations that were eradicated by disease. • Sugar production was the cash crop for the Latin American holdings of the European powers.

  9. Whiteand Black Migrations in the South • Between 1830 and 1860, southerners began to migrate in a southwest direction to fill up the fertile land and increase cotton production for the mills of England. • The center of cotton production gradually shifted from South Carolina to Mississippi. • “Sold Down the River” (Coffle) • An estimated 1 million slaves were transported westward by this forced migration.

  10. 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%]

  11. Louisiana Plantation Homes

  12. Paternalism and Honor in the Planter Class • Most Southern males adhered to a long-standing tradition of medieval chivalry and aversion to industrialization. • The Southern planters developed a paternalistic attitude towards his slaves; a supposedly kindly father-and-child relationship. • An intensely masculine code of honor placed the virtue of women on a pedestal. • The smallest insult could lead to pistol duels.

  13. John C. Calhoun’s Plantation Home: Fort Hill, SC

  14. YeomanFarmers • Most slaveholders (70 percent) belonged to the mid-level yeoman farmer class. • A Yeoman farmer might have owned as many as ten slaves, but usually worked alongside them. • 75 percent of all southerners held no slaves at all.

  15. Plain Folk in the South • 3 of 4 white families owned no slaves • Family labor • Hired workers • Not involved in market economy • Home production • Little access to public education • Illiterate • Mean as hell?

  16. Hillbillies?

  17. Why the Plain Folk didn’t despise the Planters • Economic and Personal Freedoms • Planter class had power • Racism • Political culture • Loyalty • Power (slave patrols) • Rented slaves from plantations

  18. Hated Planters Hated Blacks Hated Everybody Hinton R. Helper’s Impending Crisis of the South (1859) Andrew Johnson Mountain Whites

  19. Virginia Slave Cabinand Master’s Home

  20. Kinglsey Plantation

  21. Paternalism (or Feudalism revisited) • Agrarian society (Father is the head) • Personal responsibility for physical and moral well-being of their dependents • Master has right to obedience and labor • Slave has right to protection, guidance, subsistence, care and attention • Code of personal honor (dueling) • Loves his wife because she is weak

  22. The Southern “Belle” “Lady on a Pedestal”

  23. Mary Boykin Chesnut • Diary from Dixie

  24. Miscegenation?

  25. Justifying Slavery: Proslavery Arguments • Biblical Justification: ancient curse upon Ham, a child of Noah and other references • Historical Justification: all great civilizations participated in slavery • Legal Justification: the U.S. Constitution protected slavery w/o the word “slavery” • Racist Justification: multiple theories regarding inferiority of the black race • Sociological Justification: the black race as societal “children” that needed paternalistic guidance

  26. South Carolina’s Truth • John C. Calhoun • All men created equal was “the most false & dangerous of all political errors” • Freedom is a privilege • A reward to be earned and not for all • Minister John B. Alger • “divine arrangement of the world” • Submission of inferior to superior • Black to white • Female to male • Lower classes to upper classes

  27. Other Proslavery Apologistsfor the “Peculiar Institution” • Thomas R. Dew The Virtues of Slavery • George Fitzhugh Sociology for the South Cannibals ALL! Or Slaves w/o Masters

  28. Slaves Picking Cottonon a Mississippi Plantation

  29. Daily Toil • Slaves were expected to work an average of 14 hours per day during warm weather and 10 hours in the winter. • Work gangs of 20 to 25 slaves labored under the whip of a “slave driver” or Overseer (usually white trash) • The task system allowed slaves to finish a designated task each day at their own pace. • A normal slave was expected to pick 130 to 150 pounds of cotton a day.

  30. Slaves Using A Cotton Gin

  31. Slave Personality Stereotypes • Nat Turner-Rebellious, Surly, Hostile, Murderous • Masters pictured their slaves as happy-go lucky, docile, simple, childlike, stereotyped as • SAMBO

  32. Slave Personality “SAMBO”pattern of behavior used as a charade in front of whites [the innocent, laughing black man caricature – bulging eyes, thick lips, big smile, etc.].

  33. PC Editions -2000-03

  34. Joel Chandler Harris

  35. The Disney Version:“Song of the South”

  36. More Stereotypes

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