Chapter 9

Other Froms of Resistance

- Armed rebellions were rare - most people in the south new they would lose - resisted slavery by working slowly or pretending to be ill - setting fire to plantations or breaking tools - striking back at white people and establishing boundaries that white people would respect

African American Christianity

- Christianity became a religion of hope and resistance - Prayed for the day they would be free - Passionate beliefs of the Southern slaves found expression in the spiritual

Family Life

- Enslaved people faced constant uncertainty and danger - At any time a family could be seperated - Marriages between enslaved people inclueded the phrase "until death or seperation do us apart" - to have stability they established a network of relatives and friends

Gabriel Prosser

- Gabriel Prosser planned rebellion to capture Richmond, Virginia, and massace whites - an Infomer gave the plot away, and Prosser and 35 others were convicted and executed

Escaping Slavery

- Getting to the North was impossible, especially in the deep soth - most succeeded in running away escaped from the Upper south

African American Culture

- Large clse knit extended families - Most African Americans were born into slavery - Native born African American continued to enhoy african music and dance and customs - Passed traditional folk stories to their children - colored cloths around their heads

Slave Codes

- Laws in southern states that controlled people - used to prevent slave rebellion - prevented slaves from meeting in large groups and from leaving their master's land without a pass - crime to teach enslaved people to read or write

Education

- Plantation Owners and those who could afford it sent their kids to private schools. - One of the best was Moses Waddel in Willington, South Carolina - Students attended six days a week - Bible and Classical lit was important - Courses included ,athematics, religion, greek, latin, and public speaking - In smaller rural areas,, classes met in small school houses or in church buildings - School months only lasted 3 to 4 months - Due to poverty few books were available to study - Kentucky legislature set up a funding system for school. - Many states in the south had charity schools - South lagged behind other aread of the country in literacy because of the geography of the South - There were few people per square mile.

Nat Turner

- Popular religious leader - taught himself tp read and write - 1831 Turner led group of followers on violent rampage in Southhampton County, VA - 55 whites died - was hanged, led white people to be scared so they made stricter slave codes

Free African Americans in the South

- The cities provided Free African Americans oppurtunities to form their own communities - African American barbers, carpenters, and small traders offered their services throughout their communities. - Also found churches and institutions - In New Orleans, many of them were well educated and proserpous - They used resources to form an opera company - Between 1830 to 1860, Southern states passed laws that limited the rights of free African Americans. Most states wouldn't allow them to migrate from other states - Denied an equal share in economic and politcal life

Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas

- born into slavery and gained freedom in slavery

Rebellion

- enslaved people had plotted uprisings

Denmark Vesey

- free slave - outraged by existence of slavery - Read bible and declaration of independence - plan for slave revolt failed when he was breatyed by his own followers

Underground Railroad

- owned by free blacks and whites who oppsed slavery offered assistance to runaway slaves

Spirituals

- provided a way for the enslaved to communicate secretly with one another - often reflected the connection enslaved people felt to enslaved people depicted in the bible - passed down through oral tradition

Escaping Slavery

- some slaves ran away to find relatuces on nearby plantations or to escape punishment - Punishment for running was whipping - in north some fugitives slave were caught and captured causing many to run to canada where it is banned

Domestic Slaves

- worked in the house, cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, sewing, and serving meals.

City Life and Education

-South primarly an anti-cultural region, but there were several large cities by mid 1800 - With the coming of the railroad, many other cities began to grow as trade centers - Citites that were located in the cross road: Columbia, South Carolina, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Montgomery, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi and Atlanta, Georgia

Credit

A form of loan

Plantations

A large plantation can cover serveral thousand acre. Some plantations usually live comfortably but not luxuriously. They measured their wealth partly by the number of enslaved people they had and part by possesions. A few African Americans possessed slaves, few purchased their own family members to free them.

