Cotton is King_ The Antebellum South, 1800–1860
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Cotton is King The Antebellum Sou , FIGURE Bateaux a , la 1853 ( Giant Steamboats at New Orleans , 1853 ) by Hippolyte , shows how New Orleans , at the mouth of the Mississippi River , was the primary trading hub for the cotton that fueled the growth of the southern economy , CHAPTER OUTLINE The Economics of Cotton African Americans in the Antebellum United States Wealth and Culture in the South The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States INTRODUCTION Nine new slave states entered the Union between 1789 and 1860 , rapidly expanding and transforming the South into a region of economic growth built on slave labor . In the image above ( Figure ) innumerable enslaved workers load cargo onto a steamship in the Port of New Orleans , the commercial center of the antebellum South , while two White men stand by talking . Commercial activity extends as far as the eye can see . By the century , southern commercial centers like New Orleans had become home to the greatest concentration of wealth in the United States . While most White southerners did not own hold , they aspired to join the ranks of elite slaveholders , who played a key role in the politics ofboth the South and the nation . Meanwhile , slavery shaped the culture and society of the South , which rested on a racial ideology of White supremacy and a vision of the United States as a White man republic . Enslaved people endured the traumas of slavery by creating their own culture and using the Christian message of redemption to find hope
298 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , for a world of freedom without violence . The Economics of Cotton LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end ofthis section , you will be able to Explain the processes of cotton production Describe the importance of cotton to the Atlantic and American antebellum economy William John Walker conquers Charles United Nicaragua Eli Whitney states on and patents leads slave annexes carton gin in Louisiana Texas is published slavery 1794 1811 1845 1850 1855 00 1803 1852 1854 ' Harriet , purchases Beecher Manifesto ! Louisiana stove is made Territory publishes public from Uncle France Tom Cabin FIGURE In the antebellum is , in the years before the Civil planters in the South continued to grow Chesapeake tobacco and Carolina rice as they had in the colonial era . Cotton , however , emerged as the antebellum South major commercial crop , eclipsing tobacco , rice , and sugar in economic importance . By 1860 , the region was producing of the world cotton . In 1793 , Eli Whitney revolutionized the production of cotton when he developed the cotton gin , likely by suggestions from enslaved people . It was a device that separated the seeds from raw cotton . Suddenly , a process that was extraordinarily intensive when done by hand could be completed quickly and easily . American plantation owners , who were searching for a successful staple crop to compete on the world market , found it in cotton . As a commodity , cotton had the advantage of being easily stored and transported . A demand for it already existed in the industrial textile mills in Great Britain , and in time , a steady stream of American cotton would also supply northern textile mills . Southern cotton , picked and processed by enslaved labor , helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in both the United States and Great Britain . KING COTTON Almost no cotton was grown in the United States in 1787 , the year the federal constitution was written . However , following the War of 1812 , a huge increase in production resulted in the cotton boom , and by , cotton became the key cash crop ( a crop grown to sell rather than for the farmer sole use ) of the southern economy and the most important American commodity . By 1850 , of the million enslaved people in the country slave states , million were producing cotton by 1860 , enslaved labor was producing over two billion pounds of cotton per year Indeed , American cotton soon made up of the global supply , and production continued to soar . By the time of the Civil War , South Carolina politician James Hammond proclaimed that the North could never threaten the South because cotton is king . The crop grown in the South was a hybrid , known as Petit Gulf cotton , a mix of Access for free at .
The Economics of Cotton 299 Mexican , Georgia , and Siamese strains . Petit Gulf cotton grew extremely well in different soils and climates . It dominated cotton production in the Mississippi River of the new slave states of Louisiana , Mississippi , Arkansas , Tennessee , Kentucky , and well as in other states like Texas . Whenever new slave states entered the Union , White slaveholders sent armies of the enslaved to clear the land in order to grow and pick the lucrative crop . The phrase to be sold down the river , used by Harriet Beecher in her 1852 novel Uncle Cabin , refers to this forced migration from the upper southern states to the Deep South , lower on the Mississippi , to grow cotton . The enslaved people who built this cotton kingdom with their forced labor started by clearing the land . Although the Jeffersonian vision of the settlement of new territories entailed White yeoman farmers carving out small independent farms , the reality proved quite different . Entire forests and cypress swamps fell to the axe as enslaved people labored to strip the vegetation to make way for cotton . With the land cleared , they readied the earth by plowing and planting . To ambitious White planters , the extent of new land available for cotton production seemed almost limitless , and many planters simply leapfrogged from one area to the next , abandoning their every ten to years after the soil became exhausted . As a result , enslaved people composed the vanguard of this American expansion to the West . Cotton planting took place in March and April , when enslaved people planted seeds in rows around three to feet apart . Over the next several months , from April to August , they carefully tended the plants . Weeding the cotton rows took energy and time . In August , after the cotton plants had and the had begun to give way to cotton ( the capsule that contains the cotton ) all the plantation enslaved men , women , and children worked together to pick the crop ( Figure ) On each day of cotton picking , enslaved workers went to the with sacks , which they would as many times as they could . The effort was laborious , and a White driver employed the lash to make the enslaved people work as quickly as possible . FIGURE In the late nineteenth century , Wilson captured this image of harvest time at a southern plantation . While the workers in this photograph are not enslaved laborers , the process of cotton harvesting shown here had changed little from antebellum times . Cotton planters projected the amount of cotton they could harvest based on the number of enslaved people under their control . In general , planters expected a good hand , or enslaved laborer , to work ten acres of land and pick two hundred pounds of cotton a day . An overseer or master measured each enslaved individual daily yield . Great pressure existed to meet the expected daily amount , and some overseers whipped enslaved people who picked less than expected . Cotton picking occurred as many as seven times a season as the plant grew and continued to produce through the fall and early winter . During the picking season , enslaved people worked from sunrise to sunset
300 12 cotton is King The Antebellum South , with a break at lunch many slaveholders tended to give them little to eat , since spending on food would cut into their . Other slaveholders knew that feeding the enslaved could increase productivity and therefore provided what they thought would help ensure a crop . Enslaved people day did end after they picked the cotton once they had brought it to the gin house to be weighed , they then had to care for the animals and perform other chores . Indeed , they often maintained their own gardens and livestock , which they tended after working the cotton , in order to supplement their supply of food . Sometimes the cotton was dried before it was ginned ( put through the process of separating the seeds from the cotton ) The cotton gin allowed an enslaved laborer to remove the seeds from pounds of cotton a day , compared to one pound if done by hand . After the seeds had been removed , the cotton was pressed into bales . These bales , weighing about four hundred to hundred pounds , were wrapped in burlap cloth and sent down the Mississippi River . CLICK AND EXPLORE Visit the Internet Archive ( to watch a 1937 showing cotton bales being loaded onto a steamboat . As the cotton industry boomed in the South , the Mississippi River quickly became the essential water highway in the United States . Steamboats , a crucial part of the transportation revolution thanks to their enormous capacity and ability to navigate shallow waterways , became a component of the cotton kingdom . Steamboats also illustrated the class and social distinctions of the antebellum age . While the decks carried precious cargo , ornate rooms graced the interior . In these spaces , White people socialized in the ship saloons and dining halls while enslaved Black people served them ( Figure ) FIGURE As in this depiction of the saloon of the Mississippi River steamboat Princess , elegant and luxurious rooms often occupied the interiors of antebellum steamships , whose decks were with cargo . Investors poured huge sums into steamships . In 1817 , only seventeen plied the waters of western rivers , but by 1837 , there were over seven hundred steamships in operation . Major new ports developed at Louis , Missouri Memphis , Tennessee and other locations . By 1860 , some hundred vessels were steaming in and out of New Orleans , carrying an annual cargo made up primarily of cotton that amounted to 220 million worth of goods ( approximately billion in 2014 dollars ) New Orleans had been part of the French empire before the United States purchased it , along with the rest of the Louisiana Territory , in 1803 . In the half of the nineteenth century , it rose in prominence and importance largely because of the cotton boom , river , and its strategic position near the mouth of the Mississippi River . Steamboats moved down the river transporting cotton grown on plantations along the river and throughout the South to the port at New Orleans . From there , the bulk of American cotton Access for free at .
