African American Slavery In The 1800's

The North’s economy was based on textiles, shipping, and skilled trades. Their climate was not suited for the same type of agricultural products that the South produced like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. Northern states like New England manufactured and shipped goods like guns, clocks, plows and axes (page 399). One reason for the South’s dependence on slavery is because their economy relied on the existence of slave labor. For example, the cultivation of cotton depended largely on slave labor, with 75% of the crop grown on plantations,

Southern economy was the center of plantation that cultivated cotton. Many the rich started to carve the plantation to earn money by exporting cotton. They needed a lot of labor and slavery was proper to use. The majority of white southerners did not own slaves because planters monopolized the best land. They could not help taking possession of the land that was not proper to cultivate cotton. Most of them earned a living by self-sufficiency even though the slave population was growing: from 697,624 in 1790 to 3,953,760 in 1860.

In the 1860 United States Census it shows that 55% or 436,631 of people in Mississippi were slaves by the year 1860, meaning that the majority of people in one state alone were enslaved. This shows how one state alone had took advantage of the gin leading to the heavy increase in the need for slaves to pick and produce cotton. Although some of these slaves were used for other jobs besides agriculture, the vast majority were used for the cotton industry.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

Though the majority of Southerners didn’t own slaves, slaves were used in the South to keep the revenue up, and slavery was very much a part of the agricultural lifestyle.

In order for them to generate a more lucrative business, the south used slaves as a labor source to produce crops, which had the largest impact on the southern lifestyle. This in turn boosted the south's economy, which allowed the the southern life to thrive and create a distinction between themselves and the other economies of North America. Whilst slaves dominated the southern economy, slaveholders only accounted for about two to three percent of the southern population. This small, yet powerful percentage of individuals were the people successful in agricultural business and the driving force behind the usage and continuation of slavery in the South. Without slaves there would be no cotton, tobacco, or sugar production and without these integral items, the Southern economy would absolutely collapse. The South depended on slaves to fuel their economy which in turn allowed for slavery to dominate the economy and be the sole resource of the South.

In addition, however, slave labor was needed to do the backbreaking work in the hot Southern sun and thus became more valuable than ever before. The map shows that in 1790, slaves consist of less than 10 percent of the population in most areas of the country, and as much as 50 percent in small sections on the Southern coast. However, by 1830 most of the Northern states were areas either without any slaves or less than 10 percent. In contrast, the majority of Southern states had a slave population between 10 and 50 percent. This slave-populous area extended along the Southern coasts as well as deep into Kentucky and Tennessee. The changes in slave density between 1790 and 1830 directly relate to areas were slave labor was an economic necessity.

During the 17th Century, Europeans established colonies in North America. The English colonies were established because proprietors were granted a charter so they could settle and govern lands. The New England colonies were very different from the south, between the use of slaves, the climate, and their religion. The south relied on the use of slaves because of their plantations, which the weather played a big part in, and their religion due to the people who settled there. Although, the colonies were under control of the English and had many commonalities, along with different origins and dissimilar purposes for settling, each region created a distinct culture.

Cotton could be easily transported down the Mississippi River to New Orleans then shipped overseas. (Bergeron, Ash Keith 112). Online source Tennessee 4 Me reports “Six out of every ten farmers in this area owned slaves” (Farming). Thirty-four percent of West Tennessee’s population were slaves. (Bergeron, Ash, Keith 122).

Slaves were used to cultivate cotton, the South’s main export. (Doc 2) The slaves were more efficient and required less pay than their white counterpart. This caused the South to be more in favor of using slaves, especially when expanding to western territories because they could save money. Some northerners claimed that the conditions that slaves lived in were cruel and brutal, but the South Carolina governor argued in 1835 that “English [factory] operatives” and “millions of paupers” had it worse than southern slaves. (Doc 1) Southern farmers heavily invested in slaves because of their ability to work hard and their inexpense. They did not feel that slavery was unlawful or immoral, because they felt that the black skin color made them inferior to

The citizens of the Southern Colonies such as Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina were mainly successful with lots of crops; mostly tobacco and rice, which in turn gained a lot of money for them. These large plantations usually were farmed by forced labor of

Although Slavery was the most profitable to the Southern Planters, there were some alternatives. For instance, sharecropping was an alternative that would easily remove the need for slaves. Sharecropping was the process of a farmland owner renting out space for poorer farmers to use, in exchange for a small portion of their crops to the owner of the farmland. This was actually done a lot after the civil war, when slavery was abolished, and the newly freed slaves needed work in order to support themselves and their families. However, this process was still not put into effect largely until the Union had won the civil war. This is since sharecropping didn’t provide as much of an economic boom to landowners as slavery did to plantation owners,

Slaves began working on plantations during the Austin colonization, they also picked cotton in East Texas and sugarcane near the coast. According to staggering statistics, the value of slaves was estimated to be 20% greater than the farms located in Texas. Due to the substantial contribution to Texas’ capital, slave owners were opposed to the idea of abolishing slavery and refused to find other ways to supplement their income. Texas’s economy would have suffered greatly, which in turn caused slavery to become one of the most important issue. During the Civil War, Northern states against the Southern, Texas was not affected because the war did not invade any of the areas in which slavery was prevalent. Slaves continued life with normalcy despite the presence of the war. Slavery ceased in Texas once General Granger announced emancipation.

It increased steadily in 1800–1850 as the North industrialized, urbanized and built prosperous factories, while the deep South concentrated on plantation agriculture based on slave labor, together with subsistence farming for poor whites who owned no slaves. Southerners defended slavery in part by claiming that Northern factory workers toiled under worse conditions and were not cared for by their employers. Defenders of slavery referred to factory workers as the "white slaves of the

Plantations were more often found in the south than small farms. During this time period in the south, hundreds of slaves could be owned by the same person. Some slaves