1. King Cotton
  2. Eli Whitney
  3. Developed cotton gin in 1793, reinvigorating the cotton industry
  4. Allowed for greater ease in separating seed from cotton tuft
  5. Allowed for short-season staple cash crops
  6. Spread cotton cultivation throughout the South, not just areas that could grow the finicky crop
  7. Resulted in rapid growth and high yield crops
  8. Results
  9. With more crops, required more labor
  10. Reinvigorated the slave system—cheap labor to harvest cotton crops
  11. Cheap cotton available to the continental and international markets
  12. Cotton shipped to North, where there a nascent factory system was developing
  13. Greater international dependence on Southern crops, particularly France and Spain
  14. Northern freight ships responsible for international shipping
  15. ***Regional specialization of work***
  1. The creation of the “planter aristocracy”
  2. Consolidating property
  3. More efficient land management and crop production through large plantation systems
  4. South responsible for 50%+ of all cotton production
  5. Majority of land held by approx. 1700 families
  6. Decentralized social settlements—few large urban centers, ports, factories, canals, and roads
  7. Aristocratic pretensions
  8. Created elite through the creation of new Southern institutions
  9. Developed private/charter schooling systems for rich families
  10. Educated women in math, science, bookkeeping, administration (to support the plantation economy)
  11. Educated men in Classics—Latin, Greek, rhetoric, law, and languages (to support states’ craft and civic participation, to justify system)
  12. Adhered to feudal ideology—Cult of true womanhood, chivalry, fealty, etc.
  13. Results of planter pretenses
  14. Increased isolation of plantation owners contributes to anti-federalist/states’ rights sentiments
  15. Increased social isolation—owners are out of touch with what is actually going on within their own plantations, and throughout the U.S.
  16. Increased tension between planter elite and all other social groups (eg. Small farmers had to sell land to prevent foreclosure, Slaves, etc)
  17. Slave society
  18. Planter aristocrats—owned 100+slaves, most of the land (see above)
  19. Small farmers—owned fewer than 10 slaves, nearly disappeared by 1860, often toiled beside their slaves
  20. Non-slaveholding whites—75% of white Southern population, often considered hillbillies, crackers, and poor white trash—most staunch supporters of slavery—as American Dream
  21. Mountain whites—isolated minority, considered both plantation owners and slaves as an abomination
  22. Free blacks—small minority, usually mulattoes in the Upper South, despised and marginalized by most other social groups (approx. 250,000)
  23. Ancestrally free
  24. Mulattooes
  25. Freed/emancipated slaves (Frederick Douglass)
  26. Slaves/human chattels—approx. 4 million
  27. Growth through natural reproduction and selective breeding
  28. Considered a commodity—rarely did risky/diseased work (left for Irish/wage earners)
  1. Acquiring Slaves
  2. The slave market
  3. Slaves were purchased at auctions, similar to those for livestock
  4. Prized characteristics
  5. Broad shoulders
  6. Small head
  7. Long arms
  8. Some English
  9. Obedience
  10. No beating marks/whip marks/scars
  11. Fertility
  12. The brutality of slave auctions were characterized in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
  13. Anti-slavery propaganda
  14. Galvanized public opinion in the North and abroad, particularly in Britain and France where slavery had long been abolished