The Economics of Cotton 301 went to Liverpool , England , where it was sold to British manufacturers who ran the cotton mills in Manchester and elsewhere . This lucrative international trade brought new wealth and new residents to the city . By 1840 , New Orleans alone had 12 percent of the nation total banking capital , and visitors often commented on the great cultural diversity of the city . In 1835 , Joseph Holt wrote Truly does represent every other city and nation upon earth . I know of none where is congregated so great a variety of the human species . Slave labor , cotton , and the steamship transformed the city from a relatively isolated corner of North America in the eighteenth century to a thriving metropolis that rivaled New York in importance Figure . FIGURE This print of The Levee New Orleans ( 1884 ) shows the bustling port of New Orleans with bales of cotton waiting to be shipped . The sheer volume of cotton indicates its economic importance throughout the century . THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE The South dependence on cotton was matched by its dependence on stolen labor from enslaved people to harvest the cotton . Despite the rhetoric of the Revolution that all men are created equal , slavery not only endured in the American republic but formed the very foundation of the country economic success . Cotton and slavery occupied a in the economy . In 1807 , the Congress abolished the foreign slave trade , a ban that went into effect on January , 1808 . After this date , importing captives from Africa became illegal in the United States . While smuggling continued to occur , the end of the international slave trade meant that enslaved domestic people were in very high demand . Fortunately for Americans whose wealth depended upon the exploitation of slave labor , a fall in the price of tobacco had caused landowners in the Upper South to reduce their production of this crop and use more of their land to grow wheat , which was far more . While tobacco was a crop that required many people to cultivate it , wheat was not . Former tobacco farmers in the older states of Virginia and Maryland found themselves with surplus enslaved people whom they were obligated to feed , clothe , and shelter . Some slaveholders responded to this situation by releasing enslaved people far more decided to sell their excess bondsmen . Virginia and Maryland therefore took the lead in the domestic slave trade , the trading of enslaved people within the borders of the United States . The domestic slave trade offered many economic opportunities for White men . Those who sold the enslaved could realize great , as could the slave brokers who served as middlemen between sellers and buyers . Other White men could from the trade as owners of warehouses and pens in which the enslaved were held , or as suppliers of clothing and food for enslaved people on the move . Between 1790 and 1859 , slaveholders in Virginia sold more than half a million people . In the early part of this period , many were sold to people living in Kentucky , Tennessee , and North and South Carolina . By the , however , people in Kentucky and the Carolinas had begun to sell many of the people they held in bondage . Maryland slave dealers sold at least people . Kentucky slaveholders sold some thousand individuals . Most of the slave traders forced these enslaved people south to Alabama , Louisiana , and Mississippi . New Orleans , the hub of commerce , boasted the largest slave market in the United States and grew to become the nation
302 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , largest city as a result . Mississippi , had the market . In Virginia , Maryland , the Carolinas , and elsewhere in the South , slave auctions happened every day . All told , the movement of enslaved people in the South made up one of the largest forced internal migrations in the United States . In each of the decades between 1820 and 1860 , about people were sold and relocated . The 1800 census recorded over one million African Americans , of which nearly had slave status . By 1860 , the total number of African Americans increased to million , and of that number , million were held in bondage . For many of the enslaved , the domestic slave trade incited the terror of being sold away from family and friends . MY STORY Solomon Remembers the New Orleans Slave Market Solomon was a free Black man living in Saratoga , New York , when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 . He later escaped and wrote a book about his experiences Twelve Years a Slave . Narrative of Solomon , a Citizen of , Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and Rescued in 1853 ( the basis of a 2013 Academy ) This excerpt derives from description of being sold in New Orleans , along with fellow slave Eliza and her children Randall and Emily . One old gentleman , who said he wanted a coachman , appeared to take a fancy to me . The same man also purchased Randall . The little fellow was made to jump , and run across the floor , and perform many other feats , exhibiting his activity and condition . All the time the trade was going on , Eliza was crying aloud , and wringing her hands . She besought the man not to buy him , unless he also bought her self and Emily . Freeman turned round to her , savagely , with his whip in his uplifted hand , ordering herto stop her noise , or he would flog her . He would not have such snivelling and unless she ceased that minute , he would take her to the yard and give her a hundred lashes . Eliza shrunk before him , and tried to wipe away her tears , but it was all in vain . She wanted to be with her children , she said , the little time she had to live . All the frowns and threats of Freeman , could not wholly silence the afflicted mother . What does narrative tell you about the experience of being enslaved ?
How does he characterize Freeman , the slave trader ?
How does he characterize Eliza ?
THE SOUTH IN THE AMERICAN AND WORLD MARKETS The half of the nineteenth century saw a market revolution in the United States , one in which industrialization brought changes to both the production and the consumption of goods . Some southerners of the time believed that their regions reliance on a single cash crop and its use of stolen labor to produce it gave the South economic independence and made it immune from the effects of these changes , but this was far from the truth . Indeed , the production of cotton brought the South more into the larger American and Atlantic markets . Northern mills depended on the South for supplies of raw cotton that was then converted into textiles . But this domestic cotton market paled in comparison to the Atlantic market . About 75 percent of the cotton produced in the United States was eventually exported abroad . Exporting at such high volumes made the United States the undisputed world leader in cotton production . Between the years 1820 and 1860 , approximately 80 percent of the global cotton supply was produced in the United States . Nearly all the exported cotton was shipped to Great Britain , fueling its burgeoning textile industry and making the powerful British Empire increasingly dependent on American cotton and southern slavery . The power of cotton on the world market may have brought wealth to the South , but it also increased its economic dependence on other countries and other parts of the United States . Much of the corn and pork that enslaved people consumed came from farms in the West . Some of the inexpensive clothing , called slops , and shoes worn by enslaved people were manufactured in the North . The North also supplied the furnishings Access for free at .
