Chapter 13: The Old South

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CH 13 STUDY GUIDE THE Old South

PEOPLE, PLACES & EVENTS

1. The antebellum South & a slavebased agricultural economy

2. The Southern agricultural system

3. The black belt region of the South

4. Cotton Cultivation & new agricultural frontiers

5. The Upper South & wheat

6. South’s economic underdevelopment

7. Slavery as a labor system

8. Slave labor organization: the gang and task systems

9. Effects of slavery on the Southern economy

10. Manufacturing in the South

11. The slave population demographics

12. The slave population concentrations

13. Slave owners demographics

14. The aspirations pf the Tidewater planter versus the planter of the Deep South

15. The duties of an upper-class plantation mistress

16. Yeoman farmers in the South

17. The demographic backbone of southern society

18. The gang and task systems

19. The slave’s diet

20. Nat Turner’s rebellion

21. Nat Turner’s treatment as a slave

22. The results of Nat Turner’s revolt

23. The most common form of slave resistance

24. The slave family

25. Slave religion

26. Free blacks in the South

27. Unifying factors in the Old South

28. Post1830 Southern defense of slavery

30. The pro-slavery argument

31. The pro-slavery argument developed in the 1830s

32. Factors unifying southerners and northerners

33. Slave revolts in Noth America and Latin America

COMPLETION

  1. [ ] was the major source of southern wealth and the major stimulus to national economic growth.
  2. The most typical white Southerner, outnumbering all other categories three to one, owned (in terms of quantity) [ ] slaves.
  3. Within the slave community, the [ ] enjoyed the highest status.
  4. In the organization of slave labor, under the [ ] system a specific assignment was given to each slave, with the incentive that the workday was over when it was completed.
  5. The traditional head of the slave family was the [ ].
  6. The most common form of slave resistance was [ ].
  7. Particularly disturbing to southerners was the 1832 revolt led by the slave [ ].
  8. The politics of slavery in the South meant that southern candidates would accuse their opponents of being [ ].
  9. A major difference between slavery in North America and Latin America is that in Latin America [ ] were much more frequent.

MATCHING: DIXIE DIVERSITY

a. Deep South slave owners / 1. owned half the total population of slaves
b. Tidewater slave owners / 2. owned just a few slaves
c. Upper South slave owners / 3. owned 20 to 50 slaves or more
d. the planter class of slave owners / 4. owned no slaves
e. most southern slave owners / 5. had to sell off surplus slaves
f. all southern slave owners / 6. totaled about a quarter of the South’s white population
g. yeoman farmers / 7. backbone of southern society (i.e. majority of southern white population)
h. poor whites / 8. controlled 90% of the South’s wealth
i. all of the above / 9. selfmade entrepreneurs who had risen from common backgrounds
10. nicknamed crackers or sandhillers
11. modeled their lives after the English country gentry
12. defended the southern slave system

IDENTIFICATION QUESTIONS

Students should be able to describe the following key terms, concepts, individuals, and places, and explain their significance:

Terms and Concepts

black belt / staple crops
cotton kingdom / yeoman farmers
poor whites / peculiar institution
Virginia debate of 1832 / miscegenation

Individuals and Places

Upper South / piedmont
Deep South / Tidewater
Denmark Vesey / Nat Turner

MAP IDENTIFICATIONS

Students have been given the following map exercise: On the map on the following page, label or shade in the following places. In a sentence, note their significance to the chapter.

  1. black belt
  2. Deep South
  3. Upper South
  4. border states
  5. cotton kingdom
  6. area of rice production
  7. area of sugar production (sugar bowl)
  8. Tidewater
  9. Piedmont
  10. Mississippi River
  11. New Orleans
  12. Charleston
  13. South Carolina
  14. Virginia

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