Rizwan Alam

Period 0
Chapter sixteen outline
The South and the Slavery Controversy
A. “ Cotton Is King”
Cotton’s rewards on the planters were high, it was developing into a huge
agricultural factory. Many events or reasons simplify cotton’s success. Land in
America was much cheaper then in Europe, and even more highlighted cause of these
good effect are the labor of the slaves. Slaves in America were allowed without
any controversy, like in the whole world. Even though North wasn’t such a huge fan
of slavery they too were the beneficiary of slave labor. They would buy south’s
cotton in much cheaper prize and distribute it to other countries, mainly Great
Britain. Because South was known as the God, King, or lord of Cotton due to the
fact that it made half of the world’s cotton, which allowed United States to make
bonds with other nations and also stay in peace for long periods of time.
1. Britain for example was the leading industrial power and almost seventy-five
percent of the precious cotton they held came from the South of the United States.
Importance: All these events were responsible of keep depending on the slave
labor. South had an attitude about its agriculture, they believed so much on
cotton that they are willing to fight their own country to keep the slave labor.
They have no fear because they know that they are well secured, because if South
goes down it would hurt the Great Britain, and that would help them align with
British and fight the North.
B. The Planter “ Aristocracy”
Background: Their was a huge gap in the South of the social classes. Their were
1,733 with more then hundred slaves each, and this group of people were known as
the rich ones and send their children to private schools, and maintained education
by sending their kids to abroad for further education, hindering the public
education.
1. Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe, who helped them idealize a feudal society
with them as the kings and queens and the slaves as their subjects.
2. The aristocracy of plantation system also shaped the lives of southern women.
She was the commander and basically the manager of the house, she made the slaves
do their work and to a degree that most mistress abused their slaves, mostly
often.
Importance: A funny effect to this scene would probably be that the women actually
learned something, and that is probably the reason they are so organized today.
Management gave women confidence, and probably angered the abused slaves, because
they never expected to be abused by a women.
C. Slaves of the Slave System
1. Even though Cotton brought economy, power and many other goods, it still was
distasteful and maybe the biggest problem was that it was ruining the good land,
and that is one of the reasons why many people moved west in search for a stress
free and quality life.
2. The economic structure of the south was becoming very shaky due to so many
people migrating towards the west.
3.Obviously slave-owners benefited a lot from their Slaves, but their were also
many disadvantages, the owners always had to keep an eye on them so they wouldn’t
run away and take care of them so they wouldn’t die of any disease.
Importance: It shows how dependent the Southerners still are on the Northerners.
These weaknesses might contribute South to give up in the civil War.
D. The White Majority
Background: Beneath the aristocracy were the whites that owned one or two, or a
small family of slaves; they worked hard on the land with their slaves and the
only difference between them and their northern neighbors was that there were
slaves living with them. These represented only a quarter of whites, the majority
of the whites were slaveless, for living they grew basic things like corn and
hogs.
1. Women and some homeless whites were called many names like “poor white trash”
or “lazy whites”, which gave more help to the gap between the rich and the poor.
2. The mountain whites, rarely in the sight of rich cotton, played a significant
crippling role in Confederacy.
Importance: This shows how diversity is leading in a bad way or being used in a
brutal way. Everywhere you turned, you could see the horror and that shows that
south wasn’t the choice for the people looking for a quality life. This also shows
how owning a slave is slightly becoming the dream of everyone, which shows that
South is lazy and dependent so much on slavery that a war is definitely in need to
take place.
E. Free Blacks: Slaves Without Masters
Background: In 1860 there were about 250,000 free blacks. These blacks were living
far better then the slaves, obviously they were still discriminated, but they too
hold slaves and owned property.
No events took place in this particular section.
Importance: This shows that there are enough free blacks for them to win the war
against slavery. This also shows that that when the slaves get free they will have
a strong support from the free blacks.
F. Plantation Slavery
Background: Since the turn of the century the blacks population quadrupled to
nearly four million. Even though importation of slavery was banned in 1808, it
continued through smuggling due to high demand of slaves. The population increase
though was mainly from the natural reproduction.
1. Slaves were a dream for every white and when it came to be, they treated them
better then their own children at times, for example they would put dangerous
chores on themselves or another family member, or the Irishman, which was known
for doing dangerous work.
2. Their need and demand was so much that they started to treat the Blacks as
animals, they offered the women freedom if they can make ten babies. They even did
auctions of slaves, it soon became a big investment, and during the auctions they
were treated brutally.
Importance: This particular section shows how the life was in south, how deeply
dependent they were on south, so deep that they lost their humanity, sympathy, and
the ability to read emotions.
G. Life Under The Lash
Background: Slave life varied from place to place, but for slaves everywhere, life
meant hard work, ignorance, and servers. They had no security from the government,
they did protected from the owner’s cruel punishment. Such laws were difficult to
enforce because the slaves were forbidden of court.
1. They often stole food, or work lazily, and not get punished real badly, because
they also came to know that the whites valued the them.
2. In deep South where there are larger plantations, Blacks there accounted for
more then seventy-five percent of the population. Culture was starting to develop
in big communities.
3. In contrast to white planters, the slaves started to adapt to their religion
and some ways of living, but in everything they put flavor of their own and
twitched it a bit.
