Slavery was common in the South, especially in plantation fields such as tobacco or sugar fields. These slaves were kidnapped, brought to America, and were forced to work without fair pay. After almost dying in a ship overloaded with slaves, they were put to work on the fields all day. While it is true that slavery had a huge positive impact on the South’s agrarian economics, enslaving another human being is immoral and cannot be justified, even if it benefited the economy. The Southern economy can be described as a continuous cycle of increased crop production, leading to increased profit, which results in purchasing more slaves. The plantation owners of the South had a free labor force to do their work on the fields, therefore resulting in higher profit. However, heavily relying on manpower to do the work stifled the South’s motivation for industrialization. This was a significant drawback to the use of slaves. Although the cotton …show more content…
It was a matter constantly debated during drafting of the Constitution. Many acts and laws were passed regarding slavery, such as the Fugitive Slave Act, which returned escaped slaves back to their masters. The three-fifths compromise counted a single slave as three-fifths of a person. Although slavery was not the sole cause of the formation of Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans, it highlighted vast differences between the two territories. Slavery created class distinction among Southerners. Due to the high costs of slaves, not many Southerners had the means to own one. The quantity of slaves one possessed translated as wealth. This fueled the desire of slaveholders to buy more slaves, which ultimately led to their bankruptcy. Slavery created negative outcomes for African culture as well. Due to constant wars from Coastal kingdoms, where everyone bought their slaves from, Africans suffered slow advancement and progress in culture and development due to interruptions and decrease in
In the South, however, the economy was predominantly agricultural. Cotton and tobacco plantations relied heavily on the free labor of slaves for their economic prosperity. They saw the urbanization and industrialization of the North, and the economic connection between the North a...
The Southerners viewed slavery as a luxury and a necessity. Financial gain was one of the reasons slavery was tremendously popular. Slaves were required to work in various places for little or no money. Therefore, this helped the slave owners achieve their goal of increasing their profits because they did not have to pay for labor costs. With lower labor costs, the Southerners had more disposable income. This extra money allowed them to pay their taxes, to buy more land, and to even possibly purchase more slaves.
Since the beginning of their new nation, the United States had many differences between the Northern and Southern states. During the Constitutional Convention they disagreed on how to determine their representation in the house based on population; the Southerners wanted to count their slaves and the Northerners did not, which lead to the three-fifths compromise. Later in the Convention there were concessions given to the South, which left the Northerners feeling uneasy, such as: a guarantee that the slave trade would not be interfered with by Congress until 1808 and slave owners were given the right to recover refugee slaves from anywhere in the United States. While many Northern delegates were disappointed with the rights given to the South, they felt it was necessary for the good of the Nation. This was necessary to form a strong central government and union between the states.
Within the economy a great development had been achieved when the upper south handed its power to the lower south all due to the rise of an agricultural production. This expansion was led by the excessive growth of cotton in the southern areas. It spread rapidly throughout America and especially in the South. During these times it gave another reason to keep the slavery at its all time high. Many wealthy planters started a ‘business’ by having their slaves work the cotton plantations, which this was one of a few ways slavery was still in full effect. Not only were there wealthy planters, at this time even if you were a small slave-holder you were still making money. While all of this had been put into the works, Americans had approximately 410,000 slaves move from the upper south to the ‘cotton states’. This in turn created a sale of slaves in the economy to boom throughout the Southwest. If there is a question as to ‘why’, then lets break it d...
The institution of slavery, from the year 1830 to 1860, created a divide between the northern and southern regions of the United States. Southerners, who relied on slaves to maintain their plantations, supported the institution, as it was a major part of their economy. Meanwhile, northerners, many of whom depended on slave produced cotton for textile mills and goods for the shipping industry, were divided on the slave issue, as some saw it as a blessing while the abolitionists saw it as a horrific institution. Overall, attitudes toward the institution of slavery, due to a variety of causes, differed in the varying regions in the United States from 1830 to 1860.
Slavery had a big impact on the market, but most of it was centered on the main slave crop, cotton. Primarily, the south regulated the cotton distribution because it was the main source of income in the south and conditions were nearly perfect for growing it. Cheap slave labor made it that much more profitable and it grew quickly as well. Since the development in textile industry in the north and in Britain, cotton became high in demand all over the world. The south at one point, was responsible for producing “eighty percent of the world’s cotton”. Even though the South had a “labor force of eighty-four percent working, it only produced nine percent of the nations manufactured goods”, (Davidson 246). This statistic shows that the South had an complete advantage in manpower since slavery wasn’t prohibited. In the rural South, it was easy for plantation owners to hire slaves to gather cotton be...
Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive...
Also, in the South, it was hard, rough work in the hot sun and very few whites were willing to do the work, therefore, most plantation owners purchased slaves to work the land. The plantation owner gave the slaves shelter and a small food allowance as a salary. Thereby, the plantation owner "saved" his money to invest in more land, which of course required more slaves to continue to yield a larger profit. An economic cycle was created between plantation owner and slave, one that would take generations to end. Slaves were now a necessity on the larger plantations to work the fields.
The plantation industry was the most important economical factor in the Southern colonies because they used indentured servants to help with there products. Indentured servants were people who agreed to work without pay for a certain amount of time in exchange for passage to America. Plantations relied on indentured servants to help with the agriculture. The good farmland allowed the servants to produce cattle, fish, grain, indigo, iron, rum, lumber, rice, and tobacco on the plantations. Tobacco was the leading export which was a wonderful cash crop, and it’s still a major industry
The Northern economy was based on many different industries, such as shipping, textiles, lumber, fur and mining. (Mr. Kash). Most people in the north lived on small farms to raise livestock and food to eat. Manufacturing quickly developed with water power and coal from steam plants. The north favored high tariffs to protect its industries from foreign competition. The Southern economy focused on agriculture so towns and cities slowly grew and took form. Cash Crops such as cotton, indigo, tobacco, rice and sugarcane were grown on plantations. The invention of the cotton gin allowed cotton to take over southern economy. The cotton industry developed rapidly and spread all over the south. This industry was so big that cotton exports made ⅔’s american exports. ( Civil War Trust). Slavery was essential for prosperity of southern economy. The south had little manufacturing and hated high tariffs because high tariffs would make overseas buyers not want to buy their stuff and make them increase their tariffs making it more expensive for the south to
...to do this because mill owners would fend off other stores so that there would be less competition. This meant that merchants could sell goods at whatever prices they wanted to because there was nowhere else to buy them. This would make it hard for workers to purchase goods and get out of debt. The biggest economic problem in the South was that most farmers were tenants and share croppers. This made it hard for workers to become profitable because they were constantly in debt to the land owners. There was still not a lot of opportunity for African American workers. Some industries such as the textile industry offered almost no opportunity for African American but some industries such as tobacco and iron provided some but not a lot. Even with all of the problems and discrepancies, the south still grew economically in the post-reconstruction period of the “New South”.
Why were the southern states so dependent upon slaves that they were willing to fight a war over their right to keep them? The answer lies in the social and economic differences between the north and the south. The southern United State’s climate was perfect for agriculture. Plants like tobacco, cotton, indigo and sugar had become extremely profitable to produce.(2-615) To increase profits, the farms, known as plantations, had to grow. Managing a plantation of an average of 335 acres took a lot of labor, and the most economical source was the slave trade. Without slaves, plantation owners would have to hire people to manage their farms, an option that many were either unable to take or unwilling to consider.
Slavery allowed the American economy to flourish for over 300 years. It allowed many Southern states to grow at a furious pace without significantly diversifying their economy. The South relied on the harvesting of cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, which were very labor intensive. Without much cheap labor, slaves were relied on to harvest the crops; this provided enormous value to farmers and plantation owners in the region. However, the institution of slavery was challenged in the 18th century by decades of Enlightenment thought, newfound religious ideals, and larger abolitionist groups. After the American Revolution many states would ban the practice of slavery completely and only a few would maintain the “peculiar institution”.
Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict. Slavery has existed in the New World since the seventeenth century prior to it being exclusive to race. During those times there were few social and political concerns about slavery. Initially, slaves were considered indentured servants who will eventually be set free after paying their debt(s) to the owner. In some cases, the owners were African with white servants. However, over time the slavery became exclusive to Africans and was no limited to a specific timeframe, but life. In addition, the treatment of slaves worsens from the Atlantic Slave trade to th...
Slavery has been a part of human practices for centuries and dates back to the world’s ancient civilizations. In order for us to recognize modern day slavery we must take a look and understand slavery in the American south before the 1860’s, also known as antebellum slavery. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary defines a slave as, “a man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another” (B.J.R, pg. 479). In the period of antebellum slavery, African Americans were enslaved on small farms, large plantations, in cities and towns, homes, out on fields, industries and transportation. By law, slaves were the perso...