In the beginning or Antebellum Period, the south and north were recovering from the American Revolution and they both went their separate ways. The northern colonies became industrialized building mills & factories along the rivers, while the southern colonies, began to grow cotton, as a result of indigo’s downfall. In the north, Two types of cotton were grown, black seed and short staple. Black seed cotton was grown better on the coastal islands of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Short staple was grown better on inland farms, but the seeds were harder to pick and it barely made a profit. But this all changed, thanks to Eli Whitney with inventing the cotton gin. The cotton gin is a machine that mimics the hand of a worker and is …show more content…
To start off with, the life of a slave was miserable. Slaves worked in the plantations picking cotton, so when the need for cotton grew the slave population did too. This was most evident in the upcountry. For instance, “in 1790 the slave population in the state numbered about 107,000” eventually it quadrupled in 1860 (South Carolina Journey, pg. 121). The slaves were also known as the fuel for the economy because they allowed plantation owners to keep the costs of producing cotton down. Also, as the demand for cotton grew, the slave trade grew too. Between 1790 and 1810, proximately 20,000 African and African Americans were brought to South Carolina. Life on a plantation for a slave was easier said than done. Slaves were under the constant, eye of the overseer and were disciplined for many things. Including, being late, not working fast enough, running away, or defying their authority. Punishments included whipping, mutilation, being sold away, or assaulted (female). You might wonder how a human could treat another with such cruelty, it's because they considered slaves property and not human. Other owners viewed their slaves with paternalism, or with a father-like control. Correspondingly, to keep the slaves in their places, slave codes were passed. These codes inhibited a slave to leave without a pass, stand up against a white, read or write, and or have have anti-slavery items. The slave …show more content…
A slave now worked in different systems called the task system and gang system. The task system was common on rice and black seed cotton plantations and after work slaves had free time which allowed a measure of independence. Under the gang system slaves worked dusk to dawn, and it was much harsher. Slaves were worked to their breaking point and watched over by an overseer. To escape the life of the plantation, some slaves became highly skilled at other skills, which gave them a chance to earn money and buy their freedom. In the meantime, at the end of the day, slaves would sing, play music, help lessen each otherś burdens, teach their children how to avoid punishments, and tell stories, and taught each other how to act to be favored by the whites in the communities they made. Although efforts at dignity and communities were forms of resistance. But the “threat of slave revolts could paralyze the planter class with fear” causing the owners to be constantly on the lookout for rebellion (South Carolina Journey, pg. 124). So of course when they heard of Denmark Vesey’s plan, they were ordered to put a stop to it. Denmark’s plan started out when he bought his freedom after winning a $1,500 off a lottery ticket. He used that money to buy his freedom and to open a carpentry shop. He spoke out against slavery in church and secretly began to organize blacks. In the end, Vesey insisted that he was innocents
The Cotton Gin, never was there an artifact that brought so much prosperity as well as hardship in equal measure. Eli Whitney’s invention which was created in 1793 is often cited by historians as an indirect cause of the American Civil War. The genius of the cotton gin was that it could separate the seed from the cotton, so rather than having armies of slaves picking cotton from sun up to sun down this machine could do the job in half the time. Consider this, now even a small plantation operation could quadruple its bottom line, this caused an even greater boom in the acquisition of slaves. Francis Ellen Watkins stated, “A hundred thousand new-born babes are annually added to the victims of slavery; twenty thousand lives are annually sacrificed
Invented by Eli WHitney in 1793, because of the cotton gin it reduced the amount of time and cost of separating the cotton seeds from white fiber. Due to the cotton gin, cotton farming became much more profitable in the South. Because of the cotton gin, the demand of the cotton grew and increased slavery. There was economic consequences due to the cotton gin and the increase of the cotton
The establishment of the Carolina colony, later separated into North and South Carolina, was the introduction of widespread slave labor in the English colonies. They had been used in Virginia for years prior, but other then that it was a new development. Slave labor was used on large plantations where the slaves tended to labor intensive crops completely against their will. The conditions in which they were brought over were just as bad, if not worse then the slave labor itself. Nearly one fifth of slaves brought over on ships died on those ships.
The impact of slaves on the southern economy was huge. In the Colonial south plantations were prominent. Most people lived on plantations where they grew rice, indigo as well as cotton. These crops were farmed by enslaved africans. The average plantation had about 200 slaves present, the crops farmed by the enslaved Africans either got consumed by the plantation owners or sold to create a great income for the people that owned the plantations.
Slavery was a horrible institution that negatively impacted the lives of imported Africans. As agriculture became more lucrative, white slave owners needed more people to work their land. Slavery became very popular and spread to multiple places, including Chesapeake after it began in Virginia in 1676. With the need for more labor, laws were passed to take away the rights of free blacks. With imposed restrictions blacks became displeased and began to rebel.
As the antebellum Americans made several advancements in technological innovations, this helped the North overcome the South agriculturally. With the new inventions such as the cotton gin, the reaper, the steel tipped plow, and new ways to revive unfertile soil, the North had many advantages to aid them while they were gone to war. As these new inventions were created each had an impact on how and why the differences between the North and South came to be. Although the creation of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney improved the South’s economy it also made the South more dependent on slaves.
The source for this was usually in the popular crops such as tobacco, rice, cotton and wheat. With this being intensive labor and highly productive, slavery became popular in the states where this took place. These states included South Carolina,
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South takes a profound look into slavery in America from the beginning. The author, Kenneth Stampp, tells the story after doing a lot of research of how the entire South operated with slavery and in the individual states. The author uses many examples from actual plantations and uses a lot of statistics to tell the story of the south. The author’s examples in his work explains what slavery was like, why it existed and what it done to the American people.
The plantation crops and slavery system changed between 1800 and 1860 because cotton and sugar became a huge deal and they were expanding it immensely. Originally slaves mostly worked on tobacco farms and rice fields but sugar and cotton began to expand so slavery expanded. Because the South was expanding so much they wanted more and more and even imported slaves illegally. Slave trading increased to match the increase of the expanding cotton and sugar plantations. The trading of slaves began to break apart slave families because the slaves were sold and traded individually.
The increase in profits led to the demand for more slaves to help plant and harvest the cotton. The slaves were no longer needed in the removal of seeds from cotton but were needed in increase numbers for planting and harvesting. There was a direct correlation between the increase in cotton production and the increase in slave populations
An ex slave explains how a master let a child choose which family member they would like to live with, and how this brought even more anguish to
Have you ever wondered how life was for the slaves in the South? Slaves in the South suffered through many consequences. For example, they suffered through many whippings with cow skin if they didn't obey their master, they also got separated from their family mostly the fathers, so, they can be sold to a very mean slave owner. Even if they were living a miserable life on the farms, they had their own culture and they managed to even get married in the farmland or where they worked. Not only did the slaves live on the farm.
To start with, slavery was growing at a rapid rate. New laws made it legal for owners to own enslaved people for their entire lives. They had little or no chance for freedom. Slaves were legally considered property, not people. Slaves were also restricted by a set of laws called Slave Codes; these laws were their rights and rules for living.
Most were left unfed and if they disobeyed orders they were whipped and cruelly beaten. However, the most of the South didn 't see slavery as inhumane. To them slavery was needed, slaves were needed to help farm, as well as make profit for their owners. Slavery was seen as a source of
NHD Outline *primary* (paraphrase) Introduction We had on the plantation an overseer, by the name of Austin Gore, a man who was highly respected as an overseer proud, ambitious, cruel, artful, obdurate. Nearly every slave stood in the utmost dread and horror of that man. His eye flashed confusion amongst them. He never spoke but to command, nor commanded but to be obeyed.