Chapter 7, Section 4 Antebellum Georgia
Georgia’s Economy
Between 1839 and 1860, Georgia’s cotton production increased_115___ percent. Most of Georgia’s farms were _less than___ 100 acres. Only 3,550 farms had 500 acres and could be called_plantations__.The land itself did not cost much, so a plantation owner’s _worth___was largely measured by_the number of slaves he owned_____.Only _40___ percent of all Georgians owned slaves.
Major Georgia slave markets were Augusta, _Louisville____, __Macon___,and _Savannah___. The value of a slave was determined by the cost of a pound of _cotton___. By 1860, a slave could cost as much as $__1800.00__.
Most manufacturing in Georgia grew out of _agriculture__. Georgiahad 1,890 _factories___ by 1860, a very small _industrial___ base compared to that of a comparable _northern__ state.
During this era, a young doctor set up his medical practice in _Jefferson__, Georgia. Dr. _Crawford Long___ was the first to use _ether__ as an anesthetic during an operation on a patient. Before this, patients were usually _awake___ during an entire surgery.
*Cotton mills, brick & pottery factories, grist mills, iron factories
Education
Most Georgians had little _education___. Sons of _wealthy__planters had private teachers called _tutors__, they went to private _academies___. In 1850, about _20%____ of Georgia’s whites were illiterate. About half of the population of children were _black____, and they did _not_____ attend school. Georgia’s 1858 legislature set aside_$100,000.00___ to begin free schools, but plans were delayed because of thestart of the __Civil War______. In 1851, _GA Military Institute____was founded in Marietta; the Georgia Academy for the _blind____ was begun in Macon; and in 1859, Georgia’s first law school was established in __Athens____.
Religion
Georgia was caught up in the Great _Revival___ movement. Religious revivals were in the form of _camp____ meetings, and they wereespecially popular among_Methodists___. Church membership grew in the _South/1850s__. Methodist and _Baptist___ were the largest _denominations___. Other religious groups grew as well. There were a few _segregated___ churches, but _slaves__ attended the same churches as their owners.
_Slavery___ caused divisiveness among some denominations. For example, Baptists in the South left the _American___ _Baptist__ Unionwhen its foreign mission board would _not___ accept slave owners as missionaries.
Georgia Politics (Wow, lots of changes!)
*Fugitive Slave Act
In the _1840s__, Georgia’s two main political were the _Democrats___ and the _Whigs__.
Democrats supported _states’_ rights and _slavery__. Leaders were Herschel _V. Johnson___, Joseph _E. Brown___, and U.S. Congressman _Howell Cobb___.
Whigs favored a moderate protective _tariff__ and _federal___help for the South. Leaders were congressmen, Robert_Toombs____and __Alexander____ Stephens. Cobb, Stephens, and Toombs persuaded the Georgians to accept the _Compromise___ of 1850. This“_Georgia Platform__” was adopted at a convention in Milledgeville.
Later, Cobb, Stephens, and Toombs joined the Constitutional _Union____
Party, which eventually broke up; then they joined the Democrats. Other Whigs later joined the Know_Nothing_ party.
The Know Nothings were against immigrants becoming _citizens_, and they did not want anyone born outside the U.S. to hold _political__office.
Democrats became the leading party. Democrat Joseph__E. Brown__became _governor_ . He brought about _railroad__ reform and used the money from the state-owned _railroads__ to fund public_education__.