Slavery’s Defenders & Critics

Proslavery Ideology & Antislavery Sentiments in an

Age of Reform, 1830-1860

Market Revolutions

• Eli Whitney & the cotton gin (1793)

• Long vs. short staple cotton

• Industrial textiles– Lowell, MA

• Slavery revival• Abolitionism• Western migration– Anglos to Texas

King Cotton

• Dark Sweat, White Gold

• 1815-60: US Cotton makes up ½ all exports

• World supplier of cotton

• 1817: 500K bales• 1860: 4.8 million

Transportation Revolution

• Significance?• Widening markets• Economies of scale• Interdependency of

states• Passenger

travel/migration• Freedom of mobility

Energy Sources

• Human muscle, horses, oxes, mules

• Food (plants and animals)

• Hay• Prairie grass: Mississippi

River to Rockies– Eaten by horses

• Wood: 40 cords per year (North)

• Steam boilers & engines• Falling water (rivers,

streams)

Erie Canal: Albany to Buffalo

• 1817-1825; 350 miles• New York to New

Orleans: 2 weeks• Shipping Costs– 1/10th land transport

• Passenger travel

The Ambivalence of Thomas Jefferson

• “a necessary evil”• Slavery & virtue• Liberty & equality vis-

à-vis slavery• Notes on the State of

Virginia• Tyranny for master &

slave

From Ambivalence to Defense• Proslavery Ideology

(1830-)– Civilizing force• Christianity &

savagism– Paternalism• Father & children• Slavery vs. wage

slavery• Worker’s rights &

protections• Safety net

Proslavery Ideology & Racism

• White supremacy• Notes on Virginia– Psuedo-science

• Sambo stereotype• Regretful runaways– Rigors of capitalist

society• Wages of whiteness

George Fitzhugh & the Proslavery Argument (1854)

• Anti-free labor system

• Wage slavery• Evils of competition• Southern paternalism

vs. Northern greed• Famine vs. hospitality• Doc. 67

Slavery, Ideology, and Land Use

• Southern acidic soils• Fertilizer scarce• Shifting cultivation

regime– Fallow land– 67% idle– Land-hungry

• Northern continuous cultivation– 35% unimproved

White Non-Slaveholders of the South• 25% of South owned slaves– 3% owned 50+ (Great

Planters)– $1800 prime hand

(1860)• Dream of owning a slave– Not competing with free

slaves on labor market– Privilege of skin color

• Doc. 66

Slavery’s Critics

• Runaways– 1,000 per year– Underground

Railroad• Northern states• Canada• Fugitive slaves• Rebellions– The Amistad (1839)

Slave Rebellion

• Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831)– Virginia– Divine providence– 80 slaves, 60 dead

whites (women & children

• Doc. 70, Confessions of Nat Turner (1831)

Antislavery Movements

• Colonization schemes– Africa, Caribbean, Central

America– Monrovia, Liberia– White republic

• William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator (1831)– Militant abolitionism– Wide publications, North

& South– Doc. 73

Abolitionist Movement• Slavery as sin– unrestrained power

• 250K members– White urban women

• Northern fringe– Attack on early feminism– Proslavery ideology– Racism– Whig factory owners

(cotton)– Political divisive (slavery)

Early Feminism in the United States

• Domestic Ideology• Reform Impulse– Temperance– Anti-Prostitution– Urban vice– Prisons & asylums– Anti-slavery

• Margaret Fuller, New York Tribune (1844)

Feminism & Antislavery

• Catharine Beecher vs. Angelina and Sarah Grimké

• Domestic vs. public sphere

• Slavery of sex• Doc. 75-76