African Americans in the Antebellum United States 303 found in the homes ofboth weal hy planters and members of the middle class . Many of the trappings of domestic life , such as carpets , lamps , dinnerware , upholstered furniture , books , and musical the accoutrements of living for southern White made in either the North or Europe . Southern planters also money from banks in northern cities , and in the southern summers , took advantage of the developments in transportation to travel to resorts at Saratoga , New York , Connecticut and Newport , Island . African Americans in the Antebellum United States LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end ofthis section , you wil be able to Discuss the similarities and differences in the lives of enslaved and free Black people Describe the independent cu ture and customs that enslaved people developed In addition to cotton , the great commodity of the antebellum South was human chattel . Slavery was the cornerstone of the southern economy . By 1850 , about million enslaved people labored in the United States , million of whom worked in cotton . They faced arbitrary power abuses from White people they coped by creating family and community networks . Storytelling , song , and Christianity also provided solace and allowed enslaved individua to develop their own interpretations of their condition . LIFE AS AN ENSLAVED PERSON Southern White people ly relied upon the idea of premise that White slaveholders acted in the best interests of those they enslaved , taking responsibility for their care , feeding , discipline , and even their Christian justify the existence of slavery . This grossly misrepresented the reality of slavery , which was , by any measure , a dehumanizing , traumatizing , and horrifying human disaster and crime against humanity . Nevertheless , the enslaved were hardly passive victims of their conditions they sought and found myriad ways to resist their shackles and develop their own communities and cultures . Enslaved people often used the notion of paternalism to their advantage , opportunities within this system to engage in acts of resistance and win a degree of freedom and autonomy . For example , some played into their enslavers ' racism by hiding their intelligence and feigning childishness and ignorance . The enslaved could then slow down the workday and sabotage the system in small ways by accidentally breaking tools , for example the slaveholder , seeing the enslaved as unsophisticated and childlike , would believe these incidents were accidents rather than rebellions . Some enslaved individuals engaged in more dramatic forms of resistance , such as poisoning their captors slowly . Other enslaved people reported their fellow captives to their slaveholders , hoping to gain preferential treatment . Those who informed their holders about planned slave rebellions could often expect the slaveholder gratitude and , perhaps , more lenient treatment . Such expectations were always tempered by the individual personality and caprice of the slaveholder . Slaveholders used both psychological coercion and physical violence to prevent enslaved people from disobeying their wishes . Often , the most way to discipline people was to threaten to sell them . The lash , while the most common form of punishment , was effective but not whippings sometimes left the incapacitated or even dead . Slaveholders and overseers also used punishment gear like neck braces , balls and chains , leg irons , and paddles with holes to produce blood blisters . The enslaved lived in constant terror of both physical violence and separation from family and friends ( Figure .
304 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , FIGURE The original caption of this photograph of an enslaved victim scarred back ( a ) taken in Baton Rouge , Louisiana , in 1863 , reads as follows Carrier whipped me . I was two months in bed sore from the whipping . My master come was whipped he discharged the overseer . The very words of poor Peter , taken as he sat for his picture . Images like this one helped bolster the northern abolitionist message of the inhumanity of slavery . The drawing of an iron mask , collar , leg shackles , and spurs ( demonstrates the various cruel and painful instruments used to restrain enslaved people . Under southern law , enslaved people could not marry . Nonetheless , some slaveholders allowed marriages to promote the birth of children and to foster harmony on plantations . Some slaveholders even forced certain individuals to form unions , anticipating the birth of more children ( and consequently greater ) from them . Slaveholders sometimes allowed enslaved people to choose their own partners , but they could also veto a match . Enslaved couples always faced the prospect of being sold away from each other , and , once they had children , the horrifying reality that their children could be sold and sent away at any time . CLICK AND EXPLORE Browse a collection of narratives of enslaved and former enslaved people at the National Humanities Center ( to learn more about the experience of slavery . Enslaved parents had to show their children the best way to survive under slavery . This meant teaching them to be discreet , submissive , and guarded around White people . Parents also taught their children through the stories they told . Popular stories among the enslaved included tales of tricksters , sly captives , or animals like Brer Rabbit , who outwitted their antagonists ( Figure ) Such stories provided comfort in humor and conveyed the sense of the wrongs of slavery . Enslaved people work songs commented on the harshness of their life and often had double literal meaning that White people would not offensive and a deeper meaning for the enslaved . Access for free at .
African Americans in the Antebellum United States 305 arming , in in , whom Undo call Slim Sally her . for mu the in ma my , me hard like mum ! of mind in His old man bin , Ind , ing window , my tho emu by . us . ma mud FIGURE Brer Rabbit , depicted here in an illustration from Uncle Remus , His Songs and His Sayings The Lore of the Old Plantation ( 1881 ) by Joel Chandler Harris , was a trickster who outwitted his opponents . African beliefs , including ideas about the spiritual world and the importance of African healers , survived in the South as well . White people who became aware of rituals among the enslaved labeled such practices as witchcraft . Among Africans , however , the rituals and use of various plants by respected enslaved healers created connections between the African past and the American South while also providing a sense of community and identity for enslaved individuals . Other African customs , including traditional naming patterns , the making of baskets , and the cultivation of certain native African plants that had been brought to the New World , also endured . AMERICANA African Americans and Christian Spirituals Many of the enslaved embraced Christianity . Their holders emphasized a scriptural message of obedience to White people and a better day awaiting them in heaven , but enslaved people focused on the uplifting message of being freed from bondage . The styles of worship in the Methodist and Baptist churches , which emphasized emotional responses to scripture , attracted the enslaved to those traditions and inspired some to become preachers . Spiritual songs that referenced the Exodus ( the biblical account of the Hebrews escape from slavery in Egypt ) such as Roll , Jordan , Roll , allowed enslaved individuals to freely express messages of hope , struggle , and overcoming adversity ( Figure ) FIGURE This version of Roll , Jordan , Roll was included in Slave Songs of the United States , the first published collection of African American music , which appeared in 1867 . What imagery might the Jordan River suggest to enslaved people working in the Deep South ?
What lyrics in this 306 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , song suggest redemption and a better world ahead ?
CLICK AND EXPLORE Listen to a rendition of Roll Jordan Roll ( I ) from the movie based on Solomon memoir and life . THE FREE BLACK POPULATION Complicating the picture of the antebellum South was the existence of a large free Black population . In fact , more free Black people lived in the South than in the North roughly lived in slave states , while lived in northern states without slavery . Most free Black people did not live in the Lower , or Deep South the states of Alabama , Arkansas , Florida , Georgia , Louisiana , Mississippi , South Carolina , and Texas . Instead , the largest number lived in the upper southern states of Delaware , Maryland , Virginia , North Carolina , and later Kentucky , Missouri , Tennessee , and the District of Columbia . Part of the reason for the large number of free Black people living in slave states were the many instances of formal granting of freedom to enslaved occurred as a result of the Revolution , when many slaveholders put into action the ideal that all men are created equal and released the people they enslaved . The transition in the Upper South to the staple crop of wheat , which did not require large numbers of enslaved laborers to produce , also spurred . Another large group of free Black people in the South had been free residents of Louisiana before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase , while still other free Black people came from Cuba and Haiti . Most free Black people in the South lived in cities , and a majority of free Black people were women , a of the interracial unions that formed between White men and Black women . Everywhere in the United States Blackness had come to be associated with slavery , the station at the bottom of the social ladder . Both White people and those with African ancestry tended to delineate varying degrees of lightness in skin color in a social hierarchy . In the slaveholding South , different names described one distance from Blackness or Whiteness mulattos ( those with one Black and one White parent ) those with one Black grandparent ) and ( those with one Black ) Figure ) Black people often looked down on their darker counterparts , an indication of the ways in which both White and Black people internalized the racism of the age . FIGURE In this late painting , a free woman of color stands with her quadroon daughter in New Orleans . Families with members that had widely varying ethnic characteristics were not uncommon at the time , Access for free at .
