APUSH Chapter 12 Learning Curve

Which prejudice did American journalists build upon when they turned the battle of the Alamo into a romantic challenge for American adventurers?

Anti-Catholicism → Drawing on anti-Catholic sentiment aroused by Irish immigration, journalists urged Americans to "Remember the Alamo" and depicted the Mexicans as tyrannical butchers in the service of the pope.

Planters' chief worry was that enslaved African Americans would do what?

Rebell

Why did slaves in the Upper South fear family separation?

Slaves could be sold at any time. → Slave families lived their daily routines with the anxiety and fear of separation. The slave girl Vinny Baker remembered that "[o]ne night I lay down on de straw mattress wid my mammy, an' de nex' mo'ning I woke up an' she wuz gone."

Why did many African American slaves choose not to run away?

They did not want to leave family and kin.

How did Alabama Democrats try to gain the favor of voters in the antebellum decades?

They supported low taxes. → Alabama voters largely distrusted the rich planters, and the mostly middle-class slave owners in the legislature sought to appeal to the interests of the poor by promising low taxes.

Why was cotton such a hard crop for slaves?

Cotton has a long growing season. → Slaves plowed the land in March, seeded in early April, and had to chop away the surrounding grasses once the plants began to grow. Then in August, the four-month long picking season began.

Which of the following was a restriction imposed upon free African Americans by the federal government?

They were unable to hold a U.S. passport.

How did the Chesapeake region contribute to the domestic slave trade?

By selling surplus African American slaves to the Cotton South → To fill the need for new workers for expanding cotton production in the area from central Georgia to Texas, white planters turned to the Chesapeake region, home to half of the nation's black population. With tobacco lands in decline due to overproduction and the reduction in soil fertility, the Old South had surplus slaves to sell, and the New South wanted them.

The prices of slaves in antebellum America rose and fell along with the price of what?

Cotton → Slave labor was a major factor in cotton production, and the majority of slaves were employed in cotton fields, so as the price of cotton rose, demand for—and the price of—slaves rose as well. When cotton prices fell, slave prices also fell.

What was a reason that President Martin Van Buren refused to annex Texas?

He expected northern opposition to adding a slave state. → The cautious Van Buren and other party politicians feared that annexation would spark a war with Mexico and, beyond that, a "desperate death-struggle . . . Between the North and the South [over the extension of slavery]; a struggle involving the probability of a dissolution of the Union."

Why did President Martin Van Buren refuse to annex Texas?

He feared a war with Mexico. → The Texans voted for annexation by the United States after defeating Mexico. But President Martin Van Buren refused to bring the issue before Congress. He feared that annexation would spark a war with Mexico, a fear shared by other American politicians.

What trend characterized the Lower South in the early 1800s?

High geographical mobility → Between 1800 and 1860, white planters from the South were moving west. In 1790, slavery's western boundary ran through the middle of Georgia; by 1830, it stretched through western Louisiana; by 1860, the slave frontier extended far into Texas.

In which region of the antebellum South was slave ownership likely to be lowest?

Hilly western North Carolina → In some cotton-rich counties, 40 percent of the white families owned slaves; in the hill country near the Appalachian Mountains—such as western North Carolina—the proportion dropped to 10 percent.

Which statement characterizes the domestic slave trade in the early 1800s?

It brought black slaves to the Lower South. → After the United States outlawed its participation in the international slave trade in 1809, white southerners created a domestic slave trade that served as an internal mechanism to disperse African American slaves from the Upper or Old South, where tobacco had dominated, to the Lower or New South, where cotton cultivation was increasing.

How did the domestic slave trade affect slave marriages?

It destroyed about one in every four slave marriages. → Slave marriages suffered disproportionately from the domestic slave trade as spouses tended to be of prime working and child-bearing age, which made them most valuable and likely to be sold.

What distinguished the Alabama Constitution of 1819?

It provided for a secret ballot rather than voice-voting. → The Alabama Constitution of 1819 granted suffrage to all white men; it also provided for a secret ballot rather than voice-voting; apportionment of legislative seats based on population; and the election of county supervisors, sheriffs, and clerks of court.

