1. Slavery
An Overview

2. Short-staple cotton, the variety grown in the Southern
U.S.

3. Profitable Cotton Production Requires 5
Things:
- a quick method for cleaning
- land
- warm climate
- labor (to plant, weed, harvest, and clean)
-transportation

4. 1860 - Cotton Production at the time of Lincoln's
Election

5. Population Density
• The number of people in a given area.
• Expressed as a ratio: # of people / size of area
Most of the time it’s # per square mile or per
square kilometer
• Think of it as crowded an area is.

6. Population density of slaves in 1860

7. The growth of the "Cotton Kingdom" 1820-1860

8. Facts:
US Cotton Production in 1800 : 156,000 bales (1 bale = 480
lbs)
US Cotton Production in 1860 : over 4,000,000 bales (60% of
all US exports)
US Slave Population in 1800 : 887,612
US Slave Population in 1860 : 3,953,760
Price of a healthy male field hand in 1850s: $1800
Estimated value of Slave property in 1860:
$ 3,000,000,000
(1860 dollars: $1 today = $100 in 1860)

9. More Facts:
- Only 10% of all Southerners were
slaveholders....but 1/3 of all Southern families
owned slaves. In the lower South (Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana)
the number was closer to 1/2.
- over 50% of all slaveowners owned < 5 slaves
- 12% of slaveowners owned > 20 slaves
- 1% of slaveowners owned > 50 slaves
- 2% of free blacks owned slaves (mostly to protect
family)

10. .

11. The Breakdown
75% of all slaves worked as unskilled agricultural laborers
(planting, weeding, harvesting).
South Carolina slaves planting sweet
potatoes in 1862.
55% worked cotton
10% worked tobacco (Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina)
10% worked rice (coastal areas of South Carolina & Georgia),
sugar (Louisiana & Florida) or hemp (Missouri)

12. More breakdown
15% of slaves worked as
domestics (house workers:
nannies, cooks, butlers, maids)
10% of slaves were skilled
workers (carpenters,
seamstresses, blacksmiths,
coopers) These slaves were
more valuable than field hands
as they helped plantations be
self-sufficient. These slaves
also would make their own
A coachman...someone who
money and buy their freedom. drove a horse-drawn carriage.

13. More of the Breakdown
Most slaves worked on
large plantations (20 or
more slaves)
That means that a majority
of slaves were owned by
12% of the population.
That also means that a
majority of the productive
land was owned by 12% of
the population. (wealth in
the South = land and
slaves)
Most of these slaves had
little or no contact with their
masters. Cabins where slaves were raised for market – The Hermitage,
Savannah, GA

14. Questions
Which slaves were best prepared for emancipation? Why?
A group of refugee slaves
near Cumberland Landing,
VA

15. Racial Interactions on large
plantations
The only contact with whites these slaves had was with an
overseer, who was mainly a poor white man with little to no
land or slaves who worked for the plantation owner; and with
slave patrols: poor, armed local whites who would
occasionally act as low-level cops making sure slaves weren't
roaming around without permission.
The overseer's job was to get the most work out of the slaves
as possible. He set work hours and administered
punishments, and was not well-liked. There were black
overseers as well. There were not many and they were
especially hated.

16. Racial Interactions on small
plantations
• Most slave owners owned 5 or fewer slaves.
Slaves on these plantations lived and worked
very close to their owners, most often in the
field alongside them and had very little
contact with other slaves.
• They would often live in a small cabin or lean-
to right next to the owner’s house.

17. The roots of racial misunderstanding
• Most black people in the pre-war South lived on
large plantations around other blacks did not
interact with “typical” white people on a daily
basis.
• Most white people lived on small farms and did
not interact with “typical” black people on a
daily basis.
• This dynamic stayed in effect long after slavery
ended.

