A.P.

US Artem Kholodenko
Mods 6/7/8 0109
Notes for pgs. 277 – 286
Introduction - William Kirkland and his wife wanted to buy land in the
Michigan territory and taught in Detroit to do so
- The west was boundless for exploration
- After a year William earned for 1,300 acres in Livingston
Country, 60 miles north of Detroit, but they lived in a
tiny cabin too small for eastern furniture
- They returned to NY in 1843
Westward Expansion - In 1790 most lived east of the mountains and within a
and the Growth of the few hundred miles of the Atlantic Ocean, but by 1840,
Market Economy 1/3 of US lived between the Appalachians and the
Mississippi R.
The Sweep West - 3 bursts occurred of movement, before the 1790s and
reflected in the admission of 4 new states between 1791-
1803: Vermont, KT, TN, OH, and later LA, and between
1816 – 1821 Indiana, Mississippi, IL, AL, Maine, and
Missouri
- The Ohio population jumped form 45,000 in 1800 to
581,000 by 1820 and 1,519,000 by 1840, while
Michigan’s from 5,000 in 1810 to 212,000 by 1840
- There were a lot of expeditions which went deep into the
western land, and fur-trading was established far form
the settled areas
Mountain Men - “Mountain men” were the fur-traders in the 1820s, like
Kit Carson and Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Smith - Smith was the rep. of these men, who was born in he
Susquehanna V. of NY in 1799 and moved west with
family to PA and IL and in 1822 signed on to a Missouri
R. - bound expedition
- He was almost killed by a grizzly bear and learned to trap
beaver and shoot buffalo
- These men became legends in their time, as new settlers
came to the then far west, and now Midwest
- Most new immigrants looked for stability and security,
while news papers said the western living was harsh and
risky
Western Society and - To secure stability, pioneers usually went as families, and
Customs most lived near rivers, for crops between 1790 and 1820
and only with canals and railroads did settlers move
away from rivers
- N. Englanders moved to Michigan land instead of
southern-filled Indiana
Sexes Come Together - Most westerners wanted socialization among each other
and joined in on festivals, dancing, and sports, and
genders were brought together with these activities
Labor Divisions - Men performed heavy labor at home like cutting trees
and plowing fields, while women milked cows, made
clothing, prepared meals, but also killed hogs
Customs - Most customs were from the east, with gander pulling,
but there were some unique characteristics like lack of
roads and other “savage” things as thought by the east
- The people in the west were rough while in the east soft
and delicate
- Westerners gained a self-identity that shaped their
behavior such as looking down on those who pretended
Notes for pgs. 286 – 292
The Panic of 1819 - In 1819 the land boom collapsed, and farmers were
shown how dependent they are on foreign trade and
loose credit
- The US factories weren’t part of the economical boom,
because after the war, Britain unloaded a large amount
of their textile products at very cheap prices, and people
could by these products because of bank credit
Lack of Exports - Between 1815 – 1819, US imported more than exported,
and after 1817, the demand for US crops went down due
to bumper crop in Europe and a business recession in
Britain, while US farmers were dependent on these
purchases to pay off loans
Excessive Paper Money - National and state banks gave people notes which
Printing promised the person to pay any amount indicated on the
note, but a lot more paper money was printed than there
was gold to back it up
- By summer of 1818, US National Banks started
demanding small banks to pay them the $ for the notes
which they redeemed for them, thus the small banks had
to demand people to pay their loans, causing a
curtailment of credit, especially in the west
Land Prices Fall - The land speculators lost the most, with land that before
went for $69/acre, now sold for $2/acre; another cause
of this was the falling prices of agricultural products
- Cotton went from $0.32 in 1818, sold for $0.17 in 1820,
and farmers couldn’t get cash for their crops, thus
couldn’t repay their loans
US Bank Blamed and - The bank of the US was blamed for a lot of the problems,
Tariffs Rise the US factories became vulnerable to foreign