Why did southern defenders such as the future vice president of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens describe the institution of slavery as a "positive good"?

It provided tutelage for inferior African Americans. → Southern apologists in the 1830s argued that slavery was a "positive good" because it subsidized an elegant lifestyle for a white elite and provided tutelage for genetically inferior Africans. "As a race, the African is inferior to the white man," declared Alexander Stephens, the future vice president of the Confederacy.

Why did the planter elite of the South face political challenges in the 1840s and 1850s?

New state constitutions opened the franchise, making it more difficult for them to dominate government.

What was the dominant pattern of marriage relationships among the smallholding yeomen of the antebellum South?

Patriarchal, with husbands dominant → Bolstered by the patriarchal ideology of the planter class, yeomen farmers ruled their smallholdings with a firm hand. The male head of the household had legal authority over all the dependents—wives, children, and slaves—and most churches supported patriarchal rule and told female members to remain in "wifely obedience," whatever the actions of their husbands.

Why did African American unity increase in the 1840s and 1850s?

Proposals for the re-enslavement of free blacks brought the community together.

Who stood at the apex of the plantation aristocracy?

Rice planters → Rice planters remained at the apex of the plantation aristocracy. In 1860, the fifteen proprietors of the vast plantations in All Saints Parish in the Georgetown district of South Carolina owned 4,383 slaves—nearly 300 apiece—who annually grew 14 million pounds of rice.

Which free black headed the African Methodist Episcopal Church?

Richard Allen.

When she was interviewed in the 1930s, Molly Dawson remembered that her "mother and father was slavery time married darkies. Dat didn't mean nuthin' dem days, but jest raisin' mo' darkies, and every slave darkie woman had ter do dat whether she wanted to or not." What does her memory tell us about slave families?

Slave owners saw slave women as producers of more slaves. → Dawson's comment that the marriage "didn't mean nuthin' dem days" except "raisin' mo' darkies" and her additional comment that slave women "had ter do dat whether she wanted to or not" indicates that slave owners saw female slaves as an asset because they could be used to produce slave children, who could then be put to work or sold.

What nickname was given to the Great Plains in the 1820s and 1830s?

The Great American Desert.

Which of the following regions had the highest concentration of slaves in the United States by 1860?

The Mississippi River Valley → Both banks of the lower Mississippi from the northern tip of Mississippi all the way to the mouth of the river in Louisiana had slave concentrations of 50 percent and higher.

Why did South Carolina rice planters begin to sell some of their slaves and work the others harder in the 1820s?

The competition from cheap Asian rice cut into their profit margins. → As inexpensive Asian rice entered the world market in the 1820s and cut their profit margins, Carolina planters sold some slaves and worked others harder, allowing them to sustain their luxurious lifestyle.

Why did the Texas war party succeed with its call for a rebellion in 1835?

The new Mexican president nullified the Texans' exemption from the ban on slavery. → Stephen F. Austin had secured this and other exemptions for American settlers, but General Antonio López de Santa Anna wanted to impose national authority throughout Mexico. Fearing that outcome, the Texas war party provoked a rebellion that most of the American settlers ultimately supported.

Upper-class white southerners who owned the most wealth in the South were known as

The plantation aristocracy.

Why were factories in the South primarily in the Chesapeake region?

The region had a more diverse economy and a surplus of bound workers. → Chesapeake tobacco planters increasingly abandoned the unprofitable crop and hired out their slaves, released them, or allowed them to buy their freedom. This surplus labor allowed planter entrepreneurs to staff modern factories that could not be run elsewhere in the South.

Which of the following describes a change that took place between 1790 and 1860 and is illustrated by this map?

The state of New York abolished slavery. → Although in 1790 New York still permitted slavery, by 1860 the entire state was slave-free.

Which river marked the clearest boundary between slave and free states in 1860?

