Chapter 16
The South and Slavery, 1793–1860
1. Part Three Introduction (pp. 348–349) This introduction gives you a preview of the authors’ answers to certain key questions about the causes and consequences of the nation’s “awesome trial by fire,” the Civil War. Look at this section and list three major questions you think the authors will be addressing in the next seven chapters.
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2. Southern Economy and Social Structure (pp. 350–356) a. Explain the connection between the invention of the cotton gin by Eli _________ in 17___ and the rapid expansion of short-staple cotton production based on slave labor in the South. If the cotton gin actually made picking seeds from cotton much easier, why did planters perceive a vastly increased need for slave labor?
b. Cotton was king in both the South and in Britain. By 1840, cotton amounted to _____percent of U. S. exports and accounted for more than _____percent of the world’s supply. Britain’s economy was based on cotton textiles, and Britain got _____percent of its fiber supply from the South. (No wonder Southerners thought England would “be tied to them by cotton threads” in the event of conflict with the North.)
c. List two negatives of this Southern plantation economy mentioned by the authors (pp. 352–353).
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d. Although most slaves were owned by the large-scale planters, most slave-owners held only a few slaves each, and often worked together with them in the fields. The chart on p. 353 shows that, out of about 345,000 slave-owning families, only about ________ families owned fifty or more slaves, representing about ____percent of the total. Fully _____percent of Southern whites owned no slaves at all. List two reasons cited by the authors to explain why many poor whites without slaves remained staunch defenders of the slave system.
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3. Conditions of Slavery (pp. 356–362) a. If northerners were really against slavery, why do you think they treated individual free blacks with such disdain?
b. With slave importation outlawed since 1808, the slave population grew to a total of __ million by 1860 primarily by natural reproduction. Unlike the North, wealth in the South was not held in monetary form, but rather in the form of land and _________. What did it mean to sell a slave “down the river”? Slaves were being sold from where to where?
c. List two examples of the fact that slaves had absolutely no political or civil rights.
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d. What do the authors conclude on pp. 360–362 about black family and religious life?
e. *** Did anything surprise you about the extent of slave resistance and rebellion (p. 362)?
4. Abolitionism (pp. 362–368) a. The _____________ (a religious sect) were among the first to advocate abolitionism. In the early 1820s, the emphasis was on sending ex-slaves back to Africa, especially to the West African country of ____________. A small minority of fervent abolitionists emerged in the 1830s, encouraged by the freedom given by ___________ (a country) to its West Indian slaves, and by the religious spirit of the Second Great ______________. What is the essential difference between a radical abolitionist, such as William Lloyd ___________, and a more practical or political abolitionist, such as the ex-slave Frederick ___________? *** Had you been against slavery at the time, put an (*) by the approach you would have favored.
(1) Radical:
(2) Political/practical:
b. *** If you had been a moderate Southerner at the time, list two legitimate arguments you might have used against the call of the radical abolitionists for the immediate release of all slaves with no compensation to their owners.
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c. Look at the cartoon on p. 367. In reaction against increasingly perceived threats to their way of life, Southerners began advancing arguments as to why slavery was a “positive good.” *** What do you think of the argument that the North was hypocritical because southern slaves had it better than did the “wage slaves” of the North? Was there any truth in this charge?
d. Were the abolitionists popular or unpopular in the North? Why?
VARYING VIEWPOINTS
Nature of Slavery
Read the Varying Viewpoints essay and address ONE of the following questions:
1. According to historian Eugene Genovese, what motivated southern slave-owners to embrace “a strange form of paternalism” toward their slaves? *** Do you agree with the authors that this paternalistic attitude had the effect of subverting the “racist underpinnings” of the slave society?
2. Although economic historians have demonstrated that slavery was still a profitable proposition at the time of the Civil War, it was dying out as an institution in other places around the world. *** Do you have any thoughts as to what would have happened to slavery in America in the absence of a Civil War?
3. Slaves were purposefully kept illiterate and therefore left few written records of their life on the plantations. Technology for audio and video recordings was unavailable and few travelers from the North recorded observations on slave treatment, lifestyle, or culture. *** If you were a historian trying to make conclusions about these subjects, what types of sources would you consult? Do you think an “objective” picture of southern slavery is possible to construct?