competition, so higher tariffs were made in 1824 and
1828
- Better markets became needed, and it would be cheaper
to sell products if there was a cheaper way to get them
to the place of distribution
The Transportation - The rivers in the west ran north to south and didn’t
Revolution: connect farmers of the west and the east, but things like
Steamboats, Canals, the National Road, that extended further west each year
and Railroads bettered the situation
- Between 1815 and 1825 some states chartered private
companies to build toll-roads (turnpikes) but roads
wouldn’t solve the national problems because they were
too expensive to maintain, and waterways went under
development
- In 1807 Livingston and Fulton introduced the steamboat,
Waterways Take Shape and soon a fairy service between NY and NJ began to
operate
- Their profits were so great another service of such sort
Fairy Service Monopoly opened up to kill their monopoly, but a long court battle
began due to this in the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden,
where the US Supreme Court ruled against the monopoly
and in which Justice Marshall said that the fairy service
was a commerce, which the congress could regulate,
thus the Livingston-Fulton monopoly was broken, and
other monopolies collapsed
 Notes for pgs. 292 – 299

The Rise of - Manufacturing is “making by hand”, by which most

Manufacturing products were made in the colonial era, but between
1815 and 1860 a transition went on to change that
- Household production went down while factories took
their place, yet small shops still produced a great deal
Transition - In 1860, the average workplace had about 8 people and
few believed in industrialization thinking of the US as a
place of farmers and small producers, but this was
misleading
- By 1850 20% were in manufacturing and produced 30%
of the national output, and not just textiles were effected
Stages of Change - There were several stages of industrialization: 1st instead
of one person making a whole product they just made a
part of it and passed it on; 2nd the workers were gathered
in factories with rooms that had special machines and
set-ups for the jobs; 3rd power-driven machinery
replaced hand-driven one
- The changes went faster in some parts of the country like
NE than in others including the shoe, hat, and guns
industry
Causes of - The Embargo Act of 1807 forced some merchants to turn
Industrialization to factories, and War of 1812 forced tariffs that brought
back the US economy, especially in the 1820s, with
English cloth being less imported and US rose 15.4%
every year in cloth products
- Improvements in transportation made it possible to move
large amounts of products and people preferred factory
and not home made products
Immigration is a Factor - Immigration also was a factor with 5 mil. moving from
Europe to US between 1790 and 1860
- Some escaped political oppression, but more searched
for economic opportunities and were all laborers and
consumers
- Most of hem were German or Irish and 80% came after
1840 and a small # of British
- Britain had a head start, but US made personal
contributions like the automatic flour mill that needed 1
supervisor to overlook
- Manufacturing gave high wages and cheap ideas like
interchangeable parts, such as in muskets
New England - It was the 1st US industrialized region due to the acts and
Industrialization laws passed during the war of 1812
- The rivers added to transportation ability thus causing
more production
Samuel Slater - The mail innovation was the cotton textiles in the 1790s
and on bring pushed by Slater, who started with 9
workers and had 100 by 1800, with constant construction
of mills
Boston Associates - In 1813, merchant capitalists, Boston Associates, who
acquired a stock of $400,000, incorporated the Boston
 Manufacturing Co.; they established cotton factories in
Waltham, MA, and by 1836 they had $6.2 mil. in
investments in 8 companies employing over 6,000
New Type of Mill Systems - Slater’s way were outdated by new Lowell and Waltham
factories because those produced finished products
- Slater tried to hire families to work at his mills, while the
Lowell factories hired unmarried women from 15-30 who
were lured from NE farms with a promise for work
Mill Regulations - The workers lived in boarding houses or licensed private
