Name: ______Per. ____ Date: ______
Chapter 14 Lesson 4-People of the South (pg. 391-397)
It matters because… enslaved Africans faced many hardships but were able to establish family lives, religious beliefs, and a distinct culture.
Southern Agriculture (pg. 391-393)
Guiding question: How were Southern farms different from Southern plantations?
Create a simple t-chart to show the differences between Yeomen and Plantation Owners:
Slavery was at the heart of the Southern economy, but not every white person owned large numbers of slaves.
- White society in the South was tricky and had many levels (or different groups of people).
- Most white Southerners fit into one of four categories:
1. yeomen 2. tenant farmer 3. rural poor 4. plantation owner
Yeomen :
- farmers, usually owned small farms (50-200 acres); lived mostly in Upper South
- did not practice plantation-style agriculture(farming)
- grew crops for themselves and for trade
- owned very few or no slaves
Tenant Farmer:
- whites who rented land from property owners.
- Along with yeomen, made up the majority of the white population of the South
- Lived in simple homes, cottages, or log cabins.
Rural Poor:
- Lived in crude cabins
- Stubborn and independent
- Looked down upon by many people, but proud of their ability to provide for their families.
Plantation Owners:
- Owned large amounts of land (several thousand acres)
- Wealth was determined by how many slaves the plantation owner owned
- Making money ($), earning a profit was the main goal for owners of large plantations
- Large plantations had fixed costs (cost of feeding the workers and housing the workers). Fixed costs remain basically the same year after year.
- Plantation owners were almost always men
- Women tended to the workers if they became ill, took care of the households, and kept the plantation’s financial records (bookkeeping).
Keeping a plantation running involved the following tasks/jobs(mostly all of these done by slaves)
1. Cleaning of the house
2. Cooking during the day
3. Laundry during the day
4. Sewing that needed to be done
5. Serving of meals
6. Blacksmiths
7. Carpenters
8. Shoemakers
9. Weavers
10. Taking care of the livestock (animals)
11. Working as* field hands on the plantation. These slaves worked from sunrise to sunset to plant, tend to, and harvest crops for the plantation owner. (12 -14 hour days working in the fields) [ *most slaves had this job]
An overseer was a plantation manager whose job it was to supervise the slaves (field hands) on the plantation for the plantation owner. [ watch over the slaves and make sure they are working and being productive for the owner]
The Lives of Enslaved People (pg. 393 – 396)
How did enslaved African Americans try to cope (deal with) their lack of freedom?
- The fate/life of most enslaved African Americans was filled with hardship and misery(sadness)
- Slaves worked hard, earned no money, and had little hope of freedom
- Slaves lived daily with the threat of knowing that an owner could sell them (or members of their family without any warning.
- In spite of all this, enslaved African Americans tried to build some stability in their lives and the lives of their family.
- Slaves developed a culture all their own that blended African and American elements.
- Slaves came up with clever/smart ways to resist slavery.
African American Family Life (pg. 393)
- The law did not recognize slave marriages; however, slave people did marry and raise families. This provided comfort and support for them.
- A slave owner could break a family apart at any time if they chose to; if the slaveholder died – families could be and often were separated from each other.
- Slaves set up a network of relatives and friends to help if a mother or father was separated from their children. These networks provided a source of strength and comfort in the lives of slaves. These large, close-knit extended families became a very important part of African American culture.
African American Culture (pg. 394)
- In 1808, Congress banned the importing of slaves(bringing slaves into the country). Slavery remained legal, but traders could no longer purchase enslaved people from other countries. Some illegal trading continued, but by 1860, almost all of the enslaved people in the South had been born there.
African American Religion (pg. 394)
- Many African American slaves accepted the Christian religion that was dominant in the United States.
- Christianity became for slaves, a religion of hope and resistance. Slaves prayed for their freedom.
- Slaves expressed their feelings and beliefs through spirituals – African American religious folk songs.
- Spirituals helped slaves express their joy --- but also their sadness about their suffering here on Earth.
- Spirituals were also used to communicate secretly to each other without the overseer or slave owner finding out
Slave Codes (pg. 395)
- Slave codes (also called Black Codes or Negro Laws), were laws in the Southern states that controlled slave people.
- The purpose of slave codes was to prevent what white Southerners feared most, a slave rebellion.
- Slave codes said that slaves could not gather in large groups, had to have passes in writing before leaving the slaveowner’s property, were not allowed to learn how to read and write (to prevent a slave from rebelling).
Fighting Back (pg. 395-396)
- Slaves did sometimes rebel (fight back) against their owners.
- Nat Turner, in 1831, led a slave rebellion. He was able to go on a brief, violent rampage in Virginia killing about 55 whites. Nat Turner was eventually captured and hanged.
- Other ways slaves resisted slavery was by working slowly or by pretending to be sick.
- Sometimes slaves might set fire to a plantation building or break tools.
Escaping Slavery(pg. 396)
- Slaves also resisted slavery by running away from their owners
- The goal of slaves was to often find relatives on other plantations
- Slaves sometimes left to escape punishment
- Some slaves tried to run away to freedom in the North
- Harriet Tubman was a famous, African American woman who led slaves to freedom in the North via the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was not a railroad and was not underground. It was a secret network of men and women who helped slaves get from slavery in the Upper South to freedom in the North.
Primary Source: “They(slaves) hide themselves during the day in the woods and swamps; at night they travel. In these dangerous journeys they are guided by the North –Star, for they only know that the land of freedom is in the North.”
- The danger of running away was being captured. Most runaway slaves were caught and returned to their owners. The owners punished them severely, usually by whipping.
Southern Cities(pg. 397)
- Though mostly agricultural, the South had several large cities by the mid-1800’s, including Baltimore and New Orleans.
- The 10 largest cities in the South were either seaports or river ports.
- Free African Americans formed their own communities in Southern cities. They practiced trades and founded churches yet their rights were limited.
- Most states did not allow them to move from state to state.
- Free African Americans did not have the same rights and freedoms as free whites did.
- In the early 1800’s, there were not statewide public school systems in the South.
- People who could afford to send their children to private schools did so (this was not many).
- The South lagged behind other parts of the country in literacy – the ability to read and write.
- This was due to the South having a much smaller population than the North and being thinly populated.