Midterm

The Growth of Slavery 1808: Congress outlaws slave trade Results in a greater emphasis on ‘breeding slaves’ as well as recapturing runaways. 1818: Frederick Douglass born; slavery was already an old institution in America. Two centuries had passed since the first 20 Africans landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship. “peculiar institution” of the South – that is, an institution unique to Southern society. 1836 Gag Rule: introduced by John C. Calhoun to hush discussion in the Senate on slavery. Repealed in 1844. On the eve of the Civil War, the slave population in American had grown from the original 20 to 4 million The Growth of Slavery In the South as a whole, slaves made up 1/3 of the total population and in the cotton producing states of the Deep South about ½. 1850: Slavery had crossed the Mississippi River and was expanding rapidly in AR, LA, and eastern TX. 1860: 1/3 of the nation’s cotton crop was grown west of the Mississippi River. “Cotton is King” The Old South was the largest and most powerful slave society the modern world has known. Its strength rested on a virtual monopoly of cotton, the South’s “white gold.” By the 19th century, cotton had assumed an unprecedented role in the world economy. About ¾ of the world’s cotton supply came from the Southern USA. 1830: Cotton had become the most important American export. On the eve of the Civil War, it represented well over ½ the total of American exports. 1860: The economic investment represented by the slave population exceeded the value of the nation’s factories, railroads, and banks combined. Slave Politics and the Nation The “free states” had ended slavery, but they were hardly unaffected by it. The Constitution enhanced the power of the South in the House of Representatives and Electoral College and required all states to return fugitive slaves from bondage (3/5 Compromise/Fugitive Slave Clause) Northern merchants and manufacturers participated in the slave economy and shared in the profits. Money earned in the cotton/slave trade helped finance industrial development in the North. Northern ships carried cotton to NY and Europe, northern bankers financed cotton plantations, north companies insured slave property, and northern factories turned cotton into cloth. Northern manufacturers supplied cheap fabrics (“Negro cloth”) to clothe the South’s slaves.