dwellings and were required to attend church on Sabbath
and to observe the 10pm curfew and to accept 1 minister
- The high moral standards gave the mills a good
reputation, yet conditions weren’t that good, with humid
environments to keep thread in good condition
Competition Worsens - Competition in the late 1830s led the mill owners to
Workers’ Situation reduce wages and speed up the work schedule and in
1834 some 800 women form the Lowell factories quit to
protest the falling wages and in 1836 1,500-2,000 quit
Manufacturing in New - NY and Philly showed a smaller dependence on women
York City and and machinery in the 1840s with shoe, saddle, tool,
Philadelphia rope, hat, and glove production
- Yet the factories turned into a bit of the Lowell style
because of the need for customers and orders and by
1835 cheap dungarees and shirts were sold to west
farmers and prices slashed one after one in competition
for distant markets
Women Have Great - The NY production lines couldn’t get machines like NE
Contributions because they lacked waterways to get them, so they
hired a lot of unskilled women and paid them low wages
to keep up the large production
Difference in Production - In MA, workers were gradually gathered into large
in New England and factories from small shops but in NY and Philly it was a
Other Areas bit different with some factories taking shape, yet most
of the production being left in a small shop, garret, home
- NY and Philly was a home to artisans and independent
workers and industrialization didn’t kill off all
entrepreneurs
- Artisans and other independent workers began to form
unions and “workingmen’s” political parties in the 1820s
which wanted to restore old conditions of working and
this united workers of all type and industry
- By 1830s people pondered equality of the US
Equality and - Alexis de Tocqueville, a French nobleman observed that
Inequality the US equality was limited to the rich and not the poor
- Some said the US was equal while others argued that it
was only the rich who had it good and the poor suffered
- US still was more equal than France, where servants and
merchants were looked down upon by the rich
Growing Inequality: The - In the 1800s, the gap between the rich and poor widened
Rich and the Poor even more
- Although the US was full of “equality”, the poorest 40%
of farmers owned less than $100 of property, while the
richest 30-40% owned ¾ or more of farm property
Wealth in the Cities - The cities showed the most inequality with a small faction
owning most of the property; in Boston 10% owned over
½ of the real estate and personal prop. and by 1833 the
richest 4% had had 59%, to be increased to 81% in
1848
- Most rich started with capitals and not from scratch
Ways to Get Rich - The best way to get money was to inherit, marry into in,
or invest very well
- The city’s rich lived in the same neighborhoods in large
mansions, and NYC 500 richest families lived on 8 of 250
streets and in Boston on 8 of its 325 streets
- Social club separated the rich and poor, like the
Philadelphia Club-1834 and The Club in NYC in late 1820s
US’s Rich Not Stuck-Up - But the rich didn’t show off their wealth like in Europe
and rode around in regular carriages and were around
the poor as well
The Antebellum - By today’s standards most antebellum Americans were
Americans poor as they lived close to poverty and depended on their
children’s labor with little $ for health or recreation
- In 1850 3 of 8 men over age of 20 owned little more
than their clothes and cash in their pocket
- The high birthrate in the US produced a lot of young
people with no property, but age would change that
- The dependency in the poor was called pauperism
- This dependency was caused by the lack of health care
without which the elderly were forced to rely on others
- People assumed that since pauperism was caused by
incontrollable factors it wouldn’t effect generation after
generation
- This was not true because the level of the poor was
increasing because of the arrival of immigrants,
especially Irish between 1840s and 1850s; this caused
the development of bad neighborhoods, like the NYC’s 5
Point District where a brewery was turned into a home
for hundreds of families
- Catholics and Protestants alike were mistreated as poor
