The antebellum period brought about years of economic gain for the American south causing a divide between the United States. While northern states shifted to industrial labor, southern states were dependent on cotton production. Because agriculture became the main source of income, slavery became a way of life for the American south. Slaves were forced to do domestic and agricultural labor producing crops such as rice, tobacco, sugar, and cotton. Over half of the slaves during the antebellum period lived and worked on plantations producing most of the agriculture in the south. With fear of revolts among the slaves, the infliction of physical punishment was the most effective form of coercion masters used to control their slaves. It allowed them to show their superiority over the slaves while controlling them. …show more content…
Steven Mintz states, “A Master’s authority rested on the threat of physical pain. To discipline slaves, plantation owners set up private jails, confined slaves in stocks and shackled them with chains and iron collars.” Punishment was not only used to discipline slaves, but it was a way for slave owners to show their dominance. Slave owners asserted their power over the slaves in any situation they did not agree with. In “Instructions to his Overseer”, James Henry Hammond states, “The following is the order in which offences must be estimated & punished:1st Running away. 2nd Getting drunk or having spirits. 3rd Stealing hogs. 4th Stealing. 5th Leaving plantation without permission. 6th Absence from house after horn blow at night. 7th Unclean house or person. 8th Neglect of tools. 9th Neglect of work.” Slaves were required to work nonstop to meet the financial needs of the people they worked for. They were not allowed to do anything that would anger their master and constantly feared the backlash they would
Unlike wage workers, Slaves were severely punished for disobeying their owners. Slaves didn’t have the same freedom as wage workers. Slave labor was worse than wage labor because slave labor was more intense and harder then wage labor. Slaves laborers were punished
The Antebellum period in the United States history was considered as time between 1820 and 1862. During this period, significant changes took place in terms of political, social and economic effects in America. The United States economy was changed from an underdeveloped country of frontiersmen and farmers into an industrialized economy. The South American depended on agriculture while the Northern part had many industries. The two parts differed in terms of slavery policies in the country as the south advocated for preservation of slaves while the North championed abolition of slavery policies. In addition, during this period the south and North had established distinct cultures because of their geographical difference (Mitchell, 8). The south had fertile soils and suitable climate that supported agriculture while the north had cold climate and rocky soils that could hardly support any farming.
Around 1820 the North had either banned slavery or began gradual emancipation programs, such as free labor. The states remained agricultural but went through an industrial period. They created a diversified economy as they invested more on cities, factories, and forms of transportation. In contrast, the South invested more in agriculture increasing their reliance of slaves labor. One of the main reasons agriculture rised in the South was due to the expansion of the cotton plantations.
Slave by definition is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. That about sums up what slavery really is in our mind and is pretty much the definition that we all picture when we think about slaves and slavery. But this is not what slavery truly was within the antebellum time period. Most of the slaves had a whole different outlook on the way they viewed, and acted and while living in their unfortunate circumstances. This is one of the few things that will be discussed further on within this paper. The main concept of this paper will be to discuss slavery in three sections; these sections will be discussing the types of people who were enslaved, and the nature of their bondage in the first section. The
The Antebellum Era is defined as the time before the the Civil War. Many important things happened in America during this time period. Including the rise of abolitionist as well as people who supported slavery. In the North the economy started booming and also in the South cotton became huge. Many things happened during this period that helped shape our nation to what it is today. During the Antebellum period a movement was started because of religious reasons mostly This movement was called the Temperance Movement.
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 antebellum era (also referred to as the plantation era) between 1800’s to 1860 was a period of slave driven farming, marking the economic growth of the south. During this period in 1815, cotton was the most valuable traded produce in the United States and by 1840, it was more valuable compared to all other imported and exported goods combined. In 1860, one year before the Civil War, the South was predominantly reliant on the sale of agricultural products, such as tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton estimated at 5,344,000 bales, to a worldwide market. while the southern states generated two-thirds of the world's cotton supply, the South had little industrial capability (manufactured good estimated to the value of$156,000,000), consisting of an estimated 29 percent of the railroad tracks or 14484.1km, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South attempted slave labour in manufacturing, but were mainly content with their agricultural economy. Their delay in industrial expansion was not the result of any integral economic disadvantages, there was a vast amount of wealth in the South, but it was mainly bound to slave labour. In 1860, the financial value of slaves in the United States surpassed the participated value of all of the land's railroads, factories, and banks combined. the day before the Civil War, the value of cotton was at its peak, the Confederate aristocrats were confident that the significance of cotton on the world market, especially in England and France,
The Antebellum Era went along with the Industrial Revolution which was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. During this time period, various inventions were organized and new political ideas were supported. During this same time, the country’s economy began shifting in the north to manufacturing as the Industrial Revolution began, while in the south, a cotton boom made plantations the center of the economy. The Antebellum Era ultimately reshaped American society between 1820 and 1848 through political actions taken by Andrew Jackson, societal reforms to women’s rights and education, and economic increases from the Market Revolution.
