Lecture S12 -- Slavery and Southern Culture
Key Terms:
Gang System
Slavery and the Problem of Labor
Problem of Labor: The economic development of North America required a labor pool in order to carry out the work desired by those who controlled the land and other resources necessary for the work. In each region, this played out differently for a variety of reasons. Many solutions were adopted:
Self-Employment: Family farms and artisans combined labor and the owners of the means of production (capital) in the same hands and worked for themselves. This was common in any frontier zone, and remained the dominant mode in New England until the nineteenth century.
Wage Labor: If a pool of people who could work but lacked the means of production to employ themselves built up, then wage labor tended to develop. Wage labor gradually replaced self-employment in manufacturing as factories undercut people’s ability to support themselves as independent artisans, and in agriculture as land ceased to be available and the population outstripped the supply of family farms.
Slave Labor: Slave labor developed where wage incentives were insufficient to induce labor to enter a field of production that would benefit from large scale endeavors. White indentured servitude failed in the South and was gradually replaced by slave labor. Once in place, the system became self-perpetuating. But at the same time, it meant the dominant population had to live in constant fear.
The Cotton Gin: In the 1780s, slavery appeared likely to remain marginal. The cotton gin changed all that. It allowed cultivation of short-staple cotton that could be grown far from the humid coasts, unlike the rice and long-staple cotton grown on the coast. It made cotton processing easy to carry out on each plantation and combined with the booming demand for raw material for English textile mills in the decades to come, it revived Southern slavery and led to its rapid extension across the old Southwest. In 1800, the South grew 73,000 bales (500 pounds each) of cotton. By 1850, 2 million bales a year.
The Demands of the Crop: Cottonrequired near year-round tending; combined with the need to do repairs, clear ground, etc, during the year, this made it a very suitable crop for slavery. It also left just enough time free for slaves to grow some of their own food; corn was low maintenance and was planted and harvested at different times from cotton.
The End of the Slave Trade: Things were further shaped by the end of the slave trade after 1808. American slave owners had to modify their practices in order to ensure a future supply of slaves; they had to make sure their slaves could reproduce without constant infusions of more slaves.
The Plantation System
Size: Many different sizes of farms; those with 20 or more slaves tended to make the biggest profits; 5 percent of white farmers (the plantation class) owned 40% of the slaves, cotton output, and agricultural wealth. Their large farms let them claim the best land and to afford to experiment with new methods.
Gang system: The gang system divided slaves into gangs, work groups, typically sorted by skill, experience, health, and age. Each gang was assigned different kinds of tasks (at different times of the year)—children watched over the livestock, the elderly might engage in weeding and cleaning up after the other gangs, the healthiest men and women would work in the fields to clear the fields, plant the seed and harvest it later, and so on. They were overseen by overseers and drivers; in some cases, one slave would be chosen to oversee the others, sometimes it was whites.
Absenteeism: Many plantation owners spent some chunk of the year away from home, leaving a hireling to oversee production while they engaged in politics and socializing in one of the local cities.
Stifling Urban Development: In the plantation districts, most towns were quite small; large cities rarely arose in the heavy plantation areas, which were divided into many plantations, except for the major port cities. Slaveowners feared urban development would spur abolitionist sentiments. Fewer than one in 10 Southerners lived in a city in 1850.
Urban Slavery: City slavery declined from 1820 to 1860, from 22 to 10% of the slave population. Slaveowners feared to use slaves in manufacturing for fear of instilling pretensions in their head and because manufacturing required incentive systems to spur production. It also made it harder to monitor slaves. Only 5% of Lower South slaves worked in manufacturing.
The Profits of Slavery:
Average Profit: Slaveowners could expect a 10% return each year on their investment in slavery; this was as good as most other investments or better.
Use of Profits: Most slaveowners plowed their profits either into expanding the size of their slave force and/or plantation, and in conspicuous consumption of manufactured goods.
Rising Demand: Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the demand for cotton was ever growing; rising production thus failed to undercut prices, creating prosperity for the cotton producers.
Slave Value: The closing of the external slave trade created an internal slave trade, as the plantation owners always wanted more slaves. The Upper South had too many slaves; the Lower South had not enough. Demand pushed the price of a male slave from $250 in 1815 to $900 by 1860. Some 800,000 slaves were moved around internally by 1860.
The Upper South
Upper South vs. Lower South: Most of the Lower South was prime cotton land;
most of the Upper South lacked the right soil and long growing season for
production of cotton, rice, or sugar. Slavery in the Upper South centered around
tobacco. As a result, slavery was less important in the Upper South, and small
farming was more common. 66% of whites lived in the Upper South, owning
only 45% of the slaves.