- Americans blamed the poor for their own misfortunes
Notes for pgs. 299 – 306
Free Blacks in the North - Blacks were hated everywhere in the nation and although
there practically was no slavery in the north, laws greatly
penalized blacks, like restrictions from voting
Voting Restrictions - In NY, in 1821 it was revised that whites didn’t have to
own property to vote, but blacks still had to; in RI, in
1822, blacks were banned from voting; same in PA in
1837; Boston was the only city where blacks voted on
equal rights as whites
Living Restrictions - Some places, like Missouri tried to keep blacks out by not
letting any into the state, others put them in segregated
schools if any schools at all, and segregation applied to
jails as well
- Blacks were forced into the least paying jobs with the
worst conditions
- Urban free blacks were only ½ as likely to own real
estate in general
The “Middling Classes” - Most of the antebellum Americans weren’t rich, but not
poor – falling into the Middling Classes
- These people were mostly farmers and artisans whose
ideal was self-employment
Unstable Life - However the life of a farmer and artisan was very
unstable, because of the need of their products during a
certain time period
New Stability - The people were forced to adopt to new situations and
seek financial prosperity in other fields like
industrialization
- But not all were able to find new ways to earn money –
you had to have connections
- Some did become self-employed with their own tools and
self-produced products; many passed their knowledge to
their kids
Carpentry Picks Up - Carpentry boom took place because of the need for
housing thanks to the transportation revolution
- The manufacturers broke into 2 factors: 1 that was very
entrepreneurial and the other that tried to be self-
employed but spend more time searching for customers
- Workers found that they had to move a lot – “spartial
mobility” which was due to –1- farmers working their
land too hard or mechanics were put out of jobs and
replaced by machines; boatmen had to move when
waters froze (on Sep. 6, 1851, Boston’s pop. Is 145,000
– 41,729 people enter the city – 42,313 leave)
- The risks taken for financial stability widened the gaps of
classes
The revolution in - New relations regarding trade arose after the war of
Social Relationships 1812 with interregional trade, commercial agriculture,
and manufacturing
- People were beginning to rebel against their parents,
lawyers, ministers, and physicians and individualism was
taking place
The Attack on the - Authority was being questioned in this time period, with
Professions opposition to lawyers, physicians, and ministers
- People blamed the clergy for pushing ideas normal
people didn’t understand and for drinking expensive wine
Notes for pgs. 365 – 375
Minstrel Shows - The Yankee (Brother Jonathan) was a character which
showed the American as a patriot, wise-guy, clever
person
- These type of minstrel shows arose in north cities in the
1840s, with black faced whites joking, dancing, and
humoring the audience with a lot borrowed from the
black culture
Ideas About Blacks - Blacks were shown as being stupid and clumsy, and
blacks who took public roles were shown as being
incompetent and stump speakers
- By 1850s cities from NYC to SF had theaters, going form
town to town
P.T. Barnum - He came form Bethel, CT, where he started a news paper
Herald of Freedom
- Barnum thought of himself as a public benefactor, but he
wasn’t honest and cheated his customers, saying they
were probably doing the same
- After his 1834 move to NYC, he began as an entertainer,
and had a woman pretend to be the 169 slave of G.
Washington, yet some did have doubts
- In 1841 he bought an old museum, where to get
customers he put some fake exhibits up
- He also lectured about temperance, being a strong
supporter of non-drinking
The Quest for - Comedy and shows were popular but lacked originality
Nationality in and dignity
Literature and Art - Ralph Waldo Emerson said that Americans lack that
European literature and art, and romanticism emerged as
a form of art, in the 2nd ½ of the 18-th century
- Classicists said that good literature had to be more than
just a reflection of the national character, but of the
emotions of the writer
- Emerson and others said that basic conception of God
and freedom were inborn
