Chapter 16: The South And The Slavery Controversy: 1793-1860 Flashcards
Cotton Gin
- invented by Eli Whitney in 1793
* caused a huge increase in profits of cotton and slavery increase due to plantation expansion
“King Cotton”
- around 1840s cotton was 1/2 of American export, 1/2 or world export and, 3/4 of all cotton imported in Britain
- cotton was king, the gin was his throne and the slaves were his henchmen
Chivalry
- the medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code
- the high class plantation south attempted to revitalize this in 1800s
One crop economy
- the southern economy during time of king cotton
* caused a very unstable economy due to uncontrollable circumstances
Yeoman Farmer
- a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate
- normally owned a few slaves
- owners would work in the fields with the slaves to make a profit
Hillbilly
- also known as crackers and clay eaters
- white people too poor to own a slave
- made up about 3/4 of the southern whites
- often times suffered from malnutrition, viruses and bacterias like hookworm
Emancipate
- freed from slavery
- many slaves were actually emancipated, many owned land and some even owned slaves
- many were mulattoes
Mulattoes
- children of white masters and their black mistresses
- many were free
- large mulatto community in New Orleans
Chattel
- a personal possession
- a term for slaves
- about 4 million in population by 1860 due to reproduction
Natural Increase
- natural birth and reproduction
- the primary way slaves reproduced
- made America different from any other slave society
Harriet Beecher Stowe
*wrote Uncle Toms Cabin: book primarily about struggling with slavery such as family separation in slave auctions
Overseer
- also known as black drivers
* white men in the fields that whipped slaves in order to keep them working
Breaker
- whites that excelled in breaking the will of uncontrollable slaves
- would whip slaves senselessly
Old South
- more settles than the Deep South
* small farmers with slaves that were less rich and vigorous
Deep South
- where most slaves were concentrated
- stretched from South Carolina and Georgia to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana
- area where cotton had explosively grown
- life was harder here than the Old Sout
Peculiar Institution
*refers to system if black slavery and economic status in the southern states
Gabriel Prosser
- slave from Richmond, Virginia
* led an armed insurrection that was foiled by informers in 1800
Denmark Vesey
- a free black that led another rebellion in Charleston in 1822
- also foiled, Vesey and 30+ others were hung from the gallows
Nat Turner
- visionary black preacher
- led an uprising that slaughtered about 60 Virginians, mostly women and children
- reprisals were swift and bloody
Abolition
- getting rid of a certain system such as slavery
* abolition started as early as 1787 in some areas such as the Old Northwest
The American Colonization Society
- founded in 1817
- focused on transporting free slaves back to Africa, primarily in the Republic of Liberia that was established for black colonization
Arthur and Lewis Tappan
- New York merchants that financially supported Theodore Dwight Weld
- paid Weld’s way to Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio
William Lloyd Garrison
- published the anti slavery paper The Liberator
- wanted immediate slavery change but did not have any real plans
- took drastic measures such as burning a copy of the Constitution
Wendell Phillips
- Boston patrician known as “abolition’s golden trumpet”
* had strict principals and would not eat sugar cane or wear cotton due to the slavery involved with making it
Sojourner Truth
- free black woman in New York
* fought for emancipation and women’s rughts
Fredrick Douglas
- freed black slave (technically mulatto) that could read and write
- looked to politics to end slavery
- wrote his own book Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas
Eugene Genovese
*conceded that slavery embraced a strange form of paternalism, a system that reflected slave owners need to coax work out of their “investments”
“Sambo”
*the stereotype view of slaves being as a child
Kenneth Stampp
*rejected the “sambo” stereotype and stressed the frequency and variety of slave resistance
Lawrence Levine
*believed the “sambo” stereotype was an act, an image used to confound their masters without being punishedd
