‘November 6 1860, Lincoln was elected president of America which resulted in panic emerging in the South’ . The election of Lincoln as president who was a Republican leader meant that ideologies, movements and values from the North would be implemented in the South which meant the abolition of slavery. Slavery was a huge characteristic of the South as the economy; politics; social status and psychological mind-sets were influenced by the process of slavery. The southern white population then derived the idea of secession which meant the South would gain independence from Northern aggression . This essay will explore the reasons as to how and why secession occurred and whether slavery was the main
The treatment of slaves between the North and the South was drastically different. Slaves in the North typically lived in the same house as their master and worked by themselves, or in small groups (pg. 94). Slaves in the South tended to live in large plantations in which they were housed in plantation outbuildings (pg. 104). The difference between the North and the South in housing and working environment had a direct effect on the integration of African Americans into their new American society. When they were housed in the North with their masters and had limited exposure to other slaves, they tended to adopt the ways of their masters. This was different from the South in that after the day’s labor was finished, slaves typically retreated
During the 1800’s the North and Southern regions of America were very different. The North being an industrial economy, a free labor territory. While the South was a plantation economy, a slave labor territory. The greatest difference being that of slavery and therefore, there were tensions brewing between the two regions. At the beginning of the 19th century, slavery had expanded into Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Culturally and commercially, the North and South were similar, as migratory people looking west for fertile land. Economically, the South still trailed behind the North. The South consisted of 15 slave states with one out of three white men owning slaves. While yeoman farmers (owning no slaves), made up three-fourths
Eli Whitney invented The Cotton Gin in 1794. The purpose of this invention was to speeding up the elimination of seeds from the cotton fiber and as a result, an increase in the production of cotton.
Abolitionists preached to the public people on how slavery was unjustified, cruel, immoral, and inhumane. A widely accepted thought was to degrade colored people to that of the thinking capacity of apes and to treat them as animals. Most of the states were slave-holding at this time in history with slaves being the ones under the direction of the owners. Buyers (whites) of slaves sought for cheap labor and gave no credibility to anything the slaves accomplished. Whites had slaves work their mines and farms, the two most important jobs at the time. Without the slaves, no one was there to take care of their families and maintaining submission was the rule of the land. However, it was arguable that colored people were the main reason that the country was striving. It was so unfair that slaves built this country off of their diligent and humbled work ethic, yet they were still viewed as being far inferior to whites.
The growth of the textile industry, in particular, generated an increased need for cotton, which in turn perpetuated the south's reliance on slavery. With the creation of Eli Whitney's cotton gin, cotton could be produced much more efficiently and effectively through slave labor, and was also more accessible to small farms as well. The social gap between the rich and the poor in the South did not widen as much as in the North, because white people, regardless of whether they were independent landed farmers, landless farmers and farm workers, or plantation owners, had a "bond" of racial solidarity that was strongly emphasized in southern society, which solidified and aided in the retention of slavery as an institution. Although most southerners did not own slaves, and those who did rarely owned more than 10, every white southerner benefitted from slavery because it meant they could never be at the bottom of the social or economic hierarchy, and also, slaveholders often rented out slave labor to other farmers during harvest season. Even though slavery was becoming more of a divisive issue, the border states (Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland) that could have ousted the slave-cotton system based on public opinion chose to remain slave states. Slavery was one of the few aspects of Antebellum society that was
The Southern and Northern states differentiate on many issues, which ultimately led them towards a Civil War. There stood deep social, economic, and political disparities between the North and the South. These modifications stemmed from the understanding of the United States Constitution on both sides. In the end, most of these disputes about the rights of states directed to the Civil War. There existed reasons other than slavery on behalf of the South 's breakaway. The demonstrations of division in America coexisted many: utopian societies, clashes over public space, backlash alongside immigrants, urban rebellions, black demonstration, and Indian oppositions. America was a separated land in need of change with the South in the biggest demand. The South trusted heavily on agriculture, equally opposed to the North, which was vastly populated and an industrialized union. The South produced cotton, which remained its main cash crop and countless Southerners knew that hefty reliance on slave labor would damage the South ultimately, but their forewarnings were not regarded. The South was constructed on a totalitarian system.