Literary Geography - Emerson’s “The American Scholar”, coincided with the
uniqueness of American literature, which had been
starting since the 1820s, called the “American
Renaissance”
US Gets Famous Writers - By 1837 US writers became know, like Cooper, Irving,
with such name as the British Dickens, Scott
Literature in New - NE had the best place for literature, with its poets and
England aristocrats, especially in Boston, near which was Concord
– home of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau
- Emily Dickinson was farther west, but N. Englanders
didn’t share her honor of publicity, and 19th century NE
writers exported their region’s culture and what began as
regional culture turned to national culture
Literature in New York - NY was challenge too, with Irving, Cooper, and Whitman,
& Melville later, where even earlier literary clubs existed
- Today some works are questioned for their talent
- Some wrote conventionally, while others broke away and
started unique fashions
James Fennimore Cooper - British literature dominated the US reading taste until
and the Stirrings of well after 1800, with writers like Sir Walter Scott
Notes for pgs. 379 – 386
Introduction - A slave insurrection led by Nat Turner in Aug. 1831
aroused new anxieties among the non-slaveholding
whites in the west of Virginia
- Many thought of slavery being a sin and evil
- The Old South took shape between 1790s and 1860 and
what separated it from the rest of the country was that it
condoned slavery while everywhere else there was talk
about banishing it altogether
- In Europe anti-slavery movements also took form
- The south also divided into the Upper and Lower south,
where they differed economically and idealistically
Upper South - It was dependent on wheat, cotton, tobacco, hemp,
vegetables, and livestock
- The old south still had great unity that derived from
slavery, and after the climax in 1831-32 in Virginia, the
slavery opposition weakened
- In 1861 the Upper South seceded form the union
- The traditional crops of the south went down in the late
King Cotton 18th century
- Tobacco production went down in places like Tidewater,
Virginia
- The southern population was concentrated in the Atlantic
states
- 3 of 4 southerners lived in MD, VR, NC, and SC and 1 of
3 in VG alone
- There was a great difference between the south in 1790
The South Changes and 1850
- By 1850 1 of every 7 southerners lived in VG, and 1 of 3
in AL, AK, FL, LA, MS, MO, TX admitted to the union after
1800
- Cotton changed the ways of the south into its present
state because of the British textile boom
- The removal of the Indians opened to new land for
working and after 1815 Al and MS were swept up
- By 1860 Missouri became a leader in cotton production in
the nation and settlers were already pushing into Texas
- All southerners could talk about was cotton and it was
The Lure of Cotton everywhere
- Unlike sugar, it didn’t need canals and irrigation systems
or slaves, and 35% - 50% of farmers in the cotton belt
had no slaves
- But large scale cultivation did need slaves and slavery
Need for Slaves grew, with the southern slave population doubled
between 1810 and 1860 and cotton employed ¾ of all
southern slaves
- Cotton was also compatible with corn, which could be
planted earlier or later than cotton, and harvested before
and after, and slaves were utilized for their uses
- In 1860 the 12 wealthiest counties in the US were all in
the south
- The Lower S. depended on sugar and cotton, while the
Ties Between the Upper S. depended on a larger variety of products like
Lower and Upper hemp, wheat, veggies, tobacco, and more, yet the region
identified with the Lower S. more than with any other
 Notes for pgs. 386 – 395

Social Relations in the - Anti-slavery groups said that slavery twisted the social
White South structure of the South out of shape by making the whites
rich and the blacks poor
- In reality the south was a mix of democrats and
aristocrats, with duels and other activities
The Social Groups of the - Some slave holders had a lot of slaves and property, but
White South most were moderate and only 12% had more than 20
slaves
- The south was divided into 4 main groups: planters,
slaveholders, yeomen (family farmers), and Pine Barrens
people (lived on livestock, hunting, fishing, etc.)
