1. Warm Up
If you had to pick THREE adjectives to describe the “OLD SOUTH”, what would they be?

2. The Old South Cotton Is King The Second Middle Passage
By 1820, slavery was an old institution in America
Sheryl Crow quote*
The Second Middle Passage
“peculiar institution”
slave population had increased to nearly 4 million and slavery had spread to Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. Slaves were one-third of the South’s entire population and half of the population in the cotton states of the Deep South.
By 1820, slavery was an old institution in America. With abolition in the northern states, the “peculiar institution” of slavery became unique to the South. By the Civil War, the slave population had increased to nearly 4 million and slavery had spread to Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. Slaves were one-third of the South’s entire population and half of the population in the cotton states of the Deep South.
Slavery’s expansion was due to the growth of cotton production, which replaced sugar as the world’s major slave crop. Though slavery persisted in Brazil and the Caribbean, Britain’s abolition of slavery within its empire in 1833 made the United States slavery’s center in the hemisphere. The Old South was the largest and most powerful slave society in history, based on the region’s virtual monopoly on cotton. Cotton’s use in textile manufacturing made it central to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America and the most important commodity in international trade. By 1803, cotton was America’s most important export. By 1860, investments in slaves exceeded in value the worth of all of the nation’s factories, railroads, and banks combined.
To replace the foreign slave trade that had been banned in the United States in 1808, a massive internal slave trade developed. More than 2 million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860, many of whom were transported to the Deep South to new cotton plantations. Virtually every slave owner at some point bought and sold slaves. The Cotton Kingdom could not have developed without the internal slave trade, and older slave states in the East came to depend on the sale of their slaves.

3. Map 11.1 Slave Population, 1860
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © W.W. Norton & Company

4. Table 11.1 Growth of The Slave Population
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © W.W. Norton & Company

5. The Old South Slavery and the Nation The Southern Economy
Although the northern states abolished slavery, slavery affected them, nonetheless
Constitution
disproportionate power to southern states
Slavery touched the lives of all Americans
Northern merchants and manufacturers participated in the slave economy and profited from it.
Cotton trade profits helped finance industrial development and internal improvements in the North.
Northern ships carried cotton, northern banks financed plantations, northern companies insured slave property, and northern factories turned cotton into clothing.
The Southern Economy
Upper South = much smaller % of slaves & slave owners
Deep South was ALL plantations
TX to SC
Inhibited industrial growth
No large & diverse cities, except for New Orleans
Although the northern states abolished slavery, slavery affected them, nonetheless. The Constitution gave disproportionate power to southern states in the House of Representatives and electoral college and required all states to return fugitive slaves. Slavery touched the lives of all Americans. Northern merchants and manufacturers participated in the slave economy and profited from it. Cotton trade profits helped finance industrial development and internal improvements in the North. Northern ships carried cotton, northern banks financed plantations, northern companies insured slave property, and northern factories turned cotton into clothing.
While slavery defined and dominated the South’s economy, the South was a diverse region. In the Upper South, slaves and slave owners were a much smaller percentage of the population, compared to Deep South states stretching from South Carolina to Texas. The Upper South had centers of manufacturing, while the Deep South depended entirely on cotton. Yet slavery caused the South to have a very different economic development than the North. Slavery inhibited industrial growth, discouraged immigration, and slowed technological progress. It did not have large and diverse cities like the North, except for New Orleans. Banks and railroad lines served plantations and little else. While many in the North thought slavery prevented economic growth, slavery in fact was very profitable and expanded the southern economy.

6. The Old South Plain Folk of the Old South The Planter Class
Most southern white families did not own slaves (3/4)
Many were self-sufficient and remote from markets
They were often desperately poor and more often illiterate
The Planter Class
Most slave owners did not own large plantations
small number of families owned more than 20 slaves;
even fewer owned more than 100 slaves.
Planters owned slaves to make huge profits, and they used those profits for the conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, creating an aristocratic material life sharply at odds with life for most northerners.
southern white families did not own slaves. Because planters had the best land, most small white farmers lived outside the plantation belt in areas unsuitable for cotton. They worked the land with the labor of family members, not slaves or wage-workers. Many were self-sufficient and remote from markets. They were often desperately poor and more often illiterate than northern farmers, since most southern states lacked free public schools. In part, because these farmers did not provide a market for manufactured goods, the South did not develop industry. While some poor whites resented the planters’ economic and political power, most accommodated the planters and shared with them a common racial identity, business ties, common political culture, and kinship ties. Many small white farmers believed their economic and personal freedom rested on slavery.
Most slave owners did not own large plantations. In 1850, most slaveholding families owned 5 or fewer slaves. Only a small number of families owned more than 20 slaves; even fewer owned more than 100 slaves. Planters’ slave property provided wealth, status, and influence. They held the best land, had the highest incomes, and dominated local and state politics and government. Small slave owners aspired to become large planters. Planters owned slaves to make huge profits, and they used those profits for the conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, creating an aristocratic material life sharply at odds with life for most northerners.

