The South: Slavery and Abolition

1. The South, Slavery, and Abolition

2. Southern Agriculture • At first tobacco, rice, indigo • Cotton booms and need for slaves rises • Cotton gin removes seeds faster and easier, south becomes almost all agricultural

3. Southern Society • 1/3 of southerners owned slaves, half of them were plantation owners (more than 20 slaves) • Most were yeomen –small farmers with a few acres and 1-2 slaves • Tenant farmers –don’t own the land, pay % of crops to land owners • Poor white –lived in shacks, hunt/fish

4. Slave Life and Culture • Work sunup to sundown • Age 10 until physically unable • Fieldwork, house slaves • Considered property, families sold and broken apart • Whippings, beating, poor living conditions, set examples, broken feet/toes for runaways caught • Spirituals– mix of African folktales and Christianity • Slave codes– laws that restricted slaves freedom, can’t travel, learn to read, carry a gun

5. Challenging Slavery • Small ways to fight back: fake sick, work slowly, break/hide tools • Attempts to escape, underground railroad- secret routes to north, safehouses, signals • Nat Turner’s Rebellion– led slaves in VA, killed over 50 whites, rebellion put down and slaves executed

6. AbolitionMovement • Abolition– movement to end slavery, abolitionists • Emancipation– freeing of the slaves • Northerners who were educated, Quakers, upper class women, ministers • William Lloyd Garrison-- started anti-slavery newspaper– Liberator • Grimke sisters– from SC slave holding family, move north and speak out against it

7. African Americans Challenge Slavery • Frederick Douglass– taught himself to read as a slave, escaped, gave speeches all over, AA newspaper (North Star), wrote books • Harriet Tubman– famous conductor on Underground RR, “Grandma Moses”, never lost a person on escapes