The upper Ohio River → Although in 1860, some slavery existed north of the river in Indiana and Ohio, it marked a crucial dividing line from Virginia and Kentucky where slave concentrations ranged from 10 to 50 percent.

How did wealthy planters influence tax policies in southern states?

They ensured that slave property was exempt from taxation.

Why did landless white workers in the South receive so little respect?

They performed hard labor, which was deemed fit only for slaves. → Propertyless whites enjoyed few of the benefits of slavery and suffered many of its ill consequences, one of which was that hard labor was not celebrated as a path to success—as in the North—but regarded as a sign of inferiority.

In the early 1800s, what did the growing cities of the South all have in common?

They tended to be around the periphery of the South. → Urban growth occurred mostly in the commercial cities around the periphery of the South: New Orleans, St. Louis, and Baltimore. They tended to trade southern crops to the national and international markets. Interior consumer markets, on the other hand, were underdeveloped.

This notice of a slave auction indicates that the slaves being sold "have been for more than 10 years in the country, and are all well acclimated." What message were the auctioneers sending when they provided this information?

They were unlikely to run away. → The auctioneers try to allay concerns that the slaves might run away by establishing that they have lived in the area for at least a decade.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, what purpose did African American naming patterns try to serve?

To bolster kinship ties → While many American-born parents often chose names of British origin for their children, enslaved African Americans usually named sons after fathers, uncles, or grandfathers and daughters after grandmothers. Slaves tried to evoke memories of a lost world as well as bolster the kin ties of the present with the intergenerational sharing of names.

How did Major Stephen H. Long describe the grassland plains west of Arkansas and Missouri?

Wholly unfit for cultivation → Army explorer Major Stephen H. Long thought the plains west of Arkansas and Missouri "wholly unfit for cultivation" and in 1820 labeled it the Great American Desert.

Why did American settlers in Texas split into two groups in the 1830s?

Divisions over how to respond to changes in Mexico's central government → When Mexico's central government tried to assert greater political control over Texas, Americans split into two groups: the peace party accepted Mexican rule but campaigned for greater autonomy, whereas the war party demanded independence.

Why did planter James Henry Hammond tell his poor white neighbors that "every freeman is an aristocrat"?

Even poor whites enjoyed the privilege of white supremacy. → Poor whites enjoyed the psychological satisfaction that they ranked above blacks. As Georgia Senator Alfred Iverson explained: a white man "walks erect in the dignity of his color and race, and feels that he is a superior being, with the more exalted powers and privileges than others."

Which statement characterizes the gang-labor system of slave labor in the Lower South?

Large work crews supervised by a black driver and a white overseer.

This notice of a slave auction indicates that the slaves being sold are "accustomed to all kinds of work on a Sugar Plantation." Based on that information, where was the auction most likely to have taken place?

Louisiana → Although cotton was also grown in some parts of the state, sugar was the primary product of plantation agriculture in Louisiana. The facts that the slaves came from a plantation in "Iberville," suggesting Louisiana's French history, and that Iberville is a "parish," Louisiana's equivalent of a county, provide further clues to the location.

Which denomination was most likely to supply ministers who traveled south as missionaries to convert African American slaves during the first decades of the nineteenth century?

Methodists.

What group constituted the majority of the state legislature in Alabama?

Mid-level planters

Where did the majority of rice plantation owners live?

South Carolina

Which statement explains the fact the American South in 1860 had a higher per capita income than the populations of France or Germany?

Southern per capita income was for whites only and excluded the slave population. → The per capita measure did not include slaves, who did much of the work that generated southern wealth. While many white southerners enjoyed a high standard of living, nearly all African Americans—40 percent of the population—lived in dire and permanent poverty.

What was a slave owner's most effective tool of discipline?

The threat of sale

Black Protestantism was one example of how African American culture in the rural South between 1800 and 1860 was becoming increasingly

homogeneous. → Black Protestantism was one example of an increasingly homogenous African American culture in the rural South. Even in South Carolina, only 20 percent of the black residents in 1820 had been born in Africa.

Where did most free blacks found in the slave states live?

The Upper South