7. Map 11.2 Size of Slaveholdings, 1860
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © W.W. Norton & Company

8. The Old South The Paternalist Ethos The Code of Honor
Idea that slaveholding gentlemen took personal responsibility for the well-being of their dependent women, children, and slaves.
This outlook of “paternalism” had long been a feature of American slavery
The Code of Honor
In the South, men of all classes followed a code of personal honor,
in which they were expected to
defend the reputation of themselves and their families,
with violence if necessary.
Dueling, while illegal, was not uncommon.
Southern white women were even more confined to the home and the domestic ideal than northern
Plantations were part of a world market, and planters worked to accumulate land, slaves, and great profits, some of which they invested in railroads and banks. But planters celebrated, not competitive capitalism but a hierarchical, agrarian society in which slaveholding gentlemen took personal responsibility for the well-being of their dependent women, children, and slaves. This outlook of “paternalism” had long been a feature of American slavery, but it deepened with the end of the African slave trade, which closed the cultural gap between slaves and owners. And most southern slave owners lived on their own plantations, close to their slaves. Paternalism obscured and justified slavery’s brutality. Owners thought themselves kind and responsible even while they bought, sold, and punished their slaves.
Over time, southern women.
values diverged from the North’s culture of egalitarianism, competition, and individualism. In the South, men of all classes followed a code of personal honor, in which they were expected to defend the reputation of themselves and their families, with violence if necessary. Dueling, while illegal, was not uncommon. Southern white women were even more confined to the home and the domestic ideal than northern

9. The Old South The Proslavery Argument
pro-slavery thought came to dominate southern intellectual and cultural life.
Racism—the belief that blacks were innately inferior to whites and suited for slavery—framed the proslavery argument.
Slave owners also found justification for slavery in ancient history and the Bible.
Some southerners argued that black slavery guaranteed equality for whites by preventing the growth of a white working class in the South.
Slavery, they argued, provided the economic autonomy and independence that the North’s industrial workers lacked and which formed the basis of the republic.
Abolition in the Americas
Southern slaveholders knew of the Haitian Revolution, other slave rebellions, and British abolition.
Emancipation throughout the Americas strongly shaped debates about slavery and its future in the United States.
While American slave owners argued that emancipation had been a failure, abolitionists disagreed.
By 1850, slave systems remained in the western hemisphere only in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the United States
In the thirty years before the Civil War, pro-slavery thought came to dominate southern intellectual and cultural life. Fewer southern whites felt, as had many founding fathers, that slavery was a necessary evil, and more started to argue it was a positive good. Racism—the belief that blacks were innately inferior to whites and suited for slavery—framed the proslavery argument. Slave owners also found justification for slavery in ancient history and the Bible. Some southerners argued that black slavery guaranteed equality for whites by preventing the growth of a white working class in the South. Slavery, they argued, provided the economic autonomy and independence that the North’s industrial workers lacked and which formed the basis of the republic.
Southern slaveholders knew of the Haitian Revolution, other slave rebellions, and British abolition. Emancipation throughout the Americas strongly shaped debates about slavery and its future in the United States. While American slave owners argued that emancipation had been a failure, abolitionists disagreed. By 1850, slave systems remained in the western hemisphere only in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the United States.

10. The Old South Slavery and Liberty
South Carolina in particular was home to many who argued that freedom and equality were not universal entitlements, even for all whites
When sectionalism intensified after 1830, more southern writers and politicians came to defend slavery Slavery and Civilization
Many white southerners claimed they were the true inheritors of the Revolution’s legacy, and they freely used the language of liberty to contrast their condition with slavery. They complained that government interference with their economy threatened to “enslave” them. Southern state constitutions acknowledged equal rights for free white men. But in the 1830s, some pro-slavery writers began to argue that liberty, equality, and democracy were not necessarily beneficial to the South. South Carolina in particular was home to many who argued that freedom and equality were not universal entitlements, even for all whites. When sectionalism intensified after 1830, more southern writers and politicians came to defend slavery not as ensuring equality between whites, but as the basis of an organic, hierarchical society in which white large planters ruled over lesser whites and slaves.
Virginian George Fitzhugh took this argument to the extreme, repudiating Jeffersonian ideals and the idea of America’s world mission to spread freedom. He argued that slavery, not liberty, was the normal basis of civilization in world history. He argued that slaves were happy and contented. He suggested that white workers in the North and South should have paternal white owners to care for them, rather than be enslaved by capitalist markets and employers.

11. Life under Slavery Slaves and the Law Conditions of Slave Life
Legal property of their owners
Few rights rarely enforced
Bought and sold
Could not
testify in court
Sign contracts
Own firearms
Hold meetings
Leave farm without permission
By 1830s, Illegal to teach how to read or write
Conditions of Slave Life
some southern states passed laws to prevent slave mistreatment
Better diets than slaves in West Indies and Brazil
Paternalism
 value of slaves encourages better treatment
For slaves, slavery meant incessant toil, harsh punishment, and constant fear that that their families would be destroyed by sale. Slaves were the legal property of their owners. Their few legal rights were rarely enforced. Slaves could be bought and sold by their owners at will and had no voice in the governments that ruled over them. They could not testify in court against whites, sign contracts or buy property, own firearms, hold meetings apart from whites, or leave a farm or plantation without permission. By the 1830s, it was illegal to teach slaves how to read and write. Although these laws were not always enforced, the entire southern legal and governmental system was designed to enforce the slave masters’ control over the slaves’ bodies and labor.
During the early nineteenth century, some southern states passed laws to prevent slave mistreatment, and their material conditions did improve. Many slaves supplemented the food owners provided by raising crops and livestock, gathering, and hunting. They had better diets than slaves in the West Indies and Brazil. Paternalism contributed to slaves’ material improvements over time. And the increasing price of slaves encouraged planters to care for their slaves’ basic well-being. Yet slavery was tightened in this period, and states passed laws making it harder for owners to free their slaves and for slaves to buy their own freedom.

12. Life under Slavery Free Blacks in the Old South
Slavery helped define the status of free blacks.
By the Civil War, half a million free blacks lived in the United States, the majority in the South.
In most of the North, free blacks could not vote and had few economic opportunities.
In the South, free blacks could own their own property, could marry, and could not be bought or sold as slaves.
But they had virtually no other rights in southern society.
They could not own dogs, guns, or liquor; could not strike whites, even in self-defense; and had to carry proof of their free status.
In other American slave societies, where racial identity was less sharply distinguished, free blacks amassed property and prestige.
In the United States, the sharp racial distinction between black and white left little room for a mulatto class to emerge.
The Upper and Lower South
By 1860, very few of the South’s free blacks lived in the Lower South, and those who did were mostly in cities.
In New Orleans and Charleston,
In the Upper South, where most southern free blacks lived, they worked mostly for wages as farm labor. Some free blacks here even owned slaves.

13. Table 11.3 Free Black Population, 1860
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © W.W. Norton & Company

14. Map 11.3 Distribution of Free Blacks, 1860
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © W.W. Norton & Company

15. Life under Slavery Slave Labor Gang Labor and Task Labor
Slavery was above all a labor system, in which work occupied the entirety of slaves’ time, except for brief meals.
On large plantations, slaves performed all kinds of work,
from labor in the fields
to skilled labor like carpentry,
engineering,
and shoemaking.
Slaves also worked on steamboats, in mines, in seaports, and on railroads. Local authorities used them to build roads and other facilities, and the federal government used them to build forts and other public buildings.
Professionals such as merchants, lawyers, and businessmen used slaves,
and by the Civil War, 200,000 slaves worked in industries such as
ironworks and tobacco factories.
In southern cities, slaves were used as unskilled labor and skilled artisans. A few slaves were entrusted with great responsibilities, such as supervising other slaves, selling goods, or handling money.
Gang Labor and Task Labor
Most slaves, perhaps as many as 75 percent of women and 90 percent of men, worked in the fields.
On small farms, slaves worked alongside their owner.
The largest concentration of slaves worked on plantations in the Cotton Belt in gangs, directed by an overseer and maybe a slave “driver.”
Overseers, tasked with producing large crops, were often brutal.

17. Map 11.4 Major Crops of the South, 1860
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © W.W. Norton & Company

18. Life under Slavery Slavery in the Cities Maintaining Order
From the slaves’ perspective, slavery in different regions of the South could be “worse” in some respects and “better” in others.
Slaves in rice fields faced harsh conditions but had more independence than other slaves because of task labor and the absence of a large white population.
Skilled urban slave craftsmen had great autonomy and often could hire themselves out and sometimes even keep their earnings.
Many urban slaves even lived by themselves!
Maintaining Order
Slavery was based on force.
Slave owners used a variety of methods to maintain order and discipline
Masters could inflict almost any kind of punishment, and it was the rare slave who was not whipped at some point in his or her life.
Even minor infractions invited whipping.
Owners used subtler methods, too.
They exploited divisions among the slaves, especially between field hands and house servants.
They created incentives for hard work,
such as time off
even cash payments.
The threat of sale was the most powerful weapon owners had, since sale disrupted families and slave communities.