Slavery In Southern Society

The Southern States depended on slave labor to thrive. In 1804, the American Convention of Abolition Societies reported that North Carolina considered “the preservation of their lives, and all they hold dear on earth, as depending on the continuance of slavery…” (Levine, 1992) In the first month of the Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis reminded his congress that the Southern states had flourished up to the point based and dependent upon the Negro slave labor. He added proudly, “The labor of African slaves was and is indispensable…” The economic success of the whole of the United States owed over three quarters of its exports to this labor, and “was absolutely necessary

Slavery lives on all era in world history till lately, but its life has not constantly had the similar economic trait. Two questions ought to be answered to properly examine any definite cause of slavery: (1) what further systems of labor live in the civilization also to slavery? And (2) what system of labor is leading? In this manner we can make a difference among ancient slavery (e.g., in Greece and Egypt where free farmers live together with slaves, but slavery was leading) and antebellum slavery in the United States (which live together with free farmers, but was conquered by the industrially-based capitalism of the urban North). The past dominance of capitalism in the United States made antebellum slavery the most uncivilized system of slave work. Not

The Slaveholders had their slaves doing their dirty work for them such as, maintaining the farms, picking cotton, etc. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and this made it a lot easier for the slaves to pick cotton, which became the principle export commodity of the United States. According to the article, Southern Society and the Defense of Slavery the cotton gin made the aggressive use of slave labor economically dominant. In the North slavery wasn’t as dominate as it was in the South. “Slavery was an institution established and regulated in detail by law.

In contrast to the other three colonies discussed, the institution of slavery in South Carolina was initiated, legalized, and maintained for distinct reasons; the founders of the colony felt that slavery was absolutely necessary for economic prosperity and their unwavering urge to protect the institution at all costs contributed towards the severity of the slave-enforcement acts and codes. By looking at the legislation passed in South Carolina, one can grasp the extent to which slaves were legally stripped of every right imaginable, suffered barbarous treatment, and were attempted to be rendered psychologically and physically powerless--all because of the deep-seated fear of the enslaved population that was instilled within white slave owners and law-makers. In South Carolina, slavery was a horrendous business that was never questioned ethically or legally. The white settlers coming from Barbados--who had already been involved in the slave trade for years--migrated to South Carolina equipped with slaves already accustomed to difficult climate conditions (similar to South Carolina), which made them more pleasurable to slave owners expecting a strong work force. Another unique aspect to South Carolina was the overwhelming black majority in the colony for it is true that, “by 1708, less than twenty years after the decision to move from white indentured labor to black slave labor, the number of blacks in the colony exceeded whites,” (Higginbotham, 1978, pg. 152). Due to the

The idea of slavery during the 19 c.e. is using slaves to work on plantation to pick up cotton and other means of making profit. Southerners use slaves as property, as servants, and having children with them and being sold. According to American Yawp, "But slavery remained, and the internal slave trade rose as the 1860s approached. Political debate, race relations, and the burden of slavery continued beneath the roar of steamboats, counting houses, and the exchange of goods." This showed that slavery is valued and slaves made the necessary need in making a working economy in the south.

I would classify the Old South as a “slave society.” Our previous discussion refers to slave societies as “societies in which slavery is a dominant socio-economic factor.” During the 1850s slavery was lucrative and profitable in the south as a result of the production of cotton, tobacco, rice, indigo, and sugarcane all which made the plantations” dependent upon slavery. The most profitable cash crop of this period was cotton which was labor-intensive, thus causing the need for slaves. Slavery strengthened the economy of the old south, but caused separation and conflict within other states in the United States as well as with other southern states that did not believe in or support slavery as the old south had, especially after the Turner Rebellion.

American slavery in the South made a lot of people give up their freedom and there life. This made a lot of people separate from their families and be mistreated. Which shows how bad it was in the South.

Thus, slavery pulled white workers down in two ways: one, by direct competition with slave labor in the South, and two, by associating all the industrious efforts of workers with those of the degraded slaves.”

