SLAVERY IN THE ANTEBELLUM PERIOD

The “Peculiar Institution” – this is what white southerners often called slavery because they felt it was distinctive and special; the South was the only place in the Western world (except Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico) where slavery still existed; slavery “isolated” the South from the rest of American society.

SLAVE CODES

  • Slavery was established and regulated in detail by state law.
  • These codes prevented slaves from owning land, leaving the master’s premises without permission, going out after dark, congregating with other slaves, carrying firearms, striking a white even in self-defense, learning to read and write, testifying against a white person, and legally marrying or divorcing.
  • Definitions of race included anyone with any black ancestry.
  • Enforcement was spotty and uneven by the state … most owners administered rules and punishment, and thus, there was a great variety to the conditions under which slaves lived.

LIFE UNDER SLAVERY

  • Relationships between whites and slaves varied. Smaller plantations were more varied, but in general slaves had closer contact with their owners. Many slaves preferred to live on large plantations where they could have more privacy and a chance to build a cultural and social world of their own.
  • Labor systems:

“task system” – slave assigned specific tasks each day and when they finished, they were done for the day

“gang system” – slaves were assigned to a group, directed by a driver, and worked as long as the overseer considered a reasonable work day; this was far more common

  • Slaves received enough necessities to live and work, including an adequate diet (cornmeal, salt pork, molasses, and special occasions meat or poultry). They often cultivated gardens for their own use. The were given cheap clothing and shoes, and lived in clustered cabins (“slave quarters”).
  • Female slaves– most difficult b/c they often had hard labor, chores traditional to women (cooking, childrearing, etc.), plus they often had to function as single parents when their children’s fathers worked elsewhere
  • Population – importation of slavery was made illegal in 1808, but the American slave population had a natural population increase (the only country where this happened), although it still increased more slowly than the white population because of the slaves’ high mortality rate, particularly for children.
  • Working conditions:

Cotton production less arduous than sugar, etc. and masters protected their slaves becuase couldn’t import them anymore

Slave children generally kept from hard work until adolescence (masters claimed it improved loyalty and improved health to keep children from hard labor).

Owners often hired-out for the most dangerous jobs in order to protect their investment (ex: Irish immigrants used to clear swamps – if there was an accident, the owner could just hire another worker)

Many slaves were left in the hands of overseers who had less of a stake in their survival.

Household servants often had it physically easier, but were often isolated from slave culture and vulnerable to punishment and sexual abuse. They were the first to flee upon emancipation.

  • Slavery in cities – slaves had more opportunities in the cities to mix with whites and free blacks. Threat of uprising and conspiracy led many slaveowners to sell their men to the countryside, and thus, most city slaves were women domestics.

FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS

About 250,000 free African Americans lived in the slaveholding states at the beginning of the Civil War (half in Virginia and Maryland). Some purchased their freedom (after developing a skill and hiring themselves out on their own time), others were released by their masters. However, fear of these freed slaves leading revolts led states to continually make it more difficult for masters to free their slaves. There were many hardships of freedom (supporting themselves, housing, taxes, legal restrictions) making some prefer slavery.

THE SLAVE TRADE

The slave trade was generally used to facilitate the movement of slaves from the upper south to the lower south. Nathchez, New Orleans, Mobile, and Galveston were centers of slave auctions. Slaves in the 1840s and 1850s sold for $500-$1700 each, depending on age. The slave trade had a huge impact on slave families, which were often split up. Although importation had been illegal since 1808, some smuggling still occurred to meet the huge demand.

SLAVE RESISTANCE

Slaves had a complex reaction to slavery: adaptation and resistance. Revolts were rare, but struck fear in the hearts of many whites.

  • Nat Turner’s revolt (1831)- a black preacher who led a band of armed African Americans who went out on a summer night from house to house and killed sixty white men, women, and children before being overpowered by state and federal troops. Over 100 blacks were executed in the aftermath.
  • Other forms of resistance

running away – some made it to the north or Canada, particularly if they were helped by the underground railroad, but it was rare, particularly from the Deep South; slaves ignorance of the geography, white “slave patrols,

refusal to work, stealing, losing tools, etc.

on occasion, slaves cut off their own fingers, toes so they couldn’t work

PRO-SLAVERY ARGUMENTS

List the justifications of slavery given in “Why We Need Our Slaves”

Abolitionist Movement

1. Describe the abolitionists’ efforts of “colonization.” How successful were these efforts?

2. What influenced the abolitionist movement?

3. Who were the prominent abolitionists? What were their contributions to the abolitionist movement?

4. Which political parties attracted the abolitionists?

5. What was the gag resolution in 1836?

6. Why was the abolitionist movement unpopular among many northerners?