African Americans in the Antebellum United States 307 especially in the larger cities . Some free Black people in the South owned enslaved people ves . Andrew , for example , was born in New Orleans in 1800 , three years before the Louisiana Purchase . His father was White , and his mother was a free Black woman . became an American citizen after the Louisiana Purchase , rising to prominence as a Louisiana sugar planter and slaveholder . William , another free Black person who amassed great wealth and power in the South , was born with a slave status in 1790 in South Carolina . After buying his freedom and that of his wife and daughter , he proceeded to purchase his own enslaved people , whom he then put to work manufacturing cotton gins . By the eve of Civil War , Ellison had become one of the richest and largest slaveholders in the entire state . The phenomenon of free Black people amassing large fortunes within a slave society predicated on racial difference , however , was exceedingly rare . Most free Black people in he South lived under the specter of slavery and faced many obstacles . Beginning in the early nineteenth century , southern states increasingly made manumission illegal . They also devised laws that divested free Black people of their rights , such as the right to testify against White people in court or the right to seek emp where they pleased . Interestingly , it was in the upper southern states that such laws were the harshest . In Virginia , for example , legislators made efforts to require free Black people to leave the state . In parts of the Deep South , free Black people were able to maintain their rights more easily . The difference in treatment between free Black people in the Deep South and those in the Upper South , historians have surmised , came down to economics . In the Deep South , slavery as an institution was strong and . In the Upper South , the opposite was true . The anxiety of this economic uncertainty manifested in the form of harsh laws that targeted free Black people . SLAVE REVOLTS Captives resisted their enslavement in small ways every day , but this resistance did not usually translate into mass uprisings . The enslaved understood that the chances of ending slavery through rebellion were slim and would likely result in massive retaliation many also feared the risk that participating in such actions would pose to themselves and their families . White slaveholders , however , constantly feared uprisings and took drastic steps , including torture and mutilation , whenever they believed that rebellions might be simmering . Gripped by the fear of insurrection , White people often imagined revolts to be in the works even when no uprising actually happened . At least two major slave uprisings did occur in the antebellum South . In 1811 , a major rebellion broke out in the sugar parishes of the booming territory of Louisiana . Inspired by the successful overthrow of the White planter class in Haiti , a group of people enslaved in Louisiana took up arms against slaveholders . Perhaps as many hundred joined the rebellion , led by Charles , a slave driver on a sugar plantation owned by Manuel . The revolt began in January 1811 on plantation . and others attacked the household , where they killed the slaveholder son ( although himself escaped ) The rebels then began traveling toward New Orleans , armed with weapons gathered at plantation . Militias mobilized to stop the rebellion , but not before and the other enslaved people set to three plantations and killed numerous White people . A small force led by ultimately captured , whose body was mutilated and burned following his execution . Other rebels were beheaded , and their heads placed on pikes along the Mississippi River . The second rebellion , led by the enslaved Nat Turner , occurred in 1831 in Southampton County , Virginia . Turner had suffered not only from personal enslavement , but also from the additional trauma of having his wife sold away from him . Bolstered by Christianity , Turner became convinced that like Christ , he should lay down his life to end slavery . Mustering his relatives and friends , he began the rebellion August 22 , killing scores of White people in the county . White people mobilized quickly and within hours had brought the rebellion to an end . Shocked by Nat Turner Rebellion , Virginia state legislature considered ending
308 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , slavery in the state in order to provide greater security . In the end , legislators decided slavery would remain and that their state would continue to play a key role in the domestic slave trade . SLAVE MARKETS As discussed above , after centuries of slave trade with West Africa , Congress banned the further importation of enslaved Africans beginning in 1808 . The domestic slave trade then expanded rapidly . As the cotton trade grew in size and importance , so did the domes ic slave trade the cultivation of cotton gave new life and importance to slavery , increasing the value of enslaved individuals . To meet the South demand for labor , American smugglers illegally captives through Florida and later through Texas . Many more enslaved Africans arrived illegally from Cuba indeed , Cubans relied on the smuggling of enslaved people to prop up their . The largest number of enslaved people after 1808 , however , came from the massive , legal internal slave market in which slave states in the Upper South sold enslaved men , women , and children to states in the Lower South . For the enslaved , he domestic trade presented the full horrors of slavery as children were ripped from their mothers and fathers and families destroyed , creating heartbreak and alienation . Some slaveholders sought to increase the num oer of enslaved children by placing enslaved males with fertile enslaved females , and slaveholders routinely raped enslaved females . The resulting births played an important role in slavery expansion in the half of the nineteenth century , as many enslaved children were born as a result of rape . One account writ en by an enslaved person named William Anderson captures the horror of sexual exploitation in the um South . Anderson wrote about how a Mississippi slaveholder divested a poor female slave of all wearing ap , tied her down to stakes , and whipped her with a handsaw until he broke it over her naked body . In process of time he ravished raped her person , and became the father of a child by her . Besides , he always kept a colored Miss in the house with him . This is another curse of and illegitimate is carried on to an alarming extent in the far South . A poor slave man who lives close by his wife , is permitted to visit her but very seldom , and other men , both white and colored , cohabit with her . It is undoubtedly the worst place of incest and bigamy in the world . A white man thinks nothing of putting a colored man out to carry the fore row front row in work , and carry on the same sport with the colored man wife at the same time . Anderson , a devout Christian , recognized and explains in his narrative that one of the evils of slavery is the way it undermines the family . Anderson was not the only critic of slavery to emphasize this point . Frederick , an enslaved person from Maryland who escaped to the North in 1838 , elaborated on this dimension of slavery in his 1845 narrative . He recounted how enslavers had to sell their own children whom they had with enslaved women to appease the White wives who despised their offspring . The selling of enslaved people was a major business enterprise in the antebellum South , representing a key part of the economy . White men invested substantial sums in enslaved people , carefully calculating the annual returns they could expect from each enslaved person as well as the possibility of greater through natural increase . The domestic slave trade was highly visible , and like the infamous Middle Passage that brought captive Africans to the Americas , it constituted an equally disruptive and horrifying journey now called the second middle passage . Between 1820 and 1860 , White American traders sold a million or more captives in the domestic slave market . Groups of enslaved people were transported by ship from places like Virginia , a state that specialized in raising enslaved people for sale , to New Orleans , where they were sold to planters in the Mississippi Valley . Others made the overland trek from older states like North Carolina to new and booming Deep South states like Alabama . New Orleans had the largest slave market in the United States ( Figure 1210 . Slaveholders brought the people they enslaved there from the East ( Virginia , Maryland , and the Carolinas ) and the West ( Tennessee and Kentucky ) to be sold for work in the Mississippi Valley . The slave trade White people in the Chesapeake and Carolinas , providing them with extra income A healthy young enslaved male in the Access for free at .
African Americans in the Antebellum United States 309 could be sold for ( approximately in 2014 dollars ) and a planter who could sell ten such enslaved people collected a windfall . FIGURE In Sale of Estates , Pictures and Slaves in the Rotunda , New Orleans ( 1853 ) by Starling , it is clear that people are considered property to be auctioned off , just like pictures or other items . In fact , by the , the demand for enslaved people reached an high , and prices therefore doubled . An enslaved person who would have sold for 400 in the could command a price of 800 in the . The high price of enslaved people in the 18503 and the inability of natural increase to satisfy demands led some southerners to demand the reopening of the international slave trade , a movement that caused a rift between the Upper South and the Lower South . White people in the Upper South who sold enslaved people to their counterparts in the Lower South worried that reopening the trade would lower prices and therefore hurt their . MY STORY John Brown on Slave Life in Georgia An enslaved person named John Brown lived in Virginia , North Carolina , and Georgia before he escaped and moved to England . While there , he dictated his autobiography to someone at the British and Foreign Society , who published it in 1855 . I really thought my mother would have died of grief at being obliged to leave her two children , her mother , and her relations behind . But it was of no use lamenting , the few things we had were put together that night , and we completed our preparations for being parted for life by kissing one another over and over again , and saying good bye till some of us little ones fell asleep . And here I may as well tell what kind of man our new master was . He was of small stature , and thin , but very strong . He had sandy hair , a very red face , and chewed tobacco . His countenance had a very cruel expression , and his disposition was a match for it . He was , indeed , a very bad man , and used to flog us dreadfully . He would make his slaves work on one meal a day , until quite night , and after supper , set them to burn brush or spin cotton . We worked from four in the twelve before we broke our fast , and from that time till eleven or twelve at night . we labored eighteen hours a day . Brown , Slave Life in Georgia A Narrative of the Life , Sufferings , and Escape of John Brown , A Fugitive Slave , Now in England , 1855 What features of the domestic slave trade does Brown narrative illuminate ?
