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COTTON AND EXPANSION IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST
• The South was the ideal place to grow cotton
• Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin made growing cotton very profitable
• After the War of 1812 Alabama and Mississippi became ideal places for growing cotton
• Industrial Rev. made spinning and weaving of cotton easier and the demand for cotton grew
SLAVE SOCIETY IN A CHANGING WORLD
• 1808 importation of slaves became illegal
• Demand for cotton led to a higher demand for slave labor in the South
• King Cotton was supreme in the south and southerners relied on the slave labor
• South lagged behind the north in industrialization so cotton was their main source or revenue
• Slave states were losing their political dominance b/c their population was not keeping up with the North's
• More than half of the slave owners owned more than 5 slaves but 75% of the slaves lived in groups of ten or more
• Internal Slave Trade- owners sold the slaves to the people in the Old Southwest
• Owners sold slaves and separated families only for profits
• Most slaves were sold in their teens and separated from their families
• Slaves were inspected at auctions and buyers seldom cared about keeping families together
• 75% of all slaves were field workers and worked from “can see to can’t see”
• When they were to old to work they took on other tasks like taking care of the children
• House Servants- provided all of the services necessary to maintain the home but were the 1st to flee
• Some slaves were artisans, weavers, seamstress, carpenters and blacksmiths
• Slaves were property who were bought, sold, worked but never abused (according to the owner)
• Slave population grew from a high fertility rate
• Slaves were often in poor health and average life expectancy in 1850 was 30-33
• Most southern states it was against the law to teach the slaves how to read and marriage was illegal
• Owners encouraged marriage (to keep them calm) and kids (to sell them off)
• 1 in 5 marriages ended and 1 in 3 kids were sold off
AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION
• African Americans were deeply religious and it was a form of unity among them and a method of expressing their feelings
• 2nd Great Awakening- religious revival among slaves and southerners in the 1790s
• Religion gave slaves a method of survival
REVOLT, RESISTANCE AND FREEDOM
• Harriet Tubman freed 60-70 slaves along the Underground Railroad
• Nat Turner Revolt- preacher and a slave led a revolt in 1831 killing 55 whites
• Turner was later captured and executed
• Gabriel’s Rebellion- failed revolt in Virginia
• Black Codes were passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of free black people
• Blacks were often falsely accused of crimes
• Many poor southern whites were tenant farmers
• Yeoman- small independent farmers of the South
• Communities would often come together to do large tasks
SMALL SLAVE OWNERS
• Largest group of slave owners were small yeoman farmers
• Slave owning elite made up 2.5% of the population and had political control
• Treatment of slaves varied from owner to owner
• Beatings, rape, whippings were all common
DEFENSE OF SLAVERY
• Defenders of slavery felt it was a Constitutional right
• Denmark Vesey’s Conspiracy- attempt to seize Charleston and escape to Haiti but was betrayed by fellow slaves
• South began to close ranks in defense of slavery after Nat Turner’s Revolt
• Northerner William Lloyd Garrison wrote the Liberator which became the leading antislavery newspaper
• Many southerners disliked anyone that attacked slavery
• Few owned slaves in the South but it was a way of life for them