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Antebellum Period Research Paper

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Julius Davis
Pamela Bobo
HIST 2030 - 2
5 March 2015
Antebellum in Tennessee The period before the Civil War in 1861, and after the War of 1812, was known as the antebellum period. During this period of time, the economy, the population, and the interest in politics rose to a substantial amount. Religion also served as a strong survival tactic for slaves, as they adopted and adapted to Christianity. Not only Tennessee, but the south in its entirety made up a nice portion of the economy because of the businesses it had going on. In the South, cotton plantations were the main source of revenue during the antebellum period. From Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, to the development of the sewing machine, this greatly increased the demand for cotton to be export from the South to England and New England. Plantation owners could get many acres of land for little money, especially after the 1830 Indian Removal Act. These plantations depended on a large force of slave labor to cultivate and harvest the crops of the plantations. The United States expanded south and west, and slaves not only provided labor, but they could not quite or demand higher wages. This ensured that …show more content…

Methodist circuit riders preached to whites and blacks, and Black church members were called to urge other people in the community, black and white, in Baptist churches. Within the Baptist churches, slave preached and interpreted Christianity. They also created powerful gospel music in these quarters. This musical response to a people's oppression provided immediate solidarity and hope in God. Though some slaves learned how to read with or without the cooperation of individual masters, it was still illegal to do so. The slaves also made a world of their own within the white masters' farms and plantations. Slave owners knew of this slave community, they just ignored what they could not

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