Why do you think he brought his story to an antislavery society ?
How do you think people responded to this narrative ?
310 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , CLICK AND EXPLORE Read through several narratives at Born in Slavery , part of the American collection at the Library of Congress . Do these narratives have anything in common ?
What differences can you between them ?
Wealth and Culture in the South LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end ofthis section , you will be able to Assess the distribution of wealth in the antebellum South Describe the southern culture of honor main proslavery arguments in the years priorto the Civil War During the antebellum years , wealthy southern planters formed an elite class that wielded most of the economic and political power of the region . They created their own standards of gentility and honor , ideals of southern White manhood and womanhood and shaping the culture of the South . To defend the system of forced labor on which their economic survival and genteel lifestyles depended , elite Southerners developed several proslavery arguments that they levied at those who would see the institution dismantled . SLAVERY AND THE WHITE CLASS STRUCTURE The South prospered , but its wealth was very unequally distributed . Upward social mobility did not exist for the millions of enslaved people who produced a good portion of the nation wealth , while poor southern White people envisioned a day when they might rise enough in the world to own enslaved people of their own . Because of the cotton boom , there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley by 1860 than anywhere else in the United States . However , in that same year , only percent of White people enslaved more than people , and of White households in the South did not enslave any people at all Figure . Distribution of wealth in the South became less democratic over time fewer White people enslaved people in 1860 than in 1840 . White Class in the South . 1060 with slaves slaveholders slaves slaves FIGURE As the wealth of the antebellum South increased , it also became more unequally distributed , and an percentage of slaveholders held a substantial number of enslaved people , At the top of southern White society stood the planter elite , which comprised two groups . In the Upper South , an aristocratic gentry , generation upon generation of whom had grown up with slavery , held a privileged place . In the Deep South , an elite group of slaveholders gained new wealth from cotton . Some members of this group hailed from established families in the eastern states ( Virginia and the Carolinas ) while others came from humbler backgrounds . South Nathaniel , a wealthy rice planter and member of the aristocratic gentry , came from an established family and sat atop the pyramid of southern slaveholders . He amassed an enormous estate in 1850 , he enslaved more than eighteen hundred people . When he died in 1851 , he left an estate worth more than million ( approximately 63 million in 2014 dollars ) Access for free at .
Wealth and Culture in the South As cotton production increased , new wealth to the cotton planters . These planters became the staunchest defenders of slavery , and as their wealth grew , they gained considerable political power One member of the planter elite was Edward Lloyd , who came from an established and wealthy family of Talbot County , Maryland . Lloyd had inherited his position rather than rising to it through his own labors . His hundreds of enslaved people formed a crucial part of his wealth . Like many of the planter elite , plantation was a masterpiece of elegant architecture and gardens ( Figure 1212 . FIGURE The grand house of Edward Lloyd advertised the status and wealth of its owner . In its heyday , the Lloyd family plantation boasted holdings of thousand acres and one thousand enslaved people . One of the people enslaved on Lloyd plantation was Frederick , who escaped in 1838 and became an abolitionist leader , writer , statesman , and orator in the North . In his autobiography , described the plantation elaborate gardens and racehorses , but also its underfed and brutalized enslaved population . Lloyd provided employment opportunities to other White people in Talbot County , many of whom served as slave traders and the slave breakers entrusted with beating and overworking unruly enslaved people into submission . Like other members of the planter elite , Lloyd himself served in a variety of local and national political . He was governor from 1809 to 1811 , a member of the House of Representatives from 1807 to 1809 , and a senator from 1819 to 1826 . As a representative and a senator , Lloyd defended slavery as the foundation of the American economy . Wealthy plantation owners like Lloyd came close to forming an American ruling class in the years before the Civil War . They helped shape foreign and domestic policy with one goal in view to expand the power and reach of the cotton kingdom of the South . Socially , they cultivated a manner and believed White people , especially members of their class , should not perform manual labor . Rather , they created an identity for themselves based on a world of leisure in which horse racing and entertainment mattered greatly , and where the enslavement of others was the bedrock of civilization . Below the wealthy planters were the yeoman farmers , or small landowners ( Figure 1213 ) Below yeomen were poor , landless White people , who made up the majority of White people in the South . These landless White men dreamed of owning land and enslaving people and served as slave overseers , drivers , and traders in the southern economy . In fact , owning land and enslaved people provided one of the only opportunities for upward social and economic mobility . In the South , living the American dream meant enslaving people , producing cotton , and owning land . 311
312 12 cotton is King The Antebellum South , FIGURE In this painting by Felix Octavius Carr , a yeoman farmer carrying a scythe follows his livestock down the road . Despite this unequal distribution of wealth , White people shared with White slaveholders a common set of values , most notably a belief in White supremacy . White people , whether rich or poor , were bound together by racism . Slavery defused class tensions among them , because no matter how poor they were , White Southerners had race in common with the mighty plantation owners . accepted the rule of the planters as defenders of their shared interest in maintaining a racial hierarchy . all White people were also bound together by the constant , prevailing fear of slave uprisings . MY STORY on the Southern Yeoman Daniel Robinson was a lawyer who was born into a slaveholding family from Alabama . He earned a degree from Harvard and resided in the North , where he began working on a book meant to common northern assumption , including that the South was made up exclusively of two tiers of White residents the very wealthy planter class and the very poor landless White people . In his 1860 book , Social Relations in Our Southern States , describes what he calls the Southern Yeomen , a social group he insists is roughly equivalent to the farmers of the North . Butyou have no Yeomen in the South , my dear Sir ?
Beg your pardon , our dear Sir , but we of them . I thoughtyou had White Trash ?
Yes , we dare say as that the moon is made of green cheese ! Know , then , that the Poor Whites of the South constitute a separate class to themselves the Southern Yeomen are as distinct from them as the Southern Gentleman is from the Cotton Snob . Certainly the Southern Yeomen are nearly always poor , at least so far as this world goods are to be taken into account . As a general thing they own no slaves and even in case they do , the wealthiest ofthem rarely possess more than from ten to . The Southern Yeoman much resembles in his speech , religious opinions , household arrangements , indoor sports , and family traditions , the middle class farmers of the Northern States . He is fully as intelligent as the latter , and is on the whole much better versed in the lore of politics and the provisions ofour Federal and State Constitutions . A not as a class pecuniarily interested in slave property , the Southern Yeomanry are almost unanimously in sentiment . Nor do we see how any honest , thoughtful person can reasonably fault with them on this account . Social Relations in Our Southern States , 1860 What elements of social relations in the South is attempting to emphasize for his readers ?
In what respects might his position as an educated person born into a relatively wealthy family influence his understanding of social relations in the South ?
