“The South grew, but it did not develop,” is the way one historian described the South during the beginning of the nineteenth century because it failed to move from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This was primarily due to the fact that the South’s agricultural economy was skyrocketing, which caused little incentive for ambitious capitalists to look elsewhere for profit. Slavery played a major role in the prosperity of the South’s economy, as well as impacting it politically and socially. However, despite the common assumption that the majority of whites in the South were slave owners, in actuality only a small minority of southern whites did in fact own slaves. With a population of just above 8 million, the number of slaveholders was only 383,637. No more than one-quarter of the white population partook in slavery itself, this including all the members of slave owning families and all those living in slave owning families. Given that, however, virtually every …show more content…
For example, small farmers depended on the local plantation aristocracy for access to cotton gins, markets for their modest crops and their livestock, and credit or other financial assistance in time of need. The great cotton economy allowed many small farmers to improve their economic fortunes. Some bought more land, some became slave owners, and some moved into the fringes of plantation society. A typical white southerner was a yeoman farmer, who was also known as “plain folk.” These farmers owned a few slaves, with whom they worked and lived more closely than the larger planters. Many of them felt more secure in their positions as independent yeomen and they embraced the regional loyalty that was spreading throughout the white
Sierra Andreas Ms Scott 1 - 3 - 2023 AP US History Unit 5 Guiding Questions and Terms Economic development came after territorial expansion, and it made regional tensions between the North and South worse. In the North economic development pushed towards industrialization, the creation of a market system, and a transport revolution. These economic developments flourished due to the high amount of immigrants moving into the area. The South however, was very different as it continued its growth of slavery and the cotton economy. The white landowners of the South pushed for less laws surrounding slavery and the African American slaves were forced to deal with hardships pertaining to their family, religion and the suffering from slavery .
The Southern states utilized slaves to work their large plantations and to perform other work. Oftentimes, slaves were traded, rented, or sold to pay off debts, thus being treated like objects or property by the slaveowners (Document G). This demonstrates how the slaves dealt with injustice and discrimination while under the white man 's control. Although the Union disagreed with the Confederacy’s use of slavery, 12% of slaves lived in the border states of the North and the South (Document B). While the North had no slaves, the South owned 3,500,000.
In the days when slavery was booming and tobacco farming was at its peak, the foundations of America's economy was being built. tobacco farms were the number one producing product in America at the time, it was easy and with the help of the Native American Indians they had been taught to properly grow them. Next to tobacco sales the slave market was among the most frequent and requested transactions in the time period. These relations between purchased slaves and white colonial Americans consumed the trade market in the south. Pictured above is bread crumbs of a foundation being built for a developing economy, the many indentured/life long slaves working are accompanied by what appears to be the many owners and blooming businessmen of the
The 19th century was an era of dramatic change in the lives of African Americans. By the early 1800s, cotton was the most profitable cash crop, and slave owners focused on clearing lands and securing laborers to proliferate cotton production. The lack of available, fertile land in coastal areas compelled the move into the southern interior, sparking a massive westward migration of planters and slaves. The demands and rewards of the "King Cotton" economy resulted in a fivefold population increase during the first six decades of the 19th century, but it kept the South an unsophisticated agricultural economy.
For at least two generations after the American Civil War the South remained predominantly agricultural and largely outside the industrial expansion of the national economy. One exception was the development of the iron and steel industry among the southern states. After the Civil War, many Union soldiers returned to The South. Why? The South had a promising future for the Northern “Carpetbaggers”.
Worse than Slavery, by David Oshinsky, is a novel about post-Civil War America, and the life it gave free African Americans in Mississippi and other parts of the South. Oshinsky writes about the strict laws and corrupt criminal justice system blacks faced after they were freed, and while the contents of the book are not typically read about in history textbooks, it is important to understand what life was like for the freedman. Anyone interested in reading his book would profit from it. With the end of the Civil War came the destruction of the old system of slavery. Many white Southerner’s were outraged, but were forced to accept the newly freed blacks.
Slavery was a deeply embedded part of the American South and its economy, both socially and politically. For many years, most historians argued that the American South was not operating under a system of capitalism, and they believed that the South’s use of slavery in terms of unpaid wages was not that of capitalism due to Marxist thought. But a group of economic historians dubbed the “cliometricians” (Lyons, John S., Louis P. Cain, and Samuel H. Williamson, eds. Reflections on the Cliometrics Revolution: Conversations with Economic Historians. Routledge, 2013.) used an economic analysis to argue that slavery was indeed capitalistic.
Nat Turner Rebellion Stacey Cofield Florida State College at Jacksonville Nat Turner Rebellion The primary source that I have chosen is Nat Turner Explains His Rebellion, 1831. More than fifty white men, women and children were led to their untimely demised at the hands of Nat Turner. Leading a revolt that was comprised of Black men, some freed and others enslaved, Turner felt his actions were an act of God.
No matter your stance at the time, one thing became clear: socially, politically and economically, slavery was the fabric of American success and gave birth to the Old South as we know it today. At the center of the entire institution of slavery, and central to its defense, was the economic domination it provided a young country in international markets. In the early 19th century, cotton was a popular commodity and overtook sugar as the main crop produced by slave labor. The production of cotton became the nation’s top priority; America supplied ¾ of the cotton supply to the entire world.
After their exploration, many people started to take interest in moving West. There were many different reasons why people moved, including a search for a fresh start at life, a chance at starting an economic success through agriculture and
Imagine if the cotton businesses had no slaves the Southerners would have to create their own factories, for example, if they did have to create their own industry, they would have to sell all their slaves and that’s one of the last things that they wanted to do. If the South had no slaves, they would have to do everything all by themselves. According to page 242 it says " planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories, most wealthy southerners had their wealth invested in land and slaves. Planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories. Most wealthy southerners were unwilling to do this.
For some, it was destiny to move west. Although there were many conflicts and disagreements between ourselves and others, it was destiny to move west because of overpopulation, new inventions of transportation methods, and new opportunities. In the 19th Century, overpopulation was one of the major reasons for Westward Expansion. Immigrants were flooding into America for new opportunities and new ways of life and there was just not enough land to suffice the needs for all of the people. These immigrants were arriving in America in the port cities on the East Coast.
The South had very little industry. It was based off of an agrarian economy (Document B). Slaves picked cotton off the plantation and the farmers sold the cotton to make money (Document A). The Southern weren't able to keep their money without slaves working for free. Slavery was vital in the South for the economy.
The exacerbation of the issue of slavery and the Indian land taken was given to white settlers and cotton planters, who in many cases were slaveholders. This further solidified the belief in the idea of manifest destiny, the idea of American expansion as inevitable and moral. The ideas of manifest destiny led people to believe they needed secure land which pushed slavery into regions' by bringing their enslaved laborers with them. This led to a huge expansion of slavery, “while ephemeral records make an accurate count impossible, historians estimate that close to 200,000 slaves traveled and worked the American frontier between 1830 and 1860”. By the time of the Civil War, the South had become a region heavily dependent on slavery, with a large proportion of the population held in bondage.
Much of the souths wealth and economic powers came from the institution of slavery and that included border states such as Maryland”. (Spivack