Social Groups In The South Between 1830-1860

The economies of the North and South were vastly different leading up to the Civil War. Money was equivalent to power in both regions. For the North, the economy was based on industry as they were more modern and self-aware. They realized that industrialization was progress and it could help rid the country of slave labor as it was wrong. The North’s population had a class system but citizens could move within the system, provided they made the money that would allow them to move up in class. The class system was not as rigid as it was in the South. By comparison, the South wanted to hold on to its economic policy. In doing so, the practice of slavery kept the social order firmly in place. The economic factors, social issues and a growing

Slaves were a major key back in the 17th century for the economy because they were so much cheaper compared to the white servants. In the southern colonies the weather was amazing for large amounts of crops to be created. The crops that were mainly used were tobacco, rice, and other items. In the southern colonies many slaves were taken from the west to the south because the West africans had a skill that the others did not.

In the South, it was very well known for slaves to be working in plantation fields. The often would work cultivating cotton, tobacco, and sugar. Tobacco was a very popular cash crop, but died out due to the harsh conditions it would give the soil. Moreover, southern states were referred to as Cotton Kingdom. The reason being is because in the southern states, cotton was the major cash crop they grew. In addition, more than 50% of the cotton was grown in the south. Additionally, the culture in the South was quite different compared to the slaves that were in the North. The southern slave states culture was determined by plantation owners and families. The slaves were not authorized to be educated, and only the plantation owners had the right to be educated. They were not allowed to attend school and their culture revolved around the plantations. To add in, their economy revolved around the agricultural plantations. The southern grew cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane, and indigo. Many of

The Southern Colonies had hopes of creating profit from the export of agricultural goods when they developed a plantation economy; farms would grow single crops, such as rice and tobacco. However, as the agriculture business grew, so did the demand for more workers, but they needed a cheap source labor to rely on. The idea of slavery was brought up, but the Southern Colonies could not enslave the Native Americans because they became difficult due to their independence. As a result, African slaves were used because of how easy it was to enslave them. Many African slaves were taken from their homes, and put in a foreign place; this left them defenseless and afraid. The slave population grew largely, and became a steady source for many single

     In the later 1700’s to 1863, slavery was an intricate part of the South. Slaves were needed for plantation work like planting, caring for, and harvesting crops to maintaining the land. After

The South, on the other hand, was highly dependent upon the institution of slavery. It was still primarily an agricultural society that needed as many laborers as possible in order for the plantation owners to make ends meet. According to historian Douglas Harper, “In 1793 came the cotton gin, which brought a 50-fold increase in the average daily output of short-staple cotton, promoted the rapid expansion of a ‘cotton kingdom’ across the Deep South, and made large-scale slavery profitable.” Because of this, the slave became an essential tool to the farmers of the south; more money became invested in slavery rather than in industrial improvements. Based upon the 1860 U.S. Census, there were almost a whopping total of four million slaves in the South alone. In fact, the more slaves an owner had, the more prestige. “Most slave owners owned fewer than five slaves, and only 12 percent of Southerners had twenty or more slaves. Many whites who had no slaves looked with envy upon the wealthy, and to a degree admired them.” This hierarchy had a clearly defined social structure which created distinctions between rich and poor whites as well as racial segregation. This agricultural society and its strict hierarchy only increased the social and racial disparities found in the southern region of the United States.

The New South was mostly about development and growth that started to gradually increase after 1877 on into the 1900s. Iron and steel were the main contributors followed by tobacco and timber. Steel mills were popping up all over the south which provided numerous jobs and a better way of living. The downside was the effect it had on the farm industry due to the fact that cotton was cheap and so was labor. As a result most of the people preferred to work in the factories which paid higher wages.

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.

Traditional views of the Antebellum South oftentimes ignore class divides within the American South. African-Americans and Whites are oftentimes viewed as being divided by race with all Whites and African-Americans being equal. However these ideals ignore the seventy-five percent of southerners which did not own slaves and the steep divides between African-American slaves with different roles. Primary sources from authors who experienced the Antebellum South, the American Civil War, and, or Reconstruction alert their audiences to societal divides which existed within each perceived race. Following the abolishment of slavery, economic class divides among whites were mitigated and whites view of African-Americans became standardized. Whites began to only recognize African-American as a rival to their power in all capacities, and as such vilified all African-Americans.

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.

“Planter 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 slave-owners kept a close watch on world priced for their products to invested in enterprises such as railroads and canals.

In the time just before the Civil War, the United States was one of the most successful nations in the world. The United States had become the world’s leading cotton producing country and had developed industry, which would in the future, surpass that of Great Britain. Also, the United States possessed an advanced railroad and transportation system. However, despite its successes, the United States was becoming increasingly divided. The North and the South had many distinct differences in terms of their social, cultural, and economic characteristics that brought about sectionalism and, eventually, the Civil War.

Race and class affect the southern colonies in many ways. If you were not from a certain class, you were a nobody. Social class is defined by what they did, the planters were known to be the richest and most powerful and everyone else was less. The servants were less than the planters because they worked and did everything for them. Planters had the ability to do whatever they wanted with the servants and most times they took advantage of that. The lowest class were African Americans, and at the time they were nothing else but slaves. They were treated worst then the servants. They had no rights to vote, or to own land. They basically took over the servant’s positions. Slaves cost more than indenture servants because they were sold as lifetime

The Southerners’ were the largest and wealthiest due to the production of tobacco and cotton, and largest because of the amount of slaves brought over to work. The Southern colonies had lots of crop trading directly with Europe by Mississippi river. The plantation land owners needed the slaves to care for the crops daily, the slave population growing more and more through the years. The climate in the Southern colonies is the warmest, they didn’t have to worry about surviving cold winters, yet the warm climate was a negative factor carrying diseases that killed colonists. As far as education, children in the South were taught at

The economy of the South depended primarily on slaves. Its settlers had plantations of cotton, which was very profitable at that time, but they needed a cheap labour force to work their lands (slaves). Living in the South meant either having a lot of money to invest on lands (for crop plantations) or working in the only available jobs, which were done by slaves. Since not everyone was able to afford high