Slavery in the south was decreasing slowly but surely in the late 1700’s to very early 1800’s due to the fall of tobacco, people were beginning to lose profit, and therefore slaves. Around the 1800’s to 1860’s however, a new king came to rule replacing tobacco, cotton was the new king. This, the growing of cotton, along with the expansion of land and the slave trade itself helped make slavery boom back up again during this time period. The changes were so high, that Alabama once having a slave population of 41,000 to an incredibly high 435,000 slaves, slaves were needed, and were on a high demand during the 1800’s through 1860’s with the textile industry in Great Britain and New England booming.
Cotton, once a very difficult and complicated crop to grow due to its many seeds stuck to its fibers, became a smooth, factory like performance with the aid of the cotton gin. Cotton was so important it made up two thirds of all 200 million dollars. The cotton gin, thanks to Eli Whitney helped remove the seeds faster, and not as painstakingly as before, this resulted in faster and greater production. A greater product wield means that the larger the workforce needed to grow in conjunction with the labor force, in this case reffered to as “King Cotton”. The greater workforce was slaves, and the invention of the cotton gin led to greatly expanding the amount of slavery in the South. The more slaves brought in to cultivate the cotton the more involucrate the Southern planters had become with agriculture, this strong attachment and dependency for cotton led to the South’s poor establishment of Industry. The total value of textiles from the South for example, made about 4.5 million dollars in the 1860’s, that may sound impressive but it is r...
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.... The slave trade tried to further expand legally by advocating for their rights to buy slaves in Cuba, or Brazil or even Africa; this was discussed in southern commercial conventions, and was specifically brought up by William L. Yancey of Alabama. The cotton was growing bountiful and the planters needed slaves to harvest it, thus the need for slaves pushed the slave trade and increased the amount of slaves in the South tremendously during the first half of the 1800’s.
Just as slavery was starting to lessen, the South discovered a way to lasso it back into it’s grasp thanks to the discovery of the cotton gin, allowing it to quickly recuperate from the death of tobacco. The growth of slavery in the first half of the 1800’s was also aided by the expansion of land, and the cruel yet profitable slave trade, all prolonging the misery of the black Southern population.
Slavery was a main contributor in the South in the 1800s. African Americans were enslaved in large plantations growing cotton, instead of tobacco. Slavery was the same old story it was in the 1600s, barely anything had changed. Slavery was the dominating reality of southern life in the antebellum period due to economical, social, and political reasons.
“The contrast in the relative prominence of slavery between the Upper South and the Lower South reflects the adverse health conditions and arduous labor requirements of lowland rice cultivation, whereas tobacco farming continued to be attractive to free family farmers as well as to slave owners”(Engerman, Sutch, & Wright, 2004). The lower South depended on their slaves more than the Upper because they were in the process of cropping tobacco. The Upper South had to keep up with the lower south, because they had to focus on their slave trade that would build and expand their plantations. During this era, the diverse between these two regions were more concerned with the values of slaves. The values of slave price can increase because of high demands between the upper and the lower South. As the upper South was coming up short, the slave profession took off. The slave profession helped the Upper South, yet there were numerous deformities. The slave percentage was at the end of its usefulness of significance “in the Upper South” significance it had a weaker understanding of community reliability than in the cotton areas. This made the upper south separate on what the future may hold. It was not clear on whether if the future was based on the Deep South’s financial growth between the North and the
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...
Between that and the invention of the cotton gin, the slave trade was on the rise again. In 1807, a law was passed specifically outlawing the slave traffic between Africa and the United States. Surprisingly, this law passed with great ease, and the full support of the south in Congress. There was fear of the blacks outnumbering the whites eventually, and the Southern whites feared becoming the racial minority. Slaves were also a “self-perpetuating population” (5), and there eventually became no need to import more slaves into the country. This, more than fear of prosecution, is what led to the decline of slaves being brought here. The slave trade was still going strong throughout the rest of the Americas. Another law was eventually passed, where the penalties for slave traders were unbelievably lowered. Although it seems counterproductive, it was actually an effort to enforce and prosecute move slaver traders. Added to these restrictions was the restriction on slavers outfitting ships anywhere for slave trading. If a ship left the United States with the intention of outfitting a ship elsewhere for slave transport, it was still against the law. In 1820, a law was passed making slave trading a capital offense. Any United States citizen working on a slave ship, foreign or domestic, that attempted to transport slaves “Negro or mullato…shall be adjudged a pirate; and…shall suffer death”
In the south, cotton was becoming a huge success for the southern farmer. Cotton, being a very laborious crop, required the ownership of many slaves per plantation. Unlike the immigrants of the north, slaves were property. Slaves were also much less of a profit. When a slave became ill he could not simply be replaced, he needed to be cared for, after all, this was the plantation owners property. On the other hand in the north if a worker became to ill to work, there were several immigrants waiting for the job.
The southern states were all tied together, but they each had there own economic priorities and there own view and importance on slavery. First, the Lower South (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) there focus ands main crop production was cotton; therefore concluding that slavery in the Lower South was highly important to their productivity. Next, the Middle South (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas) had many different agricultural needs and many jobs spread throughout the area reducing the need for slavery in this region. Lastly, The Upper or Border South (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) slavery was beginning to decrease. The Lower South definitely favored slavery more than other regions, but they needed the slaves for all the cotton that there producing; the entire South had one thing in common and that was that they were against doing away with slavery. Therefore, the Old South was trying to increase slavery while the Union was trying to do away with, which led to the Confederate States of America in
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.
There were many economic reasons for the increase of slavery in the plantations in the South. The populations of slavery in the plantations were because the colonists depended on there Indentured Servants. The Indentured Servants were people who agreed to a contract which was to work in the southern colony. This contract lasted up for 4-7 years of hard work labor. This was as long as the servants paid for their journey. After the 4-7 years of labor there were free. The servants did slave labor but they were not slaves. The indentured servants and slaves both had some things in common. One they both worked on cash crops. Also they both worked hard and they were not paid for doing their labor.
The author goes on to describe antebellum slavery. During this time, he describes slavery as a massive expansion. He expresses this knowledge through the numbers of slaves and overwhelming facts. At this time cotton boosted the economy of all the slave states, cotton producing or not. Cotton created an intense demand for slave labor and therefore slave prices rose to an all time high.
Before the American Revolution, slavery existed in every one of the colonies. But by the last quarter of the 18th century, slavery was eventually abandoned in the North mainly because it was not as profitable as it was to the South (where it was becoming even more prevalent). Slavery was an extremely important element in America's economy because of the expanding tobacco and cotton plantations in the Southern states that were in need of more and more cheap labor. At one point America was a land of 113, 000 slaveholders controlling twenty million slaves.
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.
As the United States continued to expand, the thirst for slave labor heightened. Once Congress outlawed the Atlantic slave trade, and thus the import of slave labor, planters created the domestic slave trade by looking to the Upper South and Eastern seaboard regions for slaves. The mania for buying slaves resulted in a massive forced migration. By 1860, more than one million African Americans were ripped from their communities where their families had lived for three or four generations, and were forced to migrate South.2 These slaves did not have a say in...
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Slavery began in the Americas long before the establishment of the United States, but by the time the Philadelphia convention took place, many of the Northern states had officially ended the practice. (124) The Northern states had, as has been stated, more diverse economies which were not based solely upon farming, so they could afford to abolish slavery in their districts. However, the Southern states were heavily dependent upon slave labor to ensure the success of their plantation farming. “Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. The cotton economy would collapse. The tobacco crop would dry in the fields. Rice would cease being profitable.” (“The Southern Argument for