Part+2+-+White+Society+in+the+Antebellum+South

White Society in the Antebellum South and Slavery in the Southern Economy



The Planter's World

 * Successful planters (although limited in numbers) had a great influence on southern life. These planters had their fair share in politics, and less wealthy plantation owners often sought to imitate their ways of living. As the "Cotton Kingdom" spread from South Carolina to Alabama and Mississippi, the most successful planters were self-made young businessmen who built their wealth on banking and slave-trading. However, it was very difficult and expensive to maintain large amounts of slaves, and thus only a few planters had amassed a great number of slaves in their household.
 * It was the same for women. Like the men, only a few lived the life of luxury ("Mistresses of Plantations"). However, everyone had a desired and idealistic view of a "Planter's life". Planter's daugthers wre to speal French, dress in the latest style, etc. The aristocratic styope originated among the older gentry of the seaboard slave states, but in the 1840s and 1850s it spread to the South to the young wealthy southerners.

Planters, Racism, and Paternalism

 * Planters owned more than half of all the slaves in the South and thus, set the standards for treatment and management
 * Most planters liked to think of themselves as "benevolent" masters
 * Planters argued that blacks needed the slave system to ensure that they were cared for and protected.
 * Some planters thought of slaves as extended family (referred them as "our people")
 * Blacks were race of perpetual children requiring constant care and supervision by superior whites.
 * Slaveholders justified slavery by the supposed mental and moral inferiority of Africans.
 * 1830s~1840s: Racism in American boomed.
 * Racial "scientists" developed theories relating skull size to mental ability
 * Some proslavery apologist developed religious theories of "polygenesis", arguing that blacks were not descended from Adam and Eve.
 * Slaves were form of capital (main tools of production and also like stock)
 * Ban of slave trade in 1808 effective enough to make slave trades economically necessary.
 * Rising slave prices inhibited extreme physical abuse and deprivation.
 * Slaves were relatively treated well under planters (compared to other nations)
 * Had food (limited, they had food nonetheless), water and shelter; high rise in slaves in America
 * Limits of paternalism revealed in the slave market.
 * Planters who maintained close relationships with their slaves sold these slaves when they had no money
 * Planters believed that ultimate basis of their authority was through slave's fear of force and intimidation
 * "Principles of Fear"
 * Whipping, threats of selling to other people, etc.
 * Slaves lackd legal protection against such abuse (testimony not accepted in court)

Small Slaveholders

 * 88% of slaveholders in 1860 owned fewer than 20 slaves (not considered to be planters if usual term)
 * Urban merchants/ professional men who needed slaves for only domestic services
 * Life was spartan for slaves with masters who were small planters.
 * Relationship between owners and their slaves were much more intimate than one in larger estates.
 * Unlike planters, these farmers worked in the fields alongside their slaves
 * However, such closeness did not result in a better treatment

Yeomen Farmers

 * Yeomen farmers who owned land they worked themselves/
 * Mostly concentrated in the backcountry where slaves and plantations were rarely seen
 * Geography unsuitable for plantation
 * Relied heavily on hunting, lumbering, and distilling whiskey.
 * Women supplied more children then their wealthier neighbors because of extra labor
 * Although they didn't benefit directly from slavery, most yeomen and other non-slaveholders tolerated slavery and were fiercely opposed to abolitionism in any form
 * Yeomen hoped to become successful: they thought that slaves represented wealth
 * Below the small slaveholders, mostly concentrated in the backcountry, lived the yeoman farmers who owned land they worked themselves. These folk were self-reliant with limited avenues to the national and global economies. Yeoman women played a vital role in maintaining household economies.

Closed Mind and Closed Society

 * By the 1830s, public debate over the maintenance of slavery in the South became anathema.
 * Prior to this time, many prominent White Southerners declared the institution a “necessary evil.”
 * Fear of slavery uprising coupled with yeoman farmers heeding the call of abolitionists to end the evil institution led to the argument that slavery was a “positive good.” This ideology dominated southern politics after the 1830s, and was enforced through violence and censorship.


 * As tobacco farming became less important in some “upper” southern states like Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, which raised other crops and began infant industries, these states began selling “surplus” slaves to the lower South. Slavery emerged to dominate the lower South, more than the upper South.


 * The invention of the cotton gin and the introduction of "short-staple" cotton to the lower South made cotton the single most important export and the most profitable business in the United States.
 * The amount of cotton that was grown in the Deep South grew dramatically between 1817 and 1860.
 * Only large operators could afford their own gins
 * Had lower transportation
 * By 1850s, three quarters of the world's supply of cotton came from America


 * Although many Southerners considered methods to diversify and industrialize their region, most investment dollars went into cotton. The dependence on slavery and cotton impeded industrialization in the South.


 * The cotton/slavery system profited the planter directly, but it probably limited the South's development.
 * Used slaves to raise cotton

Interactive Activity
In this activity, the class will divide into two groups. The list will be shown at the beginning of class on Thursday. In your groups, you will be given one out of the two choices shown at the bottom. You will have five minutes to plan and think about your argument, and then another five minutes to present your argument. The winning team will be given a prize!

Slavery and Freedom: the Contradiction of the Formation of the Constitution and the Foundation of America. America is seen as the formation of freedom and the foundation of a world filled with opportunities was formed from slavery. The dehumanization of Africans began with the institution of slavery which began with the formation of the United States.