18. Question:
-What did non-slaveholding whites in
slaveholding areas have to gain by
supporting slavery?

19. Punishing slaves
Slaves were punished for a variety of reasons.
Most punishments were mental/emotional (threats of "selling South,"
or selling off family or friends, isolation, loss of breaks or free time)
Some punishments were physical (whippings, spike collars, clubbings,
brandings, mutilations, shackles, slave-breakers)
Physical punishments were rare but brutal. This was necessary for two
reasons:
1. Physical punishments could permanently damage a valuable
commodity.
2. The threat of physical punishment is far more effective than the
punishment itself....”Whip one to control 50.” … the mind is a powerful
thing.
Death was limited to severe cases (murder, rape, arson, assault upon a
white person)

20. Where slaves came from:
-Slaves in the Western Hemisphere came mainly from West Africa.
Most of these Africans went to Brazil, and the Caribbean Islands.
-Few slaves were brought directly from Africa to the U.S. because they
were not particularly wanted.
-Most slaves imported to the U.S. came from the Caribbean.
-In 1808, the U.S. outlawed the importation of slaves.
-Most slaves in the United States in 1860 were born in the United
States.
Virginia’s #1 export for the year 1860 was slaves.

21. Questions:
-Why were slaves from the Caribbean prized over slaves
brought directly from Africa?
-Why were American-born slaves preferred over imported
slaves?
Cape Coast Castle in Ghana (West
Africa) where thousands of Africans
were imprisoned on their way to the
Western hemisphere and slavery.

22. Fighting the system
The most blatant forms of rebellion were also the most rare:
(open revolt, running away) although paranoia was highest
about these two. Many slaves who ran away often returned.
More "down-low" versions were the most popular:
(intentional work slowdowns, faking illness or injury, faking
ignorance, sabotage of equipment).
Such forms both fed and fed off of racist assumptions.

23. People who fought the system
Nat Turner (center)
led a rebellion in 1831
where he and his
followers killed 60 white
men, women and children
in Southampton County,
VA. He was captured,
hanged, beheaded and skinned. His body was then
put on display to serve as a warning to anyone else
who might be like-minded.

24. People who fought the system
Harriet Tubman was born into
slavery in Maryland around 1820.
She escaped in 1849 and made
13 trips into the South to help
slaves escape North. During the
Civil War, she worked as a nurse,
cook, spy, and as an armed scout
for the Union Army. She was the
first woman to lead an armed
expedition into combat, leading a
raid on the Combahee River in
South Carolina that freed 700
slaves.

25. People who fought the system
William Lloyd Garrison founded
The Liberator in 1831, the most
famous anti-slavery newspaper.
He was also a founding
member of the American
Anti-Slavery Society and instrumental
in helping Frederick Douglass' story
get told. In 1844, he publicly burned a
copy of the Constitution, calling
it "a Covenant with death." He
was so outspoken and radical
that the State of Georgia
offered $5000 for his arrest.

26. People who fought the system
Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland in
1818. He escaped in 1838 and immediately
began working as an abolitionist.
William Lloyd Garrison encouraged him to
become a lecturer on slavery and in 1845, he
published his autobiography. Douglass' work
was so eloquent and well-written, that many
people doubted that he actually wrote it.
In addition to working against slavery, Douglass also worked for
equality in education and for women's rights. During the Civil War, he
encouraged the recruitment of black soldiers, and his own son served
in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first all-black
regular unit in the US Army. After the war, he became the US
Ambassador to Haiti.

27. People who fought the system
John Brown first came on to the
National scene in 1856 in Kansas.
In 1859, he led a raid on Harper's
Ferry, VA intending to start an armed
slave rebellion. The raid failed, and
Brown was captured, tried and hanged.
Before his death, he said: "Now, if it is
deemed necessary that I should forfeit
my life for the furtherance of the ends of
justice, and mingle my blood further with
the blood of my children and with the
blood of millions in this slave country
whose rights are disregarded by wicked,
cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!"

28. The Underground Railroad
• A network of safe houses and individuals who
helped slaves hide and run away north to
freedom.
• The safe houses were referred to as “stations”
and people who led slaves to the safe houses
were called “conductors.”
• Harriet Tubman was one of the most famous
“conductors.” She helped over 70 slaves escape.

29. Question:
• Why didn’t more slaves
rebel or runaway?
The “door of no return”
Cape Coast Castle,
Ghana (Africa)

30. An interesting end note:
“Hands that once picked cotton, can now pick presidents.”
-Jesse Jackson
1 dot = 2000 bales
of cotton produced
in 1860