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Wealth and Culture in the South 313 White people took part in civil duties . They served on juries and voted . They also engaged in the daily rounds of maintaining slavery by serving on neighborhood patrols to ensure that enslaved people did not escape and that rebellions did not occur . The practical consequence of such activities was that the institution of slavery , and its perpetuation , became a source of commonality among different economic and social tiers that otherwise were separated by a gulf of difference . Southern planters exerted a powerful on the federal government . Seven of the first eleven presidents were enslavers , and more than half of the Supreme Court justices who served on the court from its inception to the Civil War came from slaveholding states . However , southern White yeoman farmers generally did not support an active federal government . They were suspicious of the state bank and supported President Jackson dismantling of the Second Bank of the United States . They also did not support taxes to create internal improvements such as canals and railroads to them , government involvement in the economic life of the nation disrupted what they perceived as the natural workings of the economy . They also feared a strong national government might tamper with slavery . Planters operated within a larger capitalist society , but the labor system they used to produce is , similar to systems that existed before capitalism , such as feudalism and serfdom . Under capitalism , free workers are paid for their labor ( by owners of capital ) to produce commodities the money from the sale of the goods is used to pay for the work performed . As enslaved people did not reap any earnings from their forced labor , some economic historians consider the antebellum plantation system a capitalist system . HONOR IN THE SOUTH A complicated code of honor among privileged White southerners , dictating the beliefs and behavior of gentlemen and ladies , developed in the antebellum years . Maintaining appearances and reputation was supremely important . It can be argued that , as in many societies , the concept of honor in the antebellum South had much to do with control over dependents , whether enslaved people , wives , or relatives . Defending their honor and ensuring that they received proper respect became preoccupations of White people in the slaveholding South . To question another man assertions was to call his honor and reputation into question . Insults in the form of words or behavior , such as calling someone a coward , could trigger a rupture that might well end on the dueling ground ( Figure 1214 ) Dueling had largely disappeared in the antebellum North by the early nineteenth century , but it remained an important part of the southern code of honor through the Civil War years . Southern White men , especially those of high social status , settled their differences with duels , before which antagonists usually attempted reconciliation , often through the exchange of letters addressing the alleged insult . If the challenger was not by the exchange , a duel would often result .
314 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , FIGURE The Modern Tribunal and Arbiter of Men Differences , an illustration that appeared on the cover of The Mascot , a newspaper published in New Orleans , reveals the importance of dueling in southern culture it shows men bowing before an altar on which are laid a pistol and knife , The dispute between South Carolina James Hammond and his erstwhile friend ( and ) Wade on 11 illustrates the southern culture of honor and the place of the duel in that culture . A strong friendship bound Hammond and Hampton together . Both stood at the top of South Carolina society as successful , married plantation owners involved in state politics . Prior to his election as governor of the state in 1842 , became sexually involved with each of Hampton four teenage daughters , who were his nieces by marriage . Hampton found out about these acts , and in keeping with the code of honor , could have demanded a duel with Hammond . However , Hampton instead tried to use the liaisons to destroy his former friend politically . This effort proved disastrous for Hampton , because it represented a violation of the southern code honor . As matters now stand , Hammond wrote , he Hampton is a convicted dastard who , not having nerve redress his own wrongs , put forward bullies to do it for him . To challenge me to a duel would be to throw upon my mercy for he knows I am not bound to meet him for a duel . Because behavior marked him as a man who lacked honor , Hammond was no longer bound to meet Hampton in a duel even if Hampton were to demand one . Hammond reputation , though tarnished , remained high in the esteem of Sou Carolinians , and the governor went on to serve as a senator from 1857 to 1860 . As for the four on daughters , they never married their names were disgraced , not only by the scandal but by their father actions in response to it and no man of honor in South Carolina would stoop so ow as to marry them . GENDER AND THE SOUTHERN HOUSEHOLD The antebellum South was an especially society . Far more than in the North , southern men , wealthy planters , were patriarchs and sovereigns of their own household . Among the White members of the household , labor and daily ritual conformed to rigid gender . Men represented heir household in the larger world of politics , business , and war . Within the family , the patriarchal male was he ultimate authority . White women were relegated to the household and lived under the thumb and of the male patriarch . The ideal southern lady conformed to her prescribed gender role , a role that was largely domestic and subservient . While responsibilities and experiences varied across different social , women subordinate state in relation to the male patriarch remained the same . Writers in the antebellum period were fond of celebrating the image of the ideal southern woman ( Figure ) One such writer , Thomas Roderick Dew , president of Virginia College of William and Mary in the nineteenth century , wrote approvingly of the virtue of southern women , a virtue he concluded derived from Access for free at .
Wealth and Culture in the South 315 their natural weakness , piety , grace , and modesty . In his Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences Between the Sexes , he writes that southern women derive their power not by leading armies to combat , or of enabling her to bring into more formidable action the physical power which nature has conferred on her . No ! It is but the better to perfect all those feminine graces , all those fascinating attributes , which render her the center of attraction , and which delight and charm all those who breathe the atmosphere in which she moves and , in the language of Burke , would make ten thousand swords leap from their to avenge the insult that might be offered to her . By her very meekness and beauty does she subdue all around her . Such popular of elite southern White women , however , are to reconcile with their lived experience in their own words , these women frequently described the trauma of childbirth , the loss of children , and the loneliness of the plantation . FIGURE This cover illustration from Harper 1861 shows the ideal of southern womanhood . MY STORY Louisa McCord Woman Progress Louisa McCord was born in Charleston , South Carolina , in 1810 . A child of some privilege in the South , she received an excellent education and became a writer . As the excerpt from her poem Woman Progress indicates , some southern women also contributed to the idealization of southern White womanhood . Sweet Sister ! stoop not thou to be a man ! Man has his place as woman hers and she As made to comfort , minister and help Moulded for gentler duties , ill His jarring destinies . Her mission is To labour and to pray to help , to heal , To soothe , to bear patient , with smiles , to suffer And with noble lose Her private interest in the dearer weal Of those she loves and lives for . Call not ( The of her destiny She the worlds soothing mother ) it not , With scorn and mocking sneer , a drudgery . The ribald tongue profanes Heaven holiest things ,
316 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , But holy still they are . The lowliest tasks Are sanctified in nobly acting them . Christ washed the apostles feet , not thus cast shame Upon the in him . Woman lives Man constant prophet . If her life be true And based upon the instincts of her being , She is a living sermon of that truth Which ever through her gentle actions speaks , That life is given to labour and to love . Susanna McCord , Woman Progress , 1853 What womanly virtues does Louisa McCord emphasize ?
How might her social status , as an educated southern woman of great privilege , influence her understanding of gender relations in the South ?
For White slaveholders , the household operated to protect gendered divisions and prevalent gender norms for enslaved women , however , the same system exposed them to brutality and frequent sexual domination . The demands on the labor of enslaved women made it impossible for them to perform the role of domestic caretaker that was so idealized by southern men . That slaveholders put them out into the , where they frequently performed work traditionally thought of as male , little the ideal image of gentleness and delicacy reserved for White women . Nor did the enslaved woman role as daughter , wife , or mother garner any patriarchal protection . Each of these roles and the relationships they was subject to the prerogative of a slaveholder , who could freely violate enslaved women persons , sell off their children , or separate them from their families . DEFENDING SLAVERY With the rise of democracy during the era in the , slaveholders worried about the power of the majority . If political power went to a majority that was hostile to slavery , the the honor of White be imperiled . White southerners keen on preserving the institution of slavery bristled at what they perceived to be northern attempts to deprive them of their livelihood . Powerful southerners like South John Calhoun Figure highlighted laws like the Tariff of 1828 as evidence of the North desire to destroy the southern economy and , by extension , its culture . Such a tariff , he and others concluded , would disproportionately harm the South , which relied heavily on imports , and the North , which would receive protections for its manufacturing centers . The tariff appeared to open the door for other federal initiatives , including the abolition of slavery . Because of this perceived threat to southern society , Calhoun argued that states could nullify federal laws . This belief illustrated the importance of the states rights argument to the southern states . It also showed slaveholders willingness to unite against the federal government when they believed it acted unjustly against their interests . Access for free at .