  1. The Eugenics Movement and Slavery
  2. Eugenics was preliminary genetic manipulation, or selective breeding to exacerbate certain characteristics
  3. Used to breed healthy, strong slaves
  4. Required scrutinized intimacy
  5. Genetic/physical characteristics (esp. after Darwin) used to justify the existence of slaves
  6. Small heads—smaller cranial capacity=smaller brain
  7. Long arms—adapted trait used for cultivation, in Africa and in the U.S.
  8. Broad shoulders—inherent strength for lifting
  9. Language—Clicks, chatters, and moans denote undeveloped brain
  10. Difficult to train—many tried to runaway, req’d punishment, continued to practice native religions, songs, ceremonies (clandestinely and at great risk)
  1. Treatment of slaves
  2. Daily life—Field
  3. Field labor the most strenuous, with penalties resulting if quota not filled
  4. Although slaves could take breaks, it was rarely recommended because of interrupting production
  5. Didn’t want to pick too much, too fast=increased quota for everyone
  6. Child rearing, bowel movements, rudimentary education, and worship occurred while in the field
  7. Began before sunrise, ended after sunset
  8. Nutrition=subsistence, with some small kitchen gardens to supplement foodstuffs provided on monthly basis by owner
  9. All other activities needed to be done on slaves time—mending, tending to children, healing, ritual ceremonies
  10. Dance, music, and conversation prohibited—considered a threat to status quo
  11. Enforcement
  12. Slaves were valuable and expensive
  13. Beatings
  14. Not in best interests to beat slaves excessively
  15. Usually just enough to enforce submission
  16. Looked bad to other plantation owners
  17. Couldn’t keep control of his slaves
  18. Considered brutish and not aristocratic
  19. City and domestic slaves were better off than field slaves
  20. Often had better nutrition
  21. Some education—literacy—in order to educate children, go on errands
  22. Deprivation
  23. Environmental: Malnutrition, cholera, dysentery, intestinal worms, STDs, and scurvy were most common
  24. Social: Not allowed marriage, shared language (to inhibit communication), holidays, religious observance, and musical instruments (remind them of native land and culture)origin of blues, gospel, and call and response, homemade instruments, cultivation of percussive communication (drums), voodoo
  1. Justification and Resistance
  2. Justification for slave system—“The Peculiar Institution”
  3. Eugenics and biological Darwinism—slaves were physically inferior to whites
  4. Social Darwinism—Social status indicated social sophistication (eg., Planter aristocracy=more successful, best at what they do, slaves had to be beaten in order to work=inherent laziness)
  5. Historical—Slaves always existed, and all great societies (Republics and Empires) were built on the backs of slave labor (Greece, Rome, Egypt)
  6. Traditional—The South always had slaves
  7. Religious—Slaves were not Christian, and thus, were not quite human
  8. Slaves were illiterate and uncultured: they didn’t know what they missed
  9. Legal—Slaves were property, and thus, enjoyed the same privileges and treatment as any other piece of property
  10. Constitutional—Slaves designated apportionment in Congress, validated a State’s right to choose/rule
  11. Resistance to slavery
  12. Local resistance
  13. Sabotage
  14. Runaway
  15. Murder
  16. Organized resistance--Rebellions
  17. Denmark Vesey
  18. Nat Turner

  1. Organized African-American resistance—Abolitionism
  2. Frederick Douglass—runaway slave, writer of the Narrative Life of F.D.
  3. Sojourner Truth—Allied with white abolitionism in North
  4. Booker T. Washington—Separate But Equal—Tuskeegee and African-American self-betterment
  5. Abolitionism
  6. Foundation of Liberia (1822)—African refuge for deported ex-slaves
  7. Second Great Awakening (1830s)—Religious revivalism attempted to extend Christianity (and its tenents) to slaves and the treatment of slaves
  8. Women’s Suffrage (1840s)—Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony—strength in numbers, avoid hypocrisy
  9. Radical Abolitionism (1830s-40s)—William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe—often marginalized
  10. Underground Railroad (1850s)—Response to Dred Scott Decision and Compromise of 1850
  11. In general:
  12. Most Northerners abhorred slavery as barbaric, but was unwilling to take the strong stand for abolition
  13. Most Northern politicians didn’t want to alienate voters and force secessionism
  14. Most Northern businessmen depended on cheap Southern cotton for domestic production
  15. Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin—advertised the brutality of slavery and influenced Europe (France and Britain) from intervening on behalf of the South
  1. Political Doldrums
  2. Twilight of the “Senatorial Giants”
  3. Clay and Douglas argued concession and compromise, despite Clay being 73 in 1850—would soon die
  4. Calhoun died of TB—argued popular sovereignty, nullification, and the rights of the South
  5. Webster—7th of May Speech—argued slavery was irrelevant in the new territories since they could not cultivate cotton
  6. “Young Guard”
  7. Young Northern politicians who argued for purification from the slave system and compromise
  8. Seward and Pres. Taylor—argued for “higher law” ending compromise
  9. Forcing the issue
  10. After Pres. Taylor died in office, Pres. Millard Fillmore signed Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Law, validating compromise, popular sovereignty, and the extension of slavery into the territories
  11. Fugitive Slave Law galvanized Northern abolitionists
  12. The Transcontinental Railroad and the Kansas-Nebraska Act
  13. To ensure economic expansion, political organization, etc, railroad was proposed to connect the east and west coasts
  14. Best route proposed by the South
  15. To benefit Southern economy
  16. Route to pass through territory purchased from Mexico by Gadsden
  17. Required the organization of Kansas-Nebraska territories
  18. Kansas-Nebraska Act
  19. Allowed Kansas and Nebraska to become states—slavery decided by popular sovereignty
  20. Wrecked Missouri Compromise and Compromise of 1850
  21. Created a territorial free-for-all: slavery up for grabs

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