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
¡ “Slave
mentality” and its legacies
¡
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, Illinois, 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”