Antebellum Slavery
U.S. History to 1877
The Myth of Tara
Geography of slavery
¡ Climate
and soil patterns
¡ Little
immigration
¡ Comparison
with the North
Economics of Slavery
¡ Cotton
boom
¡ Monoculture
in the Deep South
¡ Labor
shortage: importation of slaves banned, 1808
Slave Ownership
¡ Fewer
slaveowners
¡
Average price: 1850 $400; 1860 $800
¡
Prime hand $1200; skilled hand $2000
¡
More slaves per owner
¡ Popular
support for slavery
¡
Control competition
¡
Race control
Slave Life
¡ Material
conditions
Slave Quarters
Planting Cotton
Harvest
Harvest
Bringing Cotton to the Gin
Domestic Slaves
Recreation
Marriage
Family Life
Unprotected
Family
Religion
Punishment
Death
Slavery of the Mind
¡ Psychological
conditions
¡
No rewards
¡
Motivation: punishment
¡
No hope: slave for life
¡
Powerless to affect one’s own life
¡ Roots
of racism: “slave mentality”
¡
Act dumb; work slow
¡
The system is stacked against you
¡ Few
slave revolts
¡
None after Nat Turner Revolt, 1831
¡ Running
away
Abolitionism
¡ Northern
racism
¡ Colonization:
Liberia
¡ From
out of revivalism: abolitionism
¡
Slavery as a sinful institution
¡
Superiority of free labor
¡
Moderates: Theodore Dwight Weld
¡
Radicals: William Lloyd Garrison
¡
Blacks: Frederick Douglass
¡ Violent
opposition
¡
Elijah Lovejoy, Alton, IL, 1837
“Necessary evil” to
“positive good”
¡ Bible
supports slavery
¡
The churches’ “cultural captivity”: staunch defenders of slavery
¡
Story of Ham
¡
“Slaves, obey your masters”
¡ Paternalism
¡ Anti-industrialism
¡ George
Fitzhugh
¡
Sociology for the South, 1854; Cannibals All!, 1857
¡ “Superiority”
of Southern culture
¡ Lessons
of emancipation: Haiti, 1790s; British empire, 1833
The Woman’s Movement
¡ Abolitionist
experience
¡ “Domestic
slavery”
¡ Seneca
Falls Convention, 1848
¡
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
¡
Lucretia Mott
¡
“Declaration of Sentiments”