The Antebellum period took place from before the civil war until after the war of 1812, although some historians extend the date. This period was characterized by the rise of abolition and how prosperous and diverse the topic of slavery was.In this period, the economies the northern and southern economies were very different with the rise of cotton as a cash crop in the south and the industrial advancement in the north.
During the Antebellum period, the North and South were divided into two sections. The North opposed slavery while the South believed that it ultimately benefitted society, creating conflicting views on many different issues. The issues that were brought about during the antebellum period between the North and the South were centered around what type of societies slavery created. Although the North and South had some similarities during the antebellum period, the North and South were consistently more different in many aspects.
The Antebellum period or pre-war period of America was the beginnings of American advancement. During the Antebellum period, many changes occurred throughout the United States of America. One such change was the advent of slaves for plantation work, along with other forms of domestic forms of labor. Slavery as a form of labor was what caused south to become the world's main producer of cotton, and as a primary source of cotton, the south would also have a monopoly on cotton. This monopoly on cotton is what allowed the development of the southern economy to continue, making the southern economy so strong, and large. The southern economy, however, was not the only economy affected by labor. The wage workers of the north greatly assisted in the betterment of the north in general but assisted more so in the economical sense. This boost in the economy was greatly caused by the utilization of machines in factories, along with the ability for the north to accept immigrants to do more trivial and labor-intensive tasks. The ability for the north to efficiently process raw materials and ship out, as well as sell that refined good is precisely what strengthened and improved their economy. American improvement took many forms in during the Antebellum period, and many of these views of improvement opposed each other, such as the improvement of the north due to wage workers as well as the improvement of the southern economy due to slavery.
To answer that question we look at the article by Bennett Barrow--"Plantation Rules." Within this documentation, Bennett Barrow wrote in his diary about rules that a master should place on their slaves. The rules itself is rather simple; however, it reveals an indirect way on how the slave are resisting their master. there is no
The Antebellum period in America took place in the 19th century and ended with the beginning of the Civil War. During this period, the rise of abolitionist, or those who wanted slavery to end, occurred. This caused disputes between the abolitionist and the anti abolitionists, as the two groups both had different hopes and ideas for America. The North was made up of mostly abolitionists, while people in the South were Anti Abolitionists. Since slavery was predominantly found in the Southern states, and many people in that area made a living off of slaves, they opposed the idea of ending slavery. The Northerners began to realize that slavery was inhumane, and opposed it for different reasons. The disagreement between the North and the South led to sectionalism, which was the division between the North and South. Since the Northerners and Southerners saw themselves as different nations within the United States, the Civil War began to rise. During the Antebellum period in American history, the institution of slavery led to social, political, and religious arguments between the abolitionist and anti abolitionists, creating sectionalism and a sense of national crisis, while eventually leading to civil war.
Plantation owners thought that this extreme discipline would make the slaves too scared to rebel. In South Carolina it was said that "a slave owner would put nails in a barrel sticking out on the inside of the barrel, then put the slave in and roll him/her down a very long and steep hill. Another punishment slave owners used was to whip their slaves. Other slave owners in Virginia smoked their slaves. This involved whipping them and putting them in a tobacco smokehouse".("life of a slave" thinkquest) Other punishments were getting beaten with various objects such as a chair, broom, tongs, shovel, shears, knife handles, the heavy end of a woman’s shoe, and an oak club.("life of a slave" thinkquest) Although slaves lived terrible lives, they found hope in religion. Many converted to Christianity which did not please many whites.
By this stage, slave owners had begun to realise that the only way to control slaves was by using violence and threats. A new culture had been introduced: one of black inferiority and white superiority. Many white plantation owners used extreme violence to make their slaves work, as they had no other means with which to control them. They could not reward the slaves by decreasing their length of servitude; the slaves were used for life, and their monetary value was too great for the plantation owners to reprieve them. However, sometimes the violence became so extreme that the slaves died, which decreased the plantation's profit. This use of violence extended to rape of black women and children, mutilation and branding. Rape of slaves produced an inter-race community, although this was violently unstable due to the racial and social discrimination present at that time. The plantation masters branded their slaves so that if they escaped, they would have a mark to show they were fugitive slaves. Families were often split up, to weaken the individual's spirit, and thus their confidence and urge to rebel decreased. The slave owner's greatest fear was of the slaves rebelling, so this method of weakening their reserves of energy and will was found to be effective. The plantation