Black slavery in the South created a bond among white Southerners and cast them in a common mold. Slavery was also the source of the South 's large agricultural wealth, which led to white people controlling a large black minority. Slavery also caused white Southerners to realize what might happen to them should they not protect their own personal liberties, which ironically included the liberty to enslave African Americans. Because slavery was so embedded in Southern life and customs, white leadership reacted to attacks on slavery after 1830 with an ever more defiant defense of the institution, which reinforced a growing sense among white Southerners that their values eventually divided them from their fellow citizens in the Union. The

ESSAY QUESTION #3 – How did slavery impact the economic and political development of the southern colonies and later the southern states? What were conditions like for slaves in the southern U.S.?

The economy of slavery throughout the south solely dependent upon slaves with slaves planting and maintaining cotton, rice, and tobacco. Tobacco was planted and grown in places like South Carolina and Virginia and rice planted and grown in South Carolina and Virginia. With Cotton growth on the rise the demand for slaves would increase. Work would become harder and slaves would work long gruesome hours from sunrise to sunset. Blacks would be punished in forms of beatings if a day’s work was not accomplished. At the time slaves were considered property so if you purchased a slave that was hard worker you benefitted from it. The economy of slavery in the north was more leaned towards industrial work; slaves could work for profit as well as own

The Old South was the largest and most powerful slave society the modern world has known. To describe the relationship between the master and slaves in the American south, was that the masters did have all of the power in this relationship at the beginning, but later in time, the enslaved then exerted some of that power. “Planters not only held the majority of slaves, but they controlled the most fertile land, enjoyed the highest incomes, and dominated the state and local offices and the leadership of both political parties” (Foner 411). There were fewer than forty-thousand families that possessed about twenty or more slaves that qualified them as planters. There were also fewer than two-thousand families owned about a hundred slaves or more. The ownership of slaves provided the route to wealth, status, and influence. Slavery was the profit-making system, and slaveowners kept a close watch on world priced for their products to invested in enterprises such as railroads and canals.

Four million individuals to use as “free labor :” that alone contributes to the boom of economic growth that America saw. Through their very existence, generations of Africans played a vital role in building the land of freedom and opportunity. On top of that, the human capital composed of black men and women held as chattel in the South was more valuable than all the other domestic capital of the country for the first part of the nineteenth century (Piketty and Zucman, 2013). Owning slaves put wealthy plantation owners at a heightened advantage- not only could they sell their laborers for profit, but their “property” could generate profit through the cotton or tobacco industry. Despite the cost of maintaining slaves, if gauged over the slave's lifetime, a slave owner would accrue a profit. In America’s early years, slavery was one of the biggest promoting forces for the economy.

When slavery is brought to mind, many negatives come to head like punishment and having no respect for people who are different. However, there were many positive outcomes that came from this for the economy and social system that assisted both whites and blacks. Some slaves, being the lightest in color and had the prettiest facial features,were put as domestic servants while many of the other slaves worked in the fields picking cotton as well as tobacco and other types of crops. The Southern region of the United States was more slave based while the Northern region was based mostly on industrialization. Profit increased steady in the beginning to the half of the nineteenth century because as the price of cash crops started to rise, the keeping and “caring” of slaves remained the same.

The southern economy famously relied on slave labor. Cash crops like rice, tobacco and cotton brought in a tremendous amount of wealth for southern plantation owners. Naturally the goal of these plantation owners was to make as much money as possible which led to a massive amount of these cash crops being grown. With more crops being grown the demand for labor grew proportionately and the cheaper the labor is the higher the profit margins are. The most cost effective and most efficient form of labor that could be found was slavery. This was not done out of necessity, but out of greed. In the book The Black Experience in America, Norman Coombs states that slaves were “systematically exploited for the accumulation of wealth” (Coombs 21). What is saying is that slavery was not a key part of survival, only a key part of their masters getting rich. Many people associate the old south