Wealth and Culture in the South 317 FIGURE John Calhoun , shown here in a ca . 1845 portrait by George Alexander Healy , defended states rights , right of the southern states to protect a hostile northern majority . As the nation expanded in the and 18405 , the writings of small but vocal group of northerners committed to ending a larger national audience . White southerners responded by putting forth arguments in defense of slavery , their way of life , and their honor . Calhoun became a leading political theorist defending slavery and the rights of the South , which he saw as containing an increasingly embattled minority . He advanced the idea of a concurrent majority , a majority of a separate region ( that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation ) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority . Calhoun idea of the concurrent majority found full expression in his 1850 essay Disquisition on In this treatise , he wrote about government as a necessary means to ensure the preservation of society , since society existed to preserve and protect our If government grew hostile to society , then a concurrent majority had to take action , including forming a new government . Disquisition on Government advanced a profoundly argument . It illustrates southern leaders intense suspicion of democratic majorities and their ability to effect legislation that would challenge southern interests . CLICK AND EXPLORE Go to the Internet Archive ( to read John Calhoun Disquisition on Why do you think he proposed the creation of a concurrent majority ?
White southerners reacted strongly to abolitionists attacks on slavery . In making their defense of slavery , they critiqued wage labor in the North . They argued that the Industrial Revolution had brought about a new type of that this form of slavery was far worse than the slave labor used on southern plantations . Defenders of the institution also lashed out directly at abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison for daring to call into question their way of life . Indeed , Virginians cited Garrison as the instigator of Nat Turner 1831 rebellion . The Virginian George contributed to the defense of slavery with his book the South , or the Failure of Free Society ( 1854 ) argued that capitalism , as celebrated by Adam Smith , only the and intelligent , leaving the ignorant at a huge disadvantage . Slaveholders , he argued , took care of the argument , the enslaved people of the South . Southerners provided the enslaved with care from birth to death , he asserted this offered a stark contrast to the wage slavery of the North , where workers were at the mercy of economic forces beyond their control . ideas southern notions of paternalism .
318 12 cotton is King The Antebellum South , DEFINING AMERICAN George Defense of Slavery George , a southern writer of social treatises , was a staunch supporter of slavery , not as a necessary evil but as what he argued was a necessary good , a way to take care of enslaved people and keep them from being a burden on society . He published Sociology for the South , or the Failure of Free Society in 1854 , in which he laid out what he believed to be the of slavery to both the enslaved and society as a whole . According to I is clear the Athenian democracy would not suit a negro nation , nor will the government of mere law suffice for the individual negro . He is but a grown up child and must be governed as a child . The master occupies towards him the place of parent or guardian . The negro is improvident will not lay up in summer for the wants of winter will not accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age . He would become an insufferable burden to society . Society has the right to prevent this , and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery . In the last place , the negro race is the white race , and living in their midst , they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition . Our negroes are not only better off as to physical comfort than free laborers , but their moral condition is better . What arguments does use to promote slavery ?
What basic premise underlies his ideas ?
Can you think of a modern parallel to argument ?
The North also produced defenders of slavery , including Louis , a Harvard professor of zoology and geology . helped to popularize polygenism , the idea that different human races came from separate origins . According to this formulation , no single human family origin existed , and Black people made up a race wholly separate from the White race . notion gained widespread popularity in the with the 1854 publication of George and Josiah Nott Types of Mankind and other books . The theory of polygenism racism , giving the notion of Black inferiority the lofty mantle of science . One popular advocate of the idea posited that Black people occupied a place in evolution between the Greeks and chimpanzees ( Figure . FIGURE This 1857 illustration by an advocate of polygenism indicates that the Negro occupies a place between the Greeks and chimpanzees . What does this image reveal about the methods of those who advocated polygenism ?
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The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States 319 The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end ofthis section , you will be able to Explain the expansionist goals of advocates of slavery Describe the filibuster expeditions undertaken during the antebellum era Southern had spearheaded the drive to add more territory to he United States . They applauded the Louisiana Purchase and fervently supported Native American removal , he annexation of Texas , and the War . Drawing inspiration from the annexation of Texas , hoped to replicate that feat by bringing Cuba and other territories into the United Sta es and thereby enlarging the American empire of slavery . In the , the expansionist drive among White southerners . Among southern imperialists , one way to push for the creation of an American empire of slavery was through tie actions of who led military operations intended to seize land from foreign countries or foment revolution there . These unsanctioned military adventures were not part of the foreign policy of the United States American citizens simply formed themselves into private armies to forceful annex new land without the government approval . An 1818 federal law made it a crime to undertake such adventures , which was an indication of both the reality of efforts at expansion through these illegal expeditions and the effort to create a foreign policy . Nonetheless , Americans continued to throughout the nineteenth century . In 1819 , an expedition of two hundred Americans invaded Spanish Texas , intent on creating a republic modeled on the United States , only to be driven out by Spanish forces . Using force , taking ac ion , and asserting White supremacy in these militaristic drives were seen by many as an ideal of American male vigor . President Jackson epitomized this military prowess as an in the Tennessee militia , where earlier in the century he had played a leading role in ending the Red Stick War and forcing the Creek Nation to cede millions of acres in Alabama and Georgia . His reputation helped him to win the presidency in 1828 and again in 1832 . Filibustering plots picked up pace in the as the drive for expansion continued . Slaveholders looked south to the Caribbean , Mexico , and Central America , hoping to add new slave states . Spanish Cuba became the objective of many American slaveholders in the , as debate over the island dominated the national conversation . Many who urged its annexation believed Cuba had to be made part of the United States to prevent it from going the route of Haiti , with enslaved Black people overthrowing their captors and creating another Black republic , a prospect horrifying to many in the United States . Americans also feared that the British , who had an interest in the sugar island , would make the first move and snatch Cuba from the United States . Since Britain had outlawed slavery in its colonies in 1833 , Black people on the island would then be free . Lopez , a Venezuelan who wanted to end Spanish control of the island , gained American support . He tried times to take the island , with his last effort occurring in the summer of 1851 when he led an armed group from New Orleans . Thousands came out to cheer his small force as they set off to wrest Cuba from the Spanish . Unfortunately for Lopez and his supporters , however , the effort to take Cuba did not produce the spontaneous uprising of the Cuban people . Spanish authorities in Cuba captured and executed Lopez and the American . Efforts to take Cuba continued under President Franklin Pierce , who had announced at his inauguration in 1853 his intention to pursue expansion . In 1854 , American diplomats met in , Belgium , to a way to gain Cuba . They wrote a secret memo , known as the Manifesto ( thought to be penned by James Buchanan , who was elected president two years later ) stating that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States , the United States was in taking the island as a national security measure . The contents of this memo were supposed to remain secret , but details were leaked to the public , leading the
320 12 Cotton is King The Antebellum South , House of Representatives to demand a copy . Many in the North were outraged over what appeared to be a southern scheme , orchestrated by what they perceived as the Slave term they used to describe the disproportionate that elite slaveholders expand slavery . European powers also reacted with anger . Southern , however , applauded the effort to take Cuba . The Louisiana legislature in 1854 asked the federal government to take decisive action , and John , a former Mississippi governor , raised money from slaveholders to fund efforts to take the island . CLICK AND EXPLORE Read an 1860 editorial titled Annexation of Cuba Made Easv ( from the online archives of The New York Times . Does the author support annexation ?