Tobacco’s Limits: Tobacco tended to tear up the countryside, forcing farmers to constantly seek out new land for it, which was not infinite in volume. This contributed to the decline of Upper South slavery.
Economic Depression: As a result, the upper south sank into depression until the 1850s. Many people left the area for the Lower South and points west. It only recovered due to a new emphasis on free labor.
Revival:
Agricultural Reform: The economic crisis prompted the development of new agricultural methods, pioneered by Edmund Ruffin. He promoted the use of marl to refresh the soil, deeper plowing, systematic rotation of crops and upgrading of breeding stock. (p. 280.)
Agricultural Diversification: Farmers increasingly moved into new areas of farming, shifting to grain and livestock production
Urbanization: The cities of the Upper South now began to develop industry and manufacturing, based on free labor. They boomed, and plantation agriculture declined in strength.
Decline of Slavery: Slavery lost ground across the Upper South, especially in the Border States. This was hastened by the export of slaves to the Lower South. Free labor was better suited for general farming and manufacturing. By 1860:
Delaware: Slaves 2%
Maryland: 13%
Kentucky: 19%
Missouri: 10%
Virginia: 31% (down from 39% in 1830)
Saint Louis and Baltimore: 1% (Industrial Cities)
Industry struggled to make efficient use of slavery. The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond used slave labor, but couldn't rely on it: "Even with these tighter restrictions, slave labor didn’t prove as lucrative as Anderson hoped. In 1847 Tredegar’s white workers struck in protest of Anderson’s requirement that they labor beside and train slaves; Anderson fired the strikers, increasing the number of slaves at Tredegar from 41 to 117 in a year. But profits plummeted from nearly $58,000 in 1846 to $9,000 in 1848, returning to earlier levels only when Anderson could attract more skilled white laborers. From 1850 to 1860, as the number of white workers tripled from 250 to 750, the number of slaves declined by 20 percent, from 100 to 80. Whatever Anderson wanted to believe about the benefits of slave labor, as a businessman he couldn’t ignore its cost. The more successful slave trading — still Richmond’s most lucrative business — became, the more expensive it was to hire out slaves, especially skilled laborers. "[1]
The Culture of Slavery and the South
1860: 4 Million slaves (5 times 1789 levels)
Creolization:
Imports vs. Creoles: During the slave trade period, there had been at times, on-going conflict between ‘Creoles’—the slaves born in the Americas—and the recently imported slaves, who had a stronger cultural memory of Africa. American slave culture combined elements of this cultural memory with European practices and ideas.
Creolization: After 1808, the slave trade ended, and further African cultural importation ceased; American slavery now developed its own culture; the process of the internal slave trade helped to spread this culture around.
Development of Family Life: Under the early slavery system, most slaves did not develop families; many died too quickly and there was a strong imbalance of males and females. This was never quite as bad in North America as in the Caribbean; after 1808, planters strongly encouraged the development of families, in order to keep order and to promote slave reproductin.
Christianization: The final major component of Creolization was the Christianizing of the slaves; before the Second Great Awakening, slaveowners were often reluctant to allow slaves to be preached to, for fear of around expectations of freedom among them. Most early slaves continued to be Islamic or Pagan. The Second Great Awakening converted many plantation owners, who now opened the doors to controlled slave religion.
Family Life:
Monogamy: Despite slave-owners deluding themselves that slaves were sexually crazed, most slave marriages were monagamous, in part likely due to the Christianization of the slaves, and in part due to the realities of the situation.
Unofficially Official: Slave marriages had no legal standing in the eyes of the state; families could be broken up at the owner’s whim. Slaves took it all the more seriously, and many masters encouraged the practice. Still a third of marriages were broken up by sales.
Cross-Plantation Marriages: Most marriages were internal to the plantation, but a large number happened between adjacent plantations, which could make co-habitation difficult.
Private Quarters: When possible, families arranged to have their own little house; those who could secure this were able to have a better family life than those who could not; the style of slave quarters varied greatly by plantation.
Male and Female Roles: Men had to struggle with the state of slavery rendering them impotent to fully take up the expected role of provider and protector; female slaves had to struggle with trying to perform all the expected female duties (cooking, cleaning, child-raising, etc) while also being expected to conduct gang labor. Gender expectations tended to be similar to those of the local white society, when possible. Female slaves did receive some help from the elderly women, who typically had less work to do, and from kin. A common female custom was making quilts which incorporated information about family histories or information about escaping slavery. (p. 285)
Sexual Abuse: The vulnerability of slave women to sexual abuse of various kinds by their masters put further strain on family life; many male slaves suffered beatings or abuse when trying to stop this.
