Chapter 11: The South, Slavery, and King Cotton

This country led the cause to ban the slave trade:

Great Britain

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Rebellion in which Nat Turner led a group of slaves through virginia in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow and kill planter families

Old Southwest

Region covering western Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, where low land prices and fertile soil attracted hundreds of thousands of settlers after the American Revolution.

Where the majority of southern farmers Democrat or Republican?

Southern farmers tended to be fiercely independent and suspicious of government authority, and they overwhelmingly identified with the Democratic party of Andrew Jackson.

how many slaves did the average farmer own?

five or six. In the backcountry and mountainous regions of the South, where slaves and plantations were scarce, small farmers dominated the social structure.

was slavery in the city or in the country less severe?

city. some said these slaves were almost freemen

how many slaves did a person need to be considered a "planter"

twenty

Aunt Phillis's Cabin

1852 book by Mary Henderson Eastman in response to Uncle Tom's Cabin that discussed the essential happiness of slaves in the South as compared to the inevitable sufferings of free blacks and the working classes in the North

how many slaves attempted escape every year?

50,000. Only 1,000 on average made it to freedom.

Peculiar Institution

A euphemism for slavery and the economic ramifications of it in the American South. The term aimed to explain away the seeming contradiction of legalized slavery in a country whose Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal". It was one of the key causes of the Civil War.

James Henry Hammond

A senator and slave owner form South Carolina who believed in the necessity of slaves in society and that blacks were inferior to the superior whites. Owned Sally Johnson, a slave he impregnated in several instances. He also impregnated their 12-year-old daughter Louisa.

Did Southern Farmers support slavery?

Although only a minority of middle-class white farmers owned slaves, most of them supported the slave system. They feared that slaves, if freed, would compete with them for land and jobs, and, although not wealthy, the farmers enjoyed the privileged social status that race-based slavery afforded them.

What was the dominate religion in the south?

Although there were pockets of Catholicism and Judaism in the large coastal cities—Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans—the vast majority of southerners, white and black, embraced evangelical Protes- tant denominations such as Baptists and Methodists, both of which wanted to create a Kingdom of God on earth before the millennium, when Jesus would return (the "second coming").

Upper South States

Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia.

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.

Why did farmers move to the old southwest?

Because the oldest southern states—Virginia and the Carolinas—experienced soil exhaustion from the overplanting of tobacco and cotton.

Antebellum

Belonging to a period before a war especially the American Civil War

What percent of the population consisted of slaves in the South by the 1860's?

By 1860, slaves represented nearly half the population of the Lower South, largely because they were the most efficient producers of cotton in the world.

Grannies

Elderly slaves women that took care of kids while moms worked.

What percent of the black population was mulatto

ten

Charles Deslondes

In 1811, he led between 180 and 500 slaves in an attempt to seize New Orleans. It was the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Deslondes had his hands chopped off and was then shot in both thighs and his chest. As he was slowly bleeding to death, a bale of hay was scattered over him and ignited. As many as 100 slaves were tortured, killed, and beheaded, and the severed heads were placed on poles along the Mississippi River.

In what two ways did the lives of slaves differ from place to place?

In part on whether the enslaved were focused on growing rice, sugar, tobacco, or cotton; and in part on whether they were on farms or in cities.

Which southern states had large areas without slavery?

In the mountains of Virginia, the Western Carolinas, eastern Tennessee, and northern Georgia, where the soil and climate were not suited to cotton or tobacco. In the Border South (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri), slav- ery was slowly disappearing because cotton could not thrive there.

What nations, other than Europe and America joined the global cotton-producing revolution?

India, Egypt, Brazil, and China—but the American South was the driving force of cotton capitalism.

which two states prohibited separating children under ten from their mother in slavery?

Louisiana and Alabama

Plantation Mistress

Matriarch of a planter's household, responsible for supervising the domestic aspects of the estate.

Plantation mistresses were like slaves in that their husbands

They had few rights in the large households they managed, since their husbands were the "master of the house." A wife was expected to love, honor, obey, and serve her husband. Virginian George Fitzhugh, a celebrated Virginia attorney and writer, spoke for most southern men when he said that a "man loves his children because they are weak, helpless, and dependent. He loves his wife for similar reasons." They were also worked almost just as hard as slaves.

Lilburn and Isham Lewis

Thomas Jefferson's nephews who tied a slave to the floor and killed him

cash crop

a crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower (cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice)

What was the religion of enslaved Africans?

a mixture of African, Caribbean, and Christian elements often practiced in secret because many slaveholders feared enslaved workers might use group religious services to organize rebellions.

What was the occupation for the vast majority of slaves?

field hands

Gabriel Prosser

in 1800, he gathered 1000 rebellious slaves outside of Richmond; but 2 Africans gave the plot away, and the Virginia militia stymied the uprising before it could begin. Gabriel and twenty-six of his fellow "soldiers" were captured and hanged, while ten others were deported to the West Indies.

Slaves Codes

laws meant to govern the slave system of labor; these laws made it impossible for an African American to live as a free person. They couldn't learn to read or write because the white men feared they would use this ability to rebel. They couldn't be out after dark without a pass nor could they legally marry, hit a white man, or testify in court.

What did the white man fear most in the South?

organized slave rebellion

Denmark Vesey

pastored the AME Church (African Methodist Episcopal). United States freed slave and insurrectionist in South Carolina who was involved in planning an uprising of slaves and was hanged (1767-1822)

Overseers

people who watch over and direct the work of slaves

Spirituals came from

slavery

what two factors helped produce the worlds largest industry?

the development of the machine that converted raw cotton into thread and cloth in textile mills in Great Britain. American Eli Whitney's cotton gin also solved the problem that owners could not get enough cotton fiber to meet their needs.

domestic slave trade

the trade of enslaved people among states of the United States