“Chattel" Slavery

I. Middle Passage 

  - Sugar and Tobacco
  - Barbados Slave Codes
    brought to S. Carolina

          Growth of Slavery
Percent of Confederates Owning Slaves in 1860 ____%

Percent with 20 or more slaves in 1860 _____%

8,000 have 50 or more slaves
Number of Southern white slave
owners in 1860- 383,635

Number of Southern white
families with no slaves - 1,149,979
 

  Blacks in the North 1790-1860

Free                              Slave
1790     27,034             40,086
1800     47,196             36,505
1820    99,307              19,108
1840   170,728              1, 129
1860    226,152                   64
 

Blacks in the South 1790 - 1860

Free                          Slave
1790      32,523            657,538
1800      62,239            857,097
1820    134,327          1,518,914
1840    215,565          2,486,226
1860    261,918          3,953,696

Racist Ideology
Mary Chesnut on Slavery


Slave Codes
scars

Adapted from The Peculiar Institution by Kenneth Stampp, 1956 Knopf

1.A child who had one slave parent and one free parent was free only if the free parent was his or  her mother.

2. Slaves could not make any kind of contract, including marriage.

3. Slaves were not allowed to have weapons.

4. No one was allowed to teach slaves how to read or write. No one was allowed to give them
books or pamphlets.

5. Slaves were not allowed to hit whites or insult them.


Rebellions
 Stono - 1731
 Prosser - 1800
 Nat Turner - 1831
  Richmond Enquirer on Nat Turner Rebellion, August 30, 1831
    Result in Virginia


Cotton Gin
   Economic Results
  - Demand for cotton from Britain and northern textile mills
   - Cotton makes up 2/3 of all US exports
  - Demand for more slaves
  - Demand for more land (cotton degrades soil without proper fertilization)

   Social Results
- no migration to the south
- after cotton gin, few slaves are freed in the south.
- few free laborers in south
- rural society - more illiteracy - no public schools until after Civil War.
     (20% of white illiterate in south compared to 5% in north in 1860).
 - Development of "planter class". (only 8,000 have more than 50 slaves but they dominate society).

Slavery Becomes a ‘positive good’ and no longer a "necessary evil".


Condition of Free Blacks in the North

Condition of Free Blacks in the South.


Expansion of Slavery

“Firebell in the Night” - Missouri Compromise 1820


map of U.S. in 1820


Abolitionism:
 1. American Colonization Society
      Purpose

 2. American Anti-Slavery Society
     William Lloyd Garrison
      Frederick Douglass
      Theodore D. Weld - American Slavery As It Is

  3. Underground Railroad
       Harriet Tubman


Amistad Case 1839


Opposition to Abolitionism
 1. Gag Rule 1836-44
 2. Mail is burned in south if it contains abolitionist literature

                    Frederick Douglass Video:

1. At the end of his life, what personal information was Douglass seeking? Why was it so important to him?

       2. Why did he have no information regarding his father? The video says it was “open      season on _________    ___________”.

3. How did he learn to read and write? Why was this skill so unusual?

“ The Fugitive”.

4. Why did William Lloyd Garrison want Douglass to change the tone of his anti-slavery speeches? What personal dilemma did Douglass face as a result of Douglass’ demands?

5.What choice did Douglass make in relation to the dilemma above? What were the consequences for Douglass?

The North Star

5. Aside from abolitionism, what other reforms did the paper seek while published by Douglass?  How did the pursuit of this reform help bring about a split with other abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison?