Slavery Flashcards
Peculiar Insitution
Term for slavery used by Southern whites
Turning point of the American History of Slavery
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
Two other terms for cotton
“King Cotton”
“White Gold”
Cotton earned ____% of USA’s income
50%
How was cotton profitable for the North and South
South- grew it
North- financed and shipped it
Main customer for cotton and how much did they buy
England and 75%
Textile Mill Owners
“Lords of the Loom”
Southerners produced ___% of the worlds supply of cotton
50%
Key Assumption
If their was a war between North and South, Great Britain would side with the South bc they grew the cotton and then were dependent on it
1806- importation of slaves were abolished and what began?
Second Middle Passage
Second Middle Passage
Slave Markets/Auction Blocks
Main slave trade city
New Orleans and Charleston
South’s Social Structure
1) Planters Aristocracy- slavoracy (oligarchy- ruled by few) Controlled South’s power and wealth 1700-2500 families owned over 100 slaves Owned huge estates Sent kids to private schools Life of wealth and privilege 2) Small slaveholders Most 1 or 2 slaves Worked w/ slaves Modest income 3) Non-slave owners “Subsistence farmers” Poor whites (crackers, white trash, etc.) Defended slavery most because they wanted to be better than someone and they hoped to own one someday 4) Mountain Whites Opposed slavery Hated planters (#1) 5) Free Blacks (1/4 of a million) Most in Tennessee Many mixed or Mulattoes 6) Slaves (4 million) Deep South (mostly) 75% of Southerners owned no slaves at all
Reasons why slavery hurt the South
1) plantation agriculture- “land butchery” and destroyed the soil
2) economy had no diversification- depended on one crop
3) all money invested in land/slaves
4) south economically depended on the north- needed manufactured goods from the north. Only produced less than 10% of the goods. Had very little food
Who criticized slavery from the South and what book did he write
Hinton Roward Helper- “Impending Crisis of the South”
Claimed that slavery was holding back the economic development of the south
