Name ______

APUSH (4, #5)Date ______Pd ______

Slavery & the Antebellum South

I. King Cotton & the Southern Slave Economy

A. The Rise of “King Cotton”

  1. Southern cotton was the driving force behind the U.S. economy from 1790 to 1840

2.Short-staple cotton & cotton gin led to Cotton led to westward expansion & the spread of slavery

  1. Expansion into the “Black Belt”: “Alabama Fever,” Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas & Texas
  2. The Upper South developed an internal slave trade to sell surplus slaves to the Lower South

B. Slavery in a Changing World

1.Sectionalism became evident in the antebellum era: Abolitionism in North & “essential” slavery in South

  1. The South had fewer cities, factories & railroads by choice (not by ignorance)

II. Antebellum Southern Society

A. Southern society was divided by caste, class, & region with a stratified social hierarchy ruled by a “slave-ocracy”

B. White Society in the Antebellum South

1.Less than 2.5% of white Southerners were rich plantation owners

  1. Only about 25% of Southern whites owned slaves, most had 1-2 slaves & worked intimately with them
  2. Yeomen farmers were self-reliant & did not own slaves but saw abolition as threat to the Southern way of life

C. Black Society in the Antebellum South

1.Distribution of Slaves

a.Most slaves lived in large, cash crop farms with at least 20 or more slaves in the “Black Belt’

  1. 55% of slaves worked in cotton, 15% were domestic servants, 20% were in rice, sugar, or tobacco
  1. Slave Culture
  2. Family life was difficult due to the threat of family break-up
  3. Families on large plantations were more stable than families on small farms
  4. Black Christianity was the center for slave culture
  5. Richard Allan created the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
  6. Whites supervised religious services but the “real” religion on plantations occurred at night
  7. Free blacks in the South were restricted, “recaptured,” or forced to emigrate

III. Defending Slavery?

A. Arguments for slavery

1. Defense of slavery included the Bible, Constitution, African cultural, & a good alternative to Northern industry

2. Southerners grew defensive about abolitionism causing slave rebellions or loss of yeoman support for slavery

B. Arguments against slavery

1. Antislavery laws included the Northwest Ordinance, state constitutions, & restriction on slave trade

2. Abolitionists cited the barbarity of slavery

C. Resistance and Rebellion

1. The most common forms of slave resistance were work slowdowns, sabotage, & runaway (Underground RR)

2. Slave revolts were less common: Gabriel Prosser (1800), Denmark Vesey (1822), & Nat Turner (1833)

IV. Worlds in Conflict