Barriers to Industry

Because agriculture was so profitable, Southerners remain commited to farming rather to start a new business. Another reason was the lack of capital in the South. To develop industries required money, but southerners used money for slaves and land. The rich only believed that the economy was based on cotton. Market for manufactured goods in the south is a lot smaller than the North.

Agent System

Cotton prices varied from season to season depending on the market. To recieve the best prices, planters sold their cotton to agents in cities such as New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile, and Savannah. The trade centers in Southern cities were of vital importance to those involved in the cotton economy. The agents of the exchanges extended credit to planters and held the cotton for several months until the price rose. Then the agents would sell the cotton. The system always kept the planters in debt because they didn't recieve payment for the cotton until it was sold.

Eli Whitney

In 1793, Whitney invented Cotton gin, the cotton gin caused the Southerners to want to grow even more, as a result they depended on slave labor to plant and pick cotton.

Joseph Reid Anderson

In Richmond, Virginia he took over the Tredegar Iron Works in 1840 and made it into one of the nation's leading producer of iron products for the Southern Forces.

Deep South

Inland to states: Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas. Committed to cotton and in areas, rice and sugarcane

William Gregg

Merchant from Charleston, South Carolina and he opened his own textile mill in 1844 after touring New England's textile mill

Field Hands

Most of them were African Americans. They worked from sunrise to sunset planting, cultivating, and picking cotton and other crops.

Cotton Rules the Deep South

Most people in the south lived near the Atlantic Coast: Maryland, Tennessee, And North Carolina. By 1850 the South changed and its population spread inland to the states: Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas. In colonial times, rice, indigo, and tobacco made up most of the South's crops. After the Revolution, the demand for crops decreased. European mills however wanted southern cotton to make cloth, but cloth was difficult to produce. By the 1860's the economies of the Deep south and Upper south developed in diff. ways. The value of enslaved people increased. The south prospered between 1820 - 1860

Upper South

Near the Atlantic Coast: Maryland, Tennessee, And North Carolina. Committed to tobacco, hemp, wheat, and vegetables. Became center for the sale of enslaved people.

Tenant Farmers

Rebted land or worked on landlord's estates

Fixed costs

Such plantations had regular expenses such as housing and feeding workers and maintaining cotton gins and other equipment. Fixed costs remain about the same year after year.

Overseer

Supervised slaves. Also called a plantation manager.

Yeoman

The farmers who did not have slaves.

Plantation Owners

The main economic goal for large plantation owners was to earn profits. Some plantations had fixed costs.

Small Farmers and the Rural Poor

The yeoman made the largest group of the whites in the south. Most of them owned land. They mostly lived in upper south and the hilly rural areas of the deep south. A yeoman's farm usually ranges from 50 to 200 acres. Yeoman grew crops to use and sell, they often traded their produce to local merchants and workers fro goods and service. Many of them lived in small cottages. Some worked as tenant farmers, the rural poor lived in crude cabins in wooded areas where they could clear a few trees, plant some corn, and keep a hog or a cow. They also fished or hunted for food. They refused to take any job resembled slaves.

Southern Transportation

They had railroads, but those were unorganized and was sh*t and they had the boats, but by road was for the poor

Cotton Product Moves West

To keep up with the demand for raw cotton, cotton plantations sprang up to the west in the fertile black belt: for their rich black soil of Mississippi in Alabama and in the rich bottomlands along the Mississippi ricer and its tributaries.

Other Enslaved Workers

Trained as blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, or weavers. Still others worked in the pastures, tending the horses, cows, sheeps, and pigs.

Southern Factories

While most Southerners felt confident, some wanted to build industries in the region. The people who believed in industries argued that if they kept on using cotton production, they would depend on the North for manufactured goods and that the Upper south would revive the economy.

Plantation Wives

Wife of a plantation owner was in charge over the enslaved workers who toiled in her home and tending to them when they became ill. She also had supervise the plantation's buldings and the fruit and vegetable gardens. Some wives served as accoutants. Women often led difficult and lonely lives on the plantation because planters often traveled to look for new land or to deal with agents.