Between 1800 and 1850, the North and South had grown distinctively different, but they also had some similarities. Some of the differences & similarities between the North and South included the economy, social attitudes & structures, and daily life. The North and the South had farmers and everyone including children worked on the family farms. As time went by, the North became more industrialized and manufacturing became the center point of their economy rather than agriculture. Factories popped up all along the east coast and the inland waterways. As factories, foundries, and mills grew the demand for workers increased. As the word of jobs spread, ships brought European immigrants. The South’s economy was centered around agriculture. Industry did not develop in the South because there was not enough labor. Masters could earn more from growing cotton than from industry, so they didn’t want their slaves to work in factories. Cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane, and indigo were sold as cash crops. However, the reason why the South became so rich was become of cotton. The economic relationship between the North and South during this time was that the South produced cotton and the North used the cotton to manufacture textiles. As the textile mills
During the early 1800’s, President Thomas Jefferson effectively doubled the size of the United States under the Louisiana Purchase. This set the way for Westward expansion, alongside an increase in industrialism and overall economic growth. In fact, many citizens were able to thrive and make a better living in the agricultural business than anywhere else. All seemed to be going well in this new and ever expanding country, except for one underlying issue; slavery. Many African Americans were treated as the lowest of the classes, even indistinguishable from livestock. To slave owners. many saw their slaves as nothing more than property. Slaves were represented as lazy and uneducated in this time period, sparking the typical Sambo stereotype.
David Walker acknowledged that slavery had long been practiced in Africa, but he charged white Christian slaveholders with greater crimes against humanity and greater hypocrisy in justifying those crimes than any prior slave system had been guilty of. Twentieth century scholarship has lent much support to the contentions of Walker’s and others in the African American antislavery vanguard that slavery as perpetrated by the European colonizers of Africa and the Americas brought man’s inhumanity to man to a level of technological efficiency unimagined by previous generations.
Imagine if the cotton businesses had no slaves the Southerners would have to create their own factories, for example, if they did have to create their own industry, they would have to sell all their slaves and that’s one of the last things that they wanted to do. If the South had no slaves, they would have to do everything all by themselves. According to page 242 it says " planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories, most wealthy southerners had their wealth invested in land and slaves. Planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories. Most wealthy southerners were unwilling to do this. They believed that an economy based on cotton and slavery would continue to prosper". This shows that Slaves and cotton were very important to the Southerners.
The impact of slavery on the Old South is a difficult measure to establish because slavery was the Old South. While the popular adage was “Cotton is King,” it was simply a microcosm of the delusion of the day. Truly, slavery was king. Slavery was the growing tension of the time, political catalyst and ironically crux of American power. To the masses, slavery was a social defining stance; the “peculiar institution” to some and a defining moral line to others, American life was changed depending on what view you took of slavery. No matter your stance at the time, one thing became clear: socially, politically and economically, slavery was the fabric of American success and gave birth to the Old South as we know it today.
Large plantation owners were at the top of the social hierarchy, and used slavery to produce massive amounts of cotton to export. Large plantation owners used slaves almost exclusively as their workforce, so they wanted to keep slavery because it was the source of all their money, and a convenient, easy, and cheap way to have nearly unlimited labor. Yeoman Farmers were independent farmers who generally grew their own food, and rarely some sort of cash crops by themselves, without slave labor. Yeoman Farmers saw slavery as a stepping stone, a way to begin farming cotton and rise up into the Southern elite through cheap labor. Farmers like these were in favor of slavery because they viewed it as a tool to get to the top of the social hierarchy, a decidedly American ambition. Poor whites in the South were generally also subsistence farmers without employing slaves or any other paid or unpaid laborer. Much like the Yeoman Farmers, poor whites viewed slavery as a stepping stone to become richer, more powerful, and gain social status. Throughout all groups, it was realized that emancipation would rock the unity of the South down to its very foundations, and were in favor of keeping slavery intact to benefit the whole region and
“Sugar in the Blood” is a book written by Andrea Stuart, female from diverse racial setting. She was born and raised in the Caribbean Island, in particular, the Barbados. Stuart decision of writing this book comes from inspiration from her earliest ancestors while she was sitting in a library located in Barbados Museum. The library appears to be harshly air-conditioned showing the pathetic condition of her ecological niche. Stuart used census records as the primary source of information and data. Despite the limitations of genealogical study present in the library, she builds various ideas from the sources even if it yields the skeleton and not
Approximately three Southern states change their approach on forced labor without compensation, African American slaves would work for an amount of cash that was, generally, given to the masters of the slaves; However, some of these African American were freed and, therefore, kept all the earnings. In the mid 1800’s southern states, slavery was progressively headed towards salary base employment which would boost the states economically. Furthermore, Northern states were already using such economic structure to boost labor in the industrial region, which led to divide the country into sectors of specialized commodities. Southern state were no longer the only major contributor of economic growth, the Northern states were in large in foreign demands for cotton in the years of 1815-1843 as industries boomed in