Why or why not ?
Controversy around the Manifesto caused President Pierce to step back from the plan to take Cuba . After his election , President Buchanan , despite his earlier expansionist efforts , denounced as the action of pirates . Filibustering caused an even wider gulf between the North and the South ( Figure . FIGURE The Doctrine ( 1856 ) by artist Louis and lithographer Nathaniel Currier , mocks James Buchanan by depicting him being robbed , just as many northerners believed slaveholders were attempting to rob Spain . The thugs robbing Buchanan use phrases from the Manifesto as they relieve him of his belongings . Cuba was not the only territory in slaveholders expansionist sights some focused on Mexico and Central America . In 1855 , William Walker , along with an army of no more than sixty mercenaries , gained control of the Central American nation of Nicaragua . Previously , Walker had launched a successful invasion of Mexico , dubbing his conquered land the Republic of Sonora . In a relatively short period of time , Walker was dislodged from Sonora by Mexican authorities and forced to retreat back to the United States . His conquest of Nicaragua garnered far more attention , catapulting him into national popularity as the heroic embodiment of White supremacy ( Figure 1219 . Access for free at .
The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States 321 ( FIGURE Famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady photograph ( a ) of General William Walker circa . Walker led a filibuster expedition and briefly conquered Nicaragua , a dream of many expansionist southern slaveholders . Cornelius Vanderbilt ( the shipping tycoon who controlled much of the traffic across Nicaragua between the Atlantic and the , clashed with Walker and ultimately supported Costa Rica in its war against him . Why Nicaragua ?
Nicaragua presented a tempting target because it provided a quick route from the Caribbean to the Only twelve miles of land stood between the Ocean , the inland Lake Nicaragua , and the river that drained into the Atlantic . Shipping from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States had to travel either by land across the continent , south around the entire continent of South America , or through Nicaragua . Previously , American tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt Figure had recognized the strategic importance of Nicaragua and worked with the Nicaraguan government to control shipping there . The of William Walker may have excited southerners , but it greatly upset Vanderbilt business interests in the region . Walker clung to the racist , expansionist philosophies of the proslavery South . In 1856 , Walker made slavery legal in had been illegal there for thirty a move to gain the support of the South . He also reopened the slave trade . In 1856 , he was elected president of Nicaragua , but in 1857 , he was chased from the country . When he returned to Central America in 1860 , he was captured by the British and released to authorities , who executed him by squad .
322 12 Key Terms Key Terms antebellum a term meaning before the war and used to describe the decades before the American Civil War began in 1861 cash crop a crop grown to be sold for instead of consumption by the farmer family concurrent majority a majority of a separate region ( that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation ) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority cotton boom the upswing in American cotton production during the nineteenth century cotton gin a device , patented by Eli Whitney in 1794 , that separated the seeds from raw cotton quickly and easily domestic slave trade the trading of enslaved people within the borders of the United States Manifesto the secret diplomatic memo stating that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States , the United States was in taking the island as a national security measure paternalism the premise that southern White slaveholders acted in the best interests of those they enslaved polygenism the idea that Black and White people come from different origins second middle passage the internal forced migration of enslaved people to the South and West in the United States Summary The Economics of Cotton In the years before the Civil War , the South produced the bulk of the worlds supply of cotton . The Mississippi River Valley slave states became the epicenter of cotton production , an area of frantic economic activity where the landscape changed dramatically as land was transformed from pinewoods and swamps into cotton . Cotton relied on the institution of slavery , which generated the product that fueled cotton mill in the North . When the international slave trade was outlawed in 1808 , the domestic slave trade exploded , providing economic opportunities for White people involved in many aspects of the trade and increasing the possibility of enslaved people dislocation and se from kin and friends . Although the larger American and Atlantic markets relied on southern cotton in this era , the South depended on these other markets for food , manufactured goods , and loans . Thus , the mar et revolution transformed the South just as it had other regions . African Americans in the Antebellum United States Slave in the antebellum South generated great wealth for owners . Enslaved people , in contras , endured daily traumas as human property . Enslaved people resisted their condition in a variety of ways , and many found some solace in Christianity and the communities they created in the slave quarters . While some free Black people achieved economic prosperity anc even became slaveholders themselves , the vast ma found themselves restricted by the same assumptions upon which the institution of slavery was based . Wealth and Culture in the South a small White elite owned the vast majority of people in the South , and most other White people could only aspire to slaveholders wealth and status , slavery shaped the social life of all White southerners in profound ways . Southern culture valued a behavioral code in which men honor , based on the domina ion of others and the protection of southern White womanhood , stood as the highest good . Slavery also decreased class tensions , binding White people together on the basis of race despite their inequalities of wealth . Several defenses of slavery were prevalent in the antebellum era , including Calhoun argument that the Sou concurrent majority could overrule federal legislation deemed hostile to southern interests the notion tiat slaveholders care of their chattel made the enslaved better off than wage workers in the North and the profoundly racist ideas underlying polygenism . Access for free at .
12 Review Questions 323 The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States The decade of the 18505 witnessed various schemes to expand the American empire of slavery . The Manifesto articulated the right of the United States to forcefully seize Cuba if Spain would not sell it , while expeditions attempted to annex new slave states without the of governmental approval . Those who pursued the goal of expanding American slavery believed they embodied the true spirit of White racial superiority . Review Questions . Which of the following was notone of the effects of the cotton boom ?
trade increased with France and Spain . Northern manufacturing expanded . The need for slave labor grew . Port cities like New Orleans expanded . The abolition of the foreign slave trade in 1807 led to a dramatic decrease in the price and demand for enslaved people the rise of a thriving domestic slave trade a reform movement calling for the complete end to slavery in the United States the decline of cotton production . Why did some southerners believe their region was immune to the effects of the market revolution ?
Why was this thinking misguided ?
Under the law in the antebellum South , enslaved people were servants animals property indentures . How did both slaveholders and enslaved people use the concept of paternalism to their advantage ?
he largest group ofWhite people in the South enslaved no one enslaved between one and nine people each enslaved between ten and people each enslaved over one hundred people each ohn Calhoun argued for greater rights for southerners with which idea ?
polygenism concurrent majority paternalism . How did defenders of slavery use the concept of paternalism to structure their ideas ?
Why did southern conduct filibuster expeditions ?
to gain political advantage to annex new slave states to prove they could raise an army to map unknown territories 324 12 Critical Thinking Questions 10 . 11 . The controversy at the heart of the Manifesto centered on the fate of , Belgium Nicaragua Cuba Louisiana Why did set their sights on the annexation of Spanish Cuba ?
Critical Thinking Questions 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 . 16 . 17 . Compare and contrast the steamboats of the antebellum years with technologies today . In your estimation , what modern technology compares to steamboats in its transformative power ?
Does the history of the cotton kingdom support or undermine the Jeffersonian vision of White farmers on farms ?
Explain your answer . Based on your reading of William Anderson and John Brown accounts , what types of traumas did enslaved people experience ?
How were the experiences of Black women and men similar and different ?
What strategies did enslaved people employ to resist , revolt , and sustain their own independent communities and cultures ?
How did enslaved individuals use White southerners own and Christianity , for their advantage in these efforts ?
What are the major arguments put forward by proslavery advocates ?
How would you argue against their statements ?
Consider from the point of view of the Cuban or Nicaraguan people . If you lived in Cuba or Nicaragua , would you support ?
Why or why not ?
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