US History Ch. 12

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe, refers to this forced migration from the upper southern states to the Deep South, lower on the Mississippi, to grow cotton.

Charles Deslondes

In 1811, a slave overseer and his fellow slaves broke into their owner's plantation house and hacked his son to death. This was the largest slave revolt in America history.

Nat Turner

Leader of a slave rebellion in 1831 in Virginia. Revolt led to the deaths of 20 whites and 40 blacks and led to the "gag rule' outlawing any discussion of slavery in the House of Representatives

Narisco Lopez

Narciso López, a Venezuelan who wanted to end Spanish control of the island, gained American support. tried five times to take the island, in 1851 he led an armed group from New Orleans. Spanish authorities in Cuba captured and executed López and the American filibusters.

Ostend Manifesto

under President Franklin Pierce, penned by James Buchanan, stating that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States, the United States was justified in taking the island as a national security measure.--The recommendation that the U.S. offer Spain $20 million for Cuba. It was not carried through in part because the North feared Cuba would become another slave state.

Nathaniel Heyward

white, wealthy rice planter and member of the aristocratic gentry, came from an established family and sat atop the pyramid of southern slaveholders. He amassed an enormous estate; in 1850, he owned more than eighteen hundred slaves. When he died in 1851, he left an estate worth more than $2 million

William J Anderson

wrote about the horror of sexual exploitation in the antebellum South.

Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences Between the Sexes

Thomas Roderick Dew, wrote approvingly of the virtue of southern women, a virtue he concluded derived from their natural weakness, piety, grace, and modesty.

Cotton gin

a machine that removed seeds from cotton fiber

George Fitzhugh

contributed to the defense of slavery with his book Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (1854). argued that laissez-faire capitalism benefited only the quick-witted and intelligent, leaving the ignorant at a huge disadvantage and that Slaveholders took care of the ignorant—in

What are the similarities and differences in the lives of slaves and free blacks?

similar to slaves, Free Southern blacks continued to live under the shadow of slavery, unable to travel or assemble as freely as those in the North. more difficult for them to organize and sustain churches, schools, or fraternal orders such as the Masons. freed African Americans, especially in the North, were active participants in American society.

Why was cotton production so labor intensive?

slaves labored to strip the vegetation to make way for cotton. With the land cleared, slaves readied the earth by plowing and planting. when slaves planted seeds in rows around three to five feet apart. Over the next several months, from April to August, they carefully tended the plants. Weeding the cotton rows took significant energy and time. In August, after the cotton plants had flowered and the flowers had begun to give way to cotton bolls (the seed-bearing capsule that contains the cotton fiber), all the plantation's slaves—men, women, and children—worked together to pick the crop. On each day of cotton picking, slaves went to the fields with sacks, which they would fill as many times as they could. The effort was laborious, and a white "driver" employed the lash to make slaves work as quickly as possible. slaves work ten acres of land and pick two hundred pounds of cotton a day

Slave breakers

slaves would be sent to these people in order to learn obedience, slaves would be severely punished and beaten

Polygenism

the idea that different human races came from separate origins-Louis Agassiz, Harvard professor

Domestic Slave Trade

the trade of enslaved people among states of the US

Frederick Douglas

(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

Paternalism

(n.) the policy or practice of treating or governing people in the manner of a father dealing with his children

Eli Whitney

Invented the cotton gin

James Hammond

SC senator: coined the term "Cotton is king"

What was the importance of cotton to the Atlantic and American antebellum economy?

Almost no cotton was grown in the United States in 1787, slave-grown American cotton would also supply northern textile mills. became the key cash crop of the southern economy and the most important American commodity. American cotton soon made up two-thirds of the global supply. the North could never threaten the South because "cotton is king."

William Walker

A proslavery American adventurer from the South, he led an expedition to seize control on Nicaragua in 1855. He wanted to petition for annexation it as a new slave state but failed when several Latin American countries sent troops to oust him before the offer was made.

William Ellison

Became one of the wealthiest blacks in the antebellum after learning to build cotton gins and buying freedom for he and his family. Owned Slaves, Identified with Whites.

Cotton boom

By 1860, 2/3 of all U.S. cotton was produced in the Southern states east of the Mississippi River.

What were the filibuster expeditions which took place during the antebellum era?

Filibustering plots picked up pace in the 1850s as the drive for expansion continued. Slaveholders looked south to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, hoping to add new slave states. Spanish Cuba became the objective of many American slaveholders in the 1850s.

Andrew Durnford

Free black slave and slave owner in Louisiana that enjoyed great relations with his white neighbors

What were the primary proslavery arguments in the years prior to the Civil War?

Powerful southerners like South Carolinian John C. Calhoun highlighted laws like the Tariff of 1828 as evidence of the North's desire to destroy the southern economy and its culture. Such a tariff would harm the South, which relied heavily on imports, and benefit the North, which would receive protections for its manufacturing centers. disadvantage. Slaveholders, he argued, took care of the ignorant, the slaves of the South. Southerners provided slaves with care from birth to death- their justification

William Lloyd Garrison

Prominent American abolitionist, journalist and social reformer. Editor of radical abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator", and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Defenders of the institution also lashed out directly at William Lloyd Garrison for daring to call into question their way of life.

Describe the independent culture and customs that slaves developed?

Slaves often used the notion of paternalism to their advantage, finding opportunities within this system to engage in acts of resistance and win a degree of freedom and autonomy. sometimes married, taught children to be discreet, submissive, and guarded around whites. Parents also taught their children through the stories they told. African beliefs, including ideas about the spiritual world and the importance of African healers, whites viewed as witchcraft

Concurrent majority

South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun's idea for restoring balance between the North and South by giving each region the right to reject national legislation thought harmful to the region.

Duels

Southern white men, especially those of high social status, settled their differences with duels, an important part of the southern code of honor through the Civil War years.

Second Middle Passage

The massive trade of slaves from the upper South (Virginia and the Chesapeake) to the lower South (the Gulf states) that took place between 1820 and 1860.

What was the southern culture of honor?

dictating the beliefs and behavior of "gentlemen" and "ladies," Maintaining appearances and reputation was supremely important.. the concept of honor in the antebellum South had much to do with control over dependents, whether slaves, wives, or relatives. Defending their honor and ensuring that they received proper respect became preoccupations of whites in the slaveholding South. To question another man's assertions was to call his honor and reputation into question. Insults in the form of words or behavior, such as calling someone a coward, could trigger a rupture that might end in dueling

Cash crop

farm crop raised to be sold for money

Why did pro-slavery people push for new territory to be added to the Union?

hoped to replicate that feat by bringing Cuba and other territories into the United States and thereby enlarging the American empire of slavery.

Antebellum

in the years before the Civil War—American

Gossypium barbadense

known as Petit Gulf cotton, a mix of Mexican, Georgia, and Siamese strains. grew extremely well in different soils and climates. It dominated cotton production in the Mississippi River Valley—home