- The things people did depended on the region they lived
in and some were lawyers, physicians, merchants, and
artisans, who weren’t in any of the 4 main groups, but
due to the rural area of the south, they identified their
interests with one of the groups
Planters and Plantation - The plantation made the image for the old south, with
Mistresses novels and later motion pictures, which showed the true
high division of labor, with one like Virginia’s James
River being an agricultural equal of a factory village
- It had over 100 slaves who were in various classes of
staff, pasture staff, outdoor artisans, and more
- Large plantations produced high income ($20-30,000)
Change in Houses - In the beginning planters lived in log cabins, yet between
1810 and 1860 the elite built mansions like Lyman Hardy
of MS hired architects to build his mansion of Auburn
- Yet mansions weren’t typical, especially in AL and MS,
which valued their slaves and not houses/furniture, the
price for which reached $1,700 by 1850s
- Planters always worried because the $ for running
plantations were great and product prices like of cotton
jumped up and down
Plantation Effects Women - Moving disrupted circles of friends and relatives, and
women found themselves in worse environments than
the elegant east where they grew up, and husbands
sometimes weren’t around doing work
- To solve the problem families left someone to manage
the plantation and lived at times in the cities
- Wives also managed the house, guests, and kids
- An embracement were mulatto (mixed) kids to white
women, who knew that their husbands were cheating,
yet it was acceptable in society to do for men
The Small Slaveholders - In 1860 88% of slaveholders had less than 20 slaves
- Most upper-land holders didn’t want to get more slaves
and were looked down upon by the Yeomen
- One was successful with slaves only when he put them to
work on a profitable crop
- Small slaveholders were younger than the large ones
- Small holders went into the cotton belt because the large
 didn’t want to risk moving a lot of slaves, but the large
ones slowly moved into the areas as well
Colonel Thomas Dabney - He offered to help, but used his slaves instead, and later
bought up a lot of the good land in the new areas,
turning it into a large plantation
The Yeomen - They were non-slaveholders and the largest group of
south whites, still were landowners
- They hired slaves at harvest time to help, and had
smaller land holdings than the slaveholders
- They could be found anywhere in the south, but mostly
in the upper land of GA, SC, NC, and VG, and in the
southwest usually in hilly upcountry
Products from Plantations - They were self-sufficient and didn’t want more land for
cash-crops, although they raised some, but concentrated
on things like corn, sweet-potato, and oats
- In the lower areas they were thought of as “poor white
trash” while in the upper were respected due to the
majority population
- The small slaveholders and yeomen were family farmers,
with the kids and wife helping out
- They didn’t depend on commercial transportation
because usually traded with near-by farms
The People of the Pine - They were one of the most controversial groups in USA
Barrens and being 10% of the south whites, with no slaves or
land holdings
- They raised corn and hog around their houses, but not
cash-crops seeming lazy and shiftless
- North whites said that the Pine Barrens were an example
how slavery degraded non-slaveholding whites
- They were poor, but lived on their own, hunting on land
of others
- Their independence shaped their attitude for work, with
the women sewing or quilting but not being like slaves
Conflict and Consensus - The planters and yeomen divided on that the planters
in the White South were Whig, while the yeomen were Democratic
- They didn’t get into much conflict, especially in the lower
areas because the social groups were clustered around
each other and not with others
- The planters were in the deltas, yeomen in the upper
areas, and other groups spread out
- Due to the lack of factories the south was not a place
where whites worked for other whites
Southern Political System - The system was pretty democratic to prevent
exclusiveness control
- The new states that were added, included the right for all
whites to vote
Conflict over Slavery - The slaveholders gained the south’s proportion of the
wealth while declining in population between 1830-60
- The number of them shrunk from 36% in 1831 to 25% in
1860
- Florida’s governor proposed giving everyone at least 1
slave
- In 1837 Hinton R. Helper published The Impending Crisis
 asked non-slaveholders to abolish slavery in their own
interest
- Opposition to slavery rose in VG up to 1860, it dropped
from the political agenda after 1832
- One reason why people without slaves didn’t fight the
ones with them because they wanted to have slaves
- Another reason is because no one wanted to give blacks
equality like blacks
- Slavery seemed to whites as a way to keep the blacks
under control
- No one knew where the slaves would go if they were
free, and some wanted to send them back to Africa, yet
it seemed unrealistic
- Emancipation would deprive slaveholders of property and
jeopardize the lives of non-slaveholders
The Proslavery Argument - Pro-slavery arguments included that in most refined
societies slavery produced a good climate, like Plato and
Aristotle in Athens; slavery was a natural condition
- They said there was equality in the north too, with the
weak being exploited
- In the north, “slaves” were used and discarded, while in
the south they were made into a community
Religious Opposition & - In 1790s and early 1800s, Protestant leaders said slavery
Support was immoral, but by 1830s they convinced themselves
that slavery was necessary for proper exercise of
Christian religion
- Religion helped blacks develop humility and self-control