Short Childhood: Slaves had to grow up fast; by around six or seven, they would start to be put to work in light labor. Nevertheless, slaves cherished their children, though they were often powerless to protect them from white abuse.
Kinfolk Networks: While the sale and export of slaves could shuffle families around, most slaves grew up as part of an extended family who would support each other as best they could; often they were spread across multiple plantations. At the same time, the slaves followed African custom by banning marriages by cousins or closer relatives and naming children after departed grandparents.
Slave Religious Life:
(Slide picture is from the Autobiography of the Reverend Josiah Henson, an escaped slave, p. 30)
African Faith: The early generations of slaves were pagan or Islamic in faith; much of the organized practice of their religion was squelched or lost due to a lack of the appropriate priests and loremasters. What remained was a collection of worship practices, songs, stories, and garbled lore.
Persisting Supersititions: One of the major forms of survival of African religious life was varying degrees of belief in ‘Obeah men’, lore masters sometimes believed to have supernatural powers, mastery over spirits, and medical skills. Slaveowners tried to stamp this out with only mixed success.
African Music: African musical practices also endured and shaped the forms of religious music developed by slaves who converted to Christianity; there was an emphasis on group singing and dancing in unison.
Christianization: About thirty percent of slaves seem to have become dedicated Christians; many more seem to have played along enough to get their masters off their back. Slaves took their Christianity in different directions than their masters would have approved of.
Evangelicalism: This process began with the work of evangelical ministers, usually Baptists and Methodists. The message of spiritual equality appealed to the slaves, and it was easy for slaves to form their own congregations and gain their own black ministers (when the masters allowed it, anyway). Slaves hid their religious life from whites when possible
Gospel of Obedience: After the Second Great Awakening, many masters became religious themselves, and tried to shape slave religion to preach obedience to them; the slaves played along when the Master was watching.
Living Conditions:
Food: Slaves typically received meager rations from their masters of cornmeal and salt pork; they were expected to supplement this by growing food as well; some masters allowed them to tend their own private plots in their (small amounts of) time off. Slaves did not eat well, though they had the advantage over poor whites that they had a guaranteed minimal food level. In good times, poor southern whites ate better; in bad times, the poor whites might well eat worse.
Clothing: Slaves typically got two sets of clothing; one for warm times, one for the cold season. This was typically inadequate; slave children especially had a tendency to end up semi-naked.
Housing: Housing varied greatly by plantation, but commonly, each family had its own small one or two room cabin; slaves had to make their own furniture. Cooking was frequently done collectively. A typical cabin was fifteen by fifteen feet, one room.
Medicine: About 20% of the population of a plantation was sick at any given time. Slaves typically had more access to medicine than poor whites and less access than their owners; medical care was fairly minimal and crisis oriented. Medicine in general in the period was not too great anyway.
Work Routines:
Slave Codes: The slave codes dictated the status of slaves and the rights of masters; they gave near absolute power to masters. Slaves could frequently be killed by their owners at will, and abused as they desired. Slaves could not testify in courts against whites or marry or have their own property. They couldn’t make contracts, own guns, or leave plantations without their master’s permission. These codes enabled masters to work their slaves brutally. At the same time, the need to keep from wiping out the slave population put pressure to mitigate the worst possible cruelties.
Plantation Rules: Each Plantation had its own rules as well, driving the cycle of the year.
The Overseer: Many plantation owners were partly to entirely absentee, leaving the direction of work in the hands of a white overseer, who might be assisted by one or more white or black drivers.
The Driver: Drivers directed specific work gangs. Black drivers had special privileges due to their positions, and sometimes abused them, becoming petty tyrants.
Gang system: The gang system divided slaves into gangs, work groups, typically sorted by skill, experience, health, and age. Each gang was assigned different kinds of tasks (at different times of the year)—children watched over the livestock, the elderly might engage in weeding and cleaning up after the other gangs, the healthiest men and women would work in the fields to clear the fields, plant the seed and harvest it later, and so on. They were overseen by overseers and drivers; in some cases, one slave would be chosen to oversee the others, sometimes it was whites.
House vs.Field Slaves: Some slaves worked as domestics or artisans (15-20%), and were much like white servants, except for even more beatings than whites got. They often were looked down on by (and looked down on) the field slaves, who worked the fields.