//Did slavery yield a good return for the great majority of slaveholders who were not large planters? Did it provide the basis for general prosperity and a relatively high standard of living for the southern population in general? Does that justify slavery?//

FOR: Slavery
Slavery is a necessary process; Americans need slaves for economic prosperity. African peoples were captured and transported to the Americas to work. Most European colonial economies in the Americas from the 16th through the 19th century were dependent on enslaved African labor for their survival. According to European colonial officials, the abundant land they had "discovered" in the Americas was useless without sufficient labor to exploit it. Slavery systems of labor exploitation were preferred, but neither European nor Native American sources proved adequate to the task.

AGAINST
Slavery goes against the Constitution and the foundation of America; slaves should be considered to be human. The Constitution as originally written would have contridicted the statement "All men are created equal." The legislative branch was to be based on population, but "excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons" which was a compromise around the issue of slavery.

//Walter Calloway Birmingham, Alabama//
Interviewed by W.P. Jordan "OLE JOE HAD REAL 'LIGI0N"

"Marse John hab a big plantation an' lots of slaves. Dey treated us purty good, but we hab to wuk hard. Time I was ten years ole I was makin' a reg'lar han' 'hin de plow. Oh, yassuh, Marse John good 'nough to us an' we get plenty to eat, but he had a oberseer name Green Bush what sho' whup us iffen we don't do to suit him. Yassuh, he mighty rough wid us be he didn't do de whippin' hisse'f. He had a big black boy name Mose, mean as de debil an' strong as a ox, and de oberseer let him do all de whuppin'. An', man, he could sho' lay on dat rawhide lash. He whupped a nigger gal 'bout thirteen years old so hard she nearly die, an' allus atterwa'ds she hab spells of fits or somp'n. Dat make Marse John pow'ful mad, so he run dat oberseer off de place an' Mose didn' do no mo' whuppin' "Same time Marse John buy mammy an' us boys, he buy a black man name Joe. He a preacher an' de marster let de slaves buil' a bresh arbor in de pecan grove over in de big pastur', an' when de wedder warn't too cold all de slaves was 'lowed to meet dar on Sunday fo' preachin'. Yassuh, ole Joe do purty good. I speck he had mo' 'ligion dan some of de hifalutin' niggers 'tendin' to preach nowadays. De white folks chu'ch, hit at Hope Hill over on de stage road, an' sometimes dey fetch 'dere preacher to de plantation to preach to de slaves. But dey druther heah Joe. "Nawsuh, we didn't git no schoolin' 'cep'in' befo' we got big 'nough to wuk in de fiel' we go 'long to school wid de white chillun to take care of 'em. Dey show us pictures an' tell us all dey kin, but it didn't 'mount to much. "When de war started 'mos' all I know 'bout it was all de white mens go to Montgomery an' jine de army. My brudder, he 'bout fifteen year ole, so he go 'long wid de ration wagon to Montgomery 'mos' ebry week. One day he come back from Montgomery an' he say, 'Hell done broke loose in Gawgy.' He couldn't tell us much 'bout what done happen, but de slaves dey get all 'cited 'caze dey didn' know what to 'spect. Purty soon we fin' out day some of de big mens call a meetin' at de capitol on Goat Hill in Montgomery. Dey 'lected Mista Jeff Davis president an' done busted de Nunited States wide open. "Atter dat dar warn't much happen on de plantation 'cep'in' gangs of so'jers passin' th'ough gwine off to de war. Den 'bout ebry so often a squad of Confederate so'jers would come to de neighborhood gatherin' up rations for Gin'ral Lee's army dey say. Dat make it purty hard on bofe whites an' blacks, takin' off some of de bes' stock an' runnin' us low on grub. "But we wuk right on 'twell one day somebody seen a runner sayin' de Yankees comin'. Ole mistis tell me to hurry ober to Mrs. Freeman's an' tell 'em Wilson's Yankee raiders was on de way an' comin' lak a harrikin. I hop on a mule an' go jes' as fas' as I can make him trabel, but befo' I git back dey done retch de plantation, smashin' things comin' an' gwine. "Dey broke in de smoke house an' tuk all de hams an' yuther rations dey fin' what dey want an' burn up de res'. Den dey ramshack de big house lookin' fo' money an' jewelry an' raise Cain wid de wimmin folks 'caze dey didn't fin' what dey wanted. Den dey leave dere ole hosses an' mules an' take de bes' we got. Atter dey don dat, dey burn de smoke house, de barns, de cribs an' some yuther prop'ty. Den dey skedaddle some place else. "I warn't up dar but I heern tell dey burn up piles an' piles of cotton an' lots of steamboats at Montgomery an' lef' de ole town jes' 'bout ruint'. Twarn't long atter dat dey tell us we'se free. But lawdy, Cap'n, we ain't nebber been what I calls free. 'Cose ole marster didn' own us no mo', an' all de folks soon scatter all ober, but iffen dey all lak me day still hafter wuk jes' as hard, an some times hab less dan we useter hab when we stay on Marster John's plantation. "Well, Cap'n, dat's 'bout all I know. I feel dat misery comin' on me now. Will you please, suh, gimme a lif' back in de house. I wisht dat white gemman doctor come on iffen he comin'."

=Analysis Questions:= //1. Who, What, When, Where, and Why should be clarified. 2. Summarize the document in your own words. 3. What does the language of the narrative tell about the interviewee's background?//