Chapter 15 section 1

Introduction  Frederick Douglass always had an independent spirit. He learned to read and then taught others, although it was forbidden to teach other slaves.  He fought back against a cruel master and escaped to the North, where he became a powerful antislavery leader.

Frederick Douglass  When Frederick Douglass first escaped to the North in 1838, he thought the people must be very poor. After all, none of them owned slaves.  In the South, owning slaves was a sign of wealth. In the free states of the North, wealth was measured in different terms.

Frederick Douglass

Differences in the North and South  These differences shaped how people worked and lived in the North and South in the mid 1800’s.  In the mid 1800’s the North and the South developed very different economies.

Northeast  In New England, whaling became important. Whale oil was in demand because it burned cleanly in lamps.  Swift clipper ships and then steam-powered vessels carried goods around the world, including China and Japan.  In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry opened trade with Japan.

Commodore Matthew Perry

Perry’s Route

Northeast  New inventions, such as the sewing machine and the telegraph, led to new industries and faster communication.  Cities grew around new factories in the Northeast and attracted immigrants from farms and Europe that were looking for opportunities.

Midwest  In the agricultural Midwest, inventions such as the reaper helped farmers produce bigger crops.  Cities like Chicago and St. Louis grew as centers of transportation.

South  Plantations grew larger and spread westward, increasing the demand for slaves.  The growth of the cotton kingdom caused a great demand for slave labor.  Congress banned the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1808, so no new slaves could be legally be brought to the country. Instead slave traders traveled throughout the Southeastern states buying up slaves to sell in the new Southwestern cotton lands.

South  The demand for slave labor caused prices to soar so high that only wealthy planters could continue to buy slaves.  In 1850, there were about 347,000 slave holding families in the South. Only 1/3 of those families owned more than 10 slaves.

South  As a result of the rise in price, about ¾ of white Southerners did not own any slaves.  Still, cotton was growing so profitable that the South made little effort to develop industries, canals, and railroads as the North was doing.