- In 1844 the Methodist Episcopal church split into north
and south wings and in 1845 Baptists formed a separate
Southern Convention

Notes for pgs. 395 – 400

Honor and Violence in - Southerners were unstable with one minute being
the Old South friendly and the other savage
- The south was seen as the land of extremes
Violence in the White - Violence was part of the daily lives in the south
South - Eye gouging was coming (cut out eye)
- The murder rate was 10x of the north
The Code of Honor and - Pride was the reason for the fighting because they saw
Dueling blacks as being treated badly and cursed and degraded,
and when someone did something like that to them, they
didn’t want to feel like a slave
- From the revolutionary war, dueling became a niche in
the Old South as a way to defend one’s honor
- Stupid things like a remark or a brush against one
another caused a duel, though sometimes there was time
to calm the people down
- Courts seemed shameless and cowardly like
- In a duel a person would only fight another of his status,
acknowledging that they were both gentlemen
The Southern - The code of honor conflicted with the preaching of the
Evangelicals and White church; they preached self-restrain and humility
Values - They were looked down by the gentlemen, but started
colleges to prove credentials
- During the 1830s their ideals began to reflect in the
Episcopal church which the gentry attended
- By the 1860s the south had many Christian gentlemen
like Thomas J, “Stonewall” Jackson who fought gambling,
drinking, and dueling
Life Under Slavery - Some saw slavery as beneficial while others as inhumane
- Slaves were exploited for profit by masters and no loyal
to slavery
- The experiences of 1700 and 1830s slaves are different
The Maturing of the - In 1700 a typical slave was in his 20s who just got off a
Plantation System slave ship and due to harsh conditions it was hard for
slaves to multiply, and would have caused a decline in
their #s if not for additional import of slaves
- In 1830 the slave could be a man or woman, spoke
common English, and worked in companies of other
slaves; it was easier to find mates and the male/female
ratio balanced out
- In 1808 the import of slaves was banned
Work and Discipline of - Slaves worked and lived in small groups or units
Plantation Slaves - The daily life of a slave began 1 hour before sunrise, with
breakfast, and a march into the fields
- Slave men and women worked side by side and those
who didn’t work in the field took care of the food for
slaves, the clothing wash, and others’ kids
- During bad weather slaves moved cotton and chopped
fire wood
- Slaves experienced the worst work hours of any other
group including north factories
- Whippings were common, even for pregnant women
- Even religious masters saw such disciplining as a priority
- Some slaves did develop skills of blacksmithing,
carpentry, and cooking
- House slaves were thought of as having it easier than the
plantation ones, but that was not true
- Masters encouraged slave marriages so more slaves
The Slave Family could be produced
- Some made wedding cakes and settled marriage disputes
- The law didn’t protect the slave family, and a sale would
break up slave families
- Slaves would run away to be with their family members
- A marriage didn’t protect a slave woman from sexual
demands from a master or other whites
- The wives of masters would pick on the mulatto kids
- Slave women in the fields were separated from their kids
during the day
- Some families and relationships were intimate and long-
lasting
- White ministers during the civil war made thousands of
marriages for blacks who were married in their own
minds
- Slave families emphasized ties with kids and
 grandparents, and other extended family members

Notes for pgs. 400 – 409

The Longevity, Diet, - Slaves reproduced faster and lived longer in the US more
and Health of Slaves than anywhere else, and by 1836 36% of the slaves were
in the US, counting that in the beginning (1500s) 33%
went to Brazil and only 5% to US lands
- The boom in the US was due to an even sex ration,
earlier marriages, kids, there was enough food, immunity
to malaria and yellow fever and some remedies helped
- Slaves had shorter lives than white, especially at infancy
Slaves off Plantations - The slaves that worked off plantations had a better
chance of making it
- A demand for slaves to drive wagons rose and to man
river bridges; they worked in sawmills as engineers and
occasionally supervised less skilled whites
Job Opportunities - Due to the move of whites form towns to cities, jobs
opened up to slaves, like blacksmithing and carpentry
- Free or slave, blacks saw it was easier to work in skilled
jobs in the south and not the north, some due to the fact
that the immigrants were going more to the north and
not the south, giving blacks more competition
Leasing of Slaves - Slaves that worked in factories and mines were leased by
masters to the owners, and if they were mistreated and
ill, more would not be sent, so the conditions were pretty
good
Life on the Margin: - 1/3 of the free blacks in the Upper S. and over ½ in the
Free Blacks in the Old Lower S. lived in urban environments
South - They became carpenters, coopers (barrel makers),
barbers, and small traders
- They had their own churches and some were highly
successful at their businesses and carriers
- Free blacks were vulnerable in southern cities and that
increased with time
- The rate of blacks being freed decreased after 1810
Negative Feelings Toward because fewer whites were setting their slaves free
the Free Blacks - States made it a felony to teach states to read and write
and in 1859 Arkansas ordered all free blacks to leave
- In N. Orleans blacks were tolerated because of their
numbers, but in the U. South there were much more free
slaves than in the Lower S.
