1. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Brinkley text Chapter 11

2. Homework Assignment
Primary Source Reading: American Past I, #8: “The Peculiar Institution: Slaves Tell Their Own Story.”
Excerpts from slave reminiscences written for the Federal Writers Project in 1945, compiling a personal narrative of slave life.
Students will be asked to assess the day-to-day nature of slave life and the passive resistance slaves offered to their masters.

3. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The South “grew,” but did not develop.
Population shifted from the “upper South” (the original “southern” states of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas) to the “lower South” – the new states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana

4. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Tobacco continued to dominate in the upper South
Cotton was “king” in the lower South.
The Lower South produced over 3 million bales of cotton annually by 1850.

5. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

6. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

7. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

8. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The cotton wealth was not equally distributed.
Three-fourths of Southern white landowners owned NO slaves at all.
Of the 25% who owned slaves, almost half owned fewer than six slaves.
In such cases, family members and slaves shared work and lived in fairly close contact, sometimes in the same quarters.

9. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The 12% of Southern landowners who owned more than 6 slaves (and often owned 50 or more) were the wealthiest and most powerful politically.
Poorer families deferred to their judgment in almost all things; they were a noble class who were looked up to, very similar to the “landed gentry” of England.
They saw themselves as “nobility” also.

10. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The old Jeffersonian ideal of the “yeoman farmer” still persisted, but largely in the upper South.
About ½ million Southerners rented what useless land they could afford.
They were called “crackers,” or “sandhillers.” They were a permanent white underclass.
They were also the majority

11. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The upper class lifestyle of the ruling class was made possible by slavery, which was largely abandoned everywhere in the country except in the South by the 1830s.
As other sections of America turned their backs on slavery, Southern slave owners felt more and more obligated to defend it.

12. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
“Outsiders” just didn’t understand the unique life style that Southerners lived.
Slavery “peculiar” to the South. The word “peculiar” in those days didn’t mean “odd;” it meant “characteristic of a small group, not of the large group.”
Slavery was thus the “Peculiar Institution” of the Southern planter class.
“We understand it; you just would not. You have to BE here to understand”

13. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
This exact phrase – “The Peculiar Institution,” sometimes shortened just to “Our Institution” – became a euphemism for slavery.
And the very fact that Southerners needed a euphemism for slavery suggests that at some level they were ashamed of needing it.

14. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Plantation hierarchy:
Owners hired white overseers to manage the plantation work.
Being one step above slaves on the social scale, they were often needlessly cruel to slaves just to show their domination.

15. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Owners could call themselves “kind” to their slaves by virtue of the fact that they themselves never ordered whippings or withheld meals.
Overseers did these disagreeable tasks.

16. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
A slave who had in some way attracted the owners’ favor might be assigned to house work.
Usually less back-breaking than outdoor work, it cut the slaves off from slave culture.
House slaves were seen by their peers as people who believed they were “better than the other Black folk.”

17. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Slave families could be broken up at any time, for any reason.
Most slave owners would not allow legalized marriages among their slaves; this eased the guilt of breaking up families through sale.

18. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Owners and overseers had two highly successful threats with which to curb unruly behavior among their slaves:
to sell off the slave’s wife/husband/children, or to sell the family “farther south.”
Sometimes referred to as being “sold down the river.”

19. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The Constitution forbade any further importation of foreign slaves after 1808
But slavery did not die out
Even though owners discouraged marriage, they did encourage breeding
Slave numbers grew through natural population increase, which increased a slave owner’s “property” at no expense to him.

20. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
There were no longer any import/export markets
But there were marketplaces in almost every major Southern city where field hands could be bought and sold

21. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
One of the most notorious was in Washington DC, in the shade of the Capitol Building

22. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Another busy slave market was in Memphis, on Front Street.

23. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Slave traders were social outcasts, even though they often grew rich
This is another indication of the distaste many slave owners felt for the nuts-and-bolts of the economic institution that supported their wealthy life styles.

24. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
A field hand would usually sell for about $800 (about $14,000 in today’s dollars.)
A skilled slave (one who could blacksmith, for example) might sell for twice as much.
Slaves at market were often forced to strip in public, to show broad shoulders or strong legs.

25. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Most slave owners allowed crude but fairly adequate shelter for their slaves, and basic levels of nutrition.
A slave, like a good horse, was a valuable investment that should be cared for.

26. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Slaves, particularly slaves that had formed family ties, would often make the best of the arrangement in the interest of keeping their families together.

27. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Others, particularly young male slaves with no emotional ties, reacted violently to their enslaved condition.
Gabriel Prosser led a slave revolt in Virginia in 1800

28. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Denmark Vesey led a slave revolt in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822

29. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
The most famous – and most feared – was led by Nat Turner in coastal Virginia in 1831
Turner’s fellow rebels raided the cache of farm tools in his master’s barn, and used them to effect brutal murders.
The Turner Revolt caused institution of the “slave codes” in Southern states – laws meant to restrict the movement of slaves.

30. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Slaves could not be out of slave quarters after dark.
Slaves could not learn to read or write.
Slaves were not allowed to use farm tools unless a white person was present.
Slaves who had attempted to run away were branded like farm animals, or were forced to wear spiked, belled collars to keep them from hiding in a forest.

31. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

32. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

33. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

34. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

35. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Escape a common method of rebellion
Quaker families in Pennsylvania would provide refuge for escaped slaves.
The route to the North became known by slaves as “The Underground Railroad.”

36. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
One of the most famous “conductors” was escaped slave Harriet Tubman, who escorted over 300 to freedom.

37. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
According to folklore, the Burkle House on N. 2nd Street in Memphis was a stop on the Underground Railroad
Although there is little evidence that this is true, it’s still a tourist attraction and makes a good story

38. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South

39. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Manufacturing in the South was less than 2% of the gross revenues of the Southern economy.
Iron works were the most common types of factories.
Southern economy was thus not diversified.
If the main industry failed, the entire economy failed

41. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Some Southerners saw disaster coming
James B. D. DeBow’s newspaper The Review (often called DeBow’s Review) urged a more commercial and more diversified economic base.
His pleas fell largely on deaf ears.

42. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Women in the South were generally as subservient as their sisters in the North
But the agrarian economic base meant that a middle-class Southern woman had to work harder
Many slave-owning husbands fathered children with slave women, with their wives’ understanding if not full permission.

43. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
As reformers in the North began to call more loudly for slavery to be abolished, slave owners in the South began equally loudly to defend their institution and to use political means to silence the critics.

44. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
In 1836, Southern representatives in Congress pushed through a “gag rule”
This forbade any House member to bring slavery up for discussion, and forbade the House to entertain any bill that threatened slavery in any way
A gag is any binding placed over the mouth of a person to prevent speaking out
This gag rule held until 1844.

45. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Scientific arguments were proposed in Southern universities, “proving” that Black persons were inherently inferior, and were made for manual labor.
Preachers told of many positive aspects of slavery, claiming it guaranteed that Black persons would be Christianized.
“Southern life on the whole is more moral than life in the North, and slavery was the reason.”

46. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Before about 1830, slave owners would state it was a bad system, but couldn’t be avoided.
After about 1830, they portrayed it as a positive good.

47. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina proposed a new vision for the United States as early as 1837

48. Cotton, Slavery and the Old South
His idea of “concurrent majority,” would provide two presidents, one North and one South
This would forever protect the “Peculiar Institution” from majority rule by “outsiders.”