Chapter 16: The South and the Slavery Controversy p

Free Blacks: Slaves Without Masters 1.By 1860, free blacks in the South numbered about 250, Mostly in the upper South, these free blacks: -were descended from those freed by the idealism of the Revolutionary War. -were freed because they were the children of white masters. -purchased their way out of slavery by working after hours to gain extra pay. -In the deep South, they were usually mulattoes freed when their masters died. Many owned property and some even owned slaves themselves.

1.Free Blacks were prohibited from working in certain occupations and forbidden from testifying against whites in court; and as examples of what slaves could be, Whites resented them. 2.In the North, free Blacks were also unpopular, and the general attitude toward them could best be described as very racist and discriminatory. Several states denied their entrance, most denied them the right to vote and most barred them from public schools. 3.Northern Blacks especially had to compete for jobs with new immigrants like the Irish. 4.In the North, people like the race but not individual blacks, but in the South, people liked the individual, but not the race.

Newly freed slaves

Plantation Slavery 1.Although slave importation was banned in 1808, smuggling of them continued due to their high demand and despite death sentences to smugglers. However, the slave increase was mostly due to natural reproduction. 2.Slaves were an investment and treated accordingly, as they were often spared dangerous work (THAT was reserved for the lowly Irish). 3.Slavery also created majorities in the Deep South, and the states of South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana accounted for half of all the slaves in the south. 4.Breeding slaves was not encouraged, but happened frequently and some women were even promised freedom after the birth of a certain amount of children. 5. Slave auctions were brutal and often separated families, perhaps the slaves greatest fear. This topic is at the heart of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Life Under the Lash 1.Slave life varied from place to place, but for slaves everywhere, life meant hard work, no civil or political rights, and beatings if orders weren’t followed. 2.As a substitute for the wage-incentive system, slaveowners most often used a whip as a motivator. 3.Laws that tried to protect slaves were difficult to enforce. 4.But lash beatings weren’t overly common, since a master and invested so much money into this “property” and could lower the value of his slave if he whipped him too much. 5.By 1860, slaves were most heavily concentrated in the “black belt” in the states of the Deep South. 6.Life was especially difficult in the newer states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

1.Forced separation of families was more common in the upper South in smaller plantations (such as here in Northern Kentucky where Harriet Beecher Stowe witnessed such atrocities). 2.Still, most slaves were raised in stable two-parent homes and upheld traditional family values. Interestingly, Africans avoided the marriage of first cousins which was prevalent amongst the planter elite. 3.Africans also mixed the Christian religion with their own native religion, and often sang Christian hymns as signals and codes for news of possible freedom; many sang songs that emphasized the escape from bondage. (“Let my people go.”)

The Burdens of Bondage 1.Slaves suffered horrible humiliation, were illiterate, and had no chance of achieving the “American dream.” 2.However, they did devise ways to fight the system without getting punished too badly: They worked slowly, pilfered food and goods (that their labor had produced), sabotaged farm equipment, and occasionally poisoned their master’s food. 3.Rebellious insurrections, though uncommon and never successful did occur: the 1800 insurrection by a slave named Gabriel in Richmond, Virginia, the 1822 Charleston rebellion led by Denmark Vesey, and the 1831 revolt by semiliterate preacher Nat Turner. 4. As a result, southern whites became paranoid of slave revolts, and cracked down even harder on their racist rules and laws. Even worse, these fears of slave insurrection bolstered an intoxicating theory of biological racial superiority that was used to justify slavery.

Carolina authorities developed laws to keep the African American population under control. Whipping, branding, dismembering, castrating, or killing a slave were legal under many circumstances. Freedom of movement, to assemble at a funeral, to earn money, even to learn to read and write, became outlawed.