Importance: This shows that they were starting to make their own communities, and
find some taste in their tastelessness life. The changes they made might influence
others, such as singing, and their style of Christianity.
H. The Burdens of Bondage
Background: Slaves had no dignity, sense of responsibility, right to make choices,
were illiterate, and up until now they were looking the worst to achieve the
American Dream. Whites welcomed every excuse that would lead them to hate the
blacks even more then they already do so. The Blacks worked lazily in the fields
due to the simple fact that they were slaves, working without any wage. Blacks
tried many ways to have a better living, from stealing the goods, to working
lazily, to committing suicide, to poisoning their masters they did everything in
their power to have a better living.
1. In 1800 an armed insurrection led by a slave named Gabriel in Richmond,
Virginia, was foiled by informers, and all of its leaders were hanged.
2. In 1822, another free black tried to free some slaves, but that also was
betrayed by informers, and Vesey and his flowerers were strung to death.
3. In 1831, a visionary black preacher, Nat Turner, also didn’t work.
4. In result of these three attempts of freedom, whites forced to tightened their
rules. Booker T. Washington analyzed the whites response as, “ whites could not
hold blacks in a ditch without getting down there with them.
Importance: It would lead the whites to become more brutal in every aspect of
labor. The whites brutal ness might lead to more revolts standing up, and that
might lead to more deaths and bloodshed from both sides.
I. Early Abolitionism
Background: The inhumanity of the whites caused antislavery societies to shout
louder. Because of so many blacks coming into United States, the first
abolitionists main goal was to send them back to Africa or migrate them into an
antislavery nation.
1. IN 1817, the American Colonization Society was founded for the purpose of
transporting Blacks back to Africa.
2.In 1822, Republic of Liberia was founded to give the Blacks a better living here
in United States.
3. Most of the blacks in 1860 were not Africans but African-Americans. Provided
support from the Second Great Awakening and reformation, abolitionists really took
these events into consideration and used this reformatted environment to fight for
better living of blacks.
Importance: This probably led to many blacks into freedom, but left a harder life
for their fellow blacks. These events took the white’s anger to another level, and
set the stage for showdown between blacks and whites.
J. Radical Abolitionism
Background: The blacks kept trying for a quality living.
1. On January 1st, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison published the first edition of The
Liberator triggering a 30-year war of words and in a sense firing one of the first
shots of the Civil War. Other dedicated abolitionists build garrison’s ideas, such
as Wendell Philips, a Boston patrician known as “ abolition’s golden trumpet” who
refused to eat cane sugar or wore cotton made clothes, since both were made by the
free labor of slaves.
2. David Walker, a Black abolitionist, wrote Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the
World in 1829 and advocated a bloody end to white supremacy.
3. Sojourner Truth, a freed Black woman who fought for black emancipation and
women’s rights, and Martin Delaney, one of the few people who seriously
reconsidered Black relocation to Africa, also fought for Black rights.
4. The greatest Black abolitionist was an escaped black, Frederick Douglass, who
was a great speaker and fought for the Black cause despite being beaten and
harassed. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicted
his remarkable struggle and his origins, as well as his life.
Importance: Well in the end, the conclusion is obvious, the blacks were willing to
put up with a war to live as respected human beings.
K. The South Lashes Back
Background: After the debate in 1831-1832, of proposals for antislavery, died down
and calmed the voices of abolitionists.
1. In South, abolitionist efforts increasingly came under attack and fire.
2. Nullification of 1832 further implanted fears in Southern whites of getting rid
of slavery. Southern then gave the blacks something to think about by coming with
false logics. They taught blacks that slavery is supported by the bible and it is
good for you guys, because we brought you from African jungles and gave you cloths
to wear, and quality goods to eat, and made your life easier by advance
technology.
3. They also compared the master-slave relationship to that of a family. They also
noted the lot of northern free Blacks, now were persecuted and harassed, as
opposed to southern Black slaves, who were treated well, given meals, and cared
for in old age.
4. In 1836, Southern House members passed a “gag resolution” requiring all
antislavery appeals to be tabled without debate, arousing the ire of northerners
like John Quincy Adams.
Importance: Again the blacks need answers and they are making the whites think of
them, which would lead to some whites supporting antislavery, and some wouldn’t
which would lead to a war.
L. the Abolitionist Impact in the North
Background: Abolitionist were for a long time unpopular in many parts of north.
The Northern were brought up to follow the constitution and regard the issue of
slavery as lasting bargain. Garrison’s wild talk of secession grated harshly on
northern ears.
1. The South owed the North $300 million by the late 1850s, and northern factories
depended on southern cotton to make goods.
2. Many abolitionists’ speeches provoked violence and mob outbursts in the North,
such as the 1834 trashing of Lewis Tappan’s New York House.
3. In 1835, Garrison miraculously escaped a mob that dragged him around the
streets of Boston.
Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy of Alton, Illinois, who impugned the chastity of
Catholic women, had his printing press destroyed four times and was killed by a
mob in 1837; he became an abolitionist martyr.
4. Yet by the 1850s, abolitionist outcries had been an impact on northern minds
and were beginning to sway more and more toward their side.
Importance: The abolitionists were getting stronger and were using everything in
their power to stop slavery. They accomplished to sway many northerners and some
even joined the abolitionists.