- Blacks began to feel the negative feelings towards them
even more before the Civil War
- In the old south blacks told each other about how hard it
Slaves Resistance was on plantations and free urban slaves had chances to
start rebellions
- Only 3 organized rebellions took place, 1 in Virginia, 1 in
SC; a group in Charleston wanted to attack the city and
get all of its arms and ammo, but other slaves betrayed
them
- The Nat Turner rebellion was the only one that had white
Nat Turner deaths in 1831
 - Turner taught himself to read and write and got
recognition of slaves
- In 1831 after reading the bible he boiled over and his
followers went with him with axes and clubs from
plantation to plantation and killed all whites they saw and
55 were killed
- The rebellion convinced the whites that blacks were
Rebellions unstable and needed to be controlled
- The Old South had much less rebellion than Caribbean
because of the smaller # of slaves and the amount of
arms that the whites had, and the blacks were attached
to their families and didn’t want to risk death
- Another thing close to rebellions was running away
- She helped run the underground railroad, along which
Harriet Tubman many slaves escaped north
- But only thousands made it out of millions, and some ran
in groups and tried to make self-dependent colonies
- But after the US got Florida, there was even less space
for slaves to go, since it use to be a haven for slaves
- Some could hide in the free-black neighborhoods and
free blacks had freedom to drive wagons and sell things
- Although they had some freedom, slavery hung over
their heads like a dark cloud
- Theft was very common and owners had to hide their
Theft tools and supplies under locks
- Slaves were punished if they were caught, but it was
kind of accepted to steal
- Masters were poisoned as tradition was in Africa
- The black culture that took shape came from the
The Emergence of antebellum African and American sources, giving it a
African-American Culture unique twist
The Language of Slaves - In the colonial period it was hard for slave to
communicate because they came form different parts of
Africa that had numerous languages
- On ships and holding locations blacks developed a
language “pidgin” which was universal and it lacked
proper grammar
African-American - Religion spread through the black lands; before some
Religion were Muslim, some got Christian beliefs
- The young Africans brought to the US didn’t get too
much African religion and differed from each other with
ideas
- Christianity began to be preached to the slaves who
combined it with African ideals
- By 1790s blacks were ¼ of Methodists and Baptists
- Masters feared that christianized slaves would be
rebellious like the Gabriel rebellion, where they preached
to be captives like Israelites in Egypt
- Missionaries were sent to make sure the blacks learned
the right way of Christianity – to obey
- Between 1845 and 1860 #s of Baptists doubled
- Urban blacks had own churches, but in south shared with
whites
 - Some whites went to black preachers, but preachers
reminded blacks that spiritual equality wasn’t civil
equality
- Slaves gathered different ideas from sermons than
whites
- Blacks also met on Sunday evenings alone and
sometimes on weekdays to talk about less happy things
like mistreatment
Black Music and Dance - The culture of the southern blacks was very expressive
- Slaves clapped because the law forbade them to own any
loud noise making instruments
- Slaves liked to sing, whether at work or at prayer
- Masters encouraged that thinking it would make the
slaves work harder