This is a presentation of Chapter 13 Section 4.

2. Guide to Reading
Main Idea
The South’s population consisted of wealthy
slaveholding planters, small farmers, poor whites,
and enslaved African Americans. 
Key Terms
• yeoman  • overseer 
• tenant farmer  • spiritual 
• fixed cost  • slave code
• credit 
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3. Small Farms
• Most Southerners were small farmers without
enslaved people or were planters with a few
enslaved laborers. 
• Only a very few planters could afford the large
plantations and numerous enslaved people to
work them. 
• Southerners were of four types: yeomen,
tenant farmers, rural poor, and plantation
owners.
(pages 401–402)
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4. Small Farms (cont.)
• Yeomen were farmers without enslaved
people. 
• They made up the largest group of whites in
the South. 
• Most owned land and lived in the Upper South
and hilly rural areas of the Deep South. 
• Their farms were from 50 to 200 acres. 
• They grew crops for themselves and to sell or
trade.
(pages 401–402)
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5. Small Farms (cont.)
• Tenant farmers rented land, or worked on
landlords’ estates. 
• The rural poor lived in crude cabins in wooded
areas, planted corn, and fished and hunted for
food. 
• They were self-sufficient and refused any
work that resembled enslaved labor.
(pages 401–402)
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6. Plantations
• Plantation owners wanted to earn profits, and
they did this by selling cotton. 
• Plantations had fixed costs, such as feeding
and housing workers and maintaining
equipment. 
• These did not vary greatly. 
• However, owners could not know how much
their cotton would bring in because prices
varied from season to season and market to
market.
(pages 402–403)
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7. Plantations (cont.)
• Planters sold their cotton to agents from cotton
exchanges in large cities such as Charleston,
New Orleans, Mobile, and Savannah. 
• The agents held the cotton until the price rose
and then sold it. 
• Planters did not get any money until the agents
sold the cotton, so they were always in debt. 
• The agents did extend credit, or a loan, to the
planters for the time that they held the cotton.
(pages 402–403)
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8. Plantations (cont.)
• Most plantations’ wealth was measured by
possessions, including enslaved people. 
• Only about 4 percent of the South’s farms
and plantations held 20 or more enslaved
people by 1860. 
• A large majority of the planters held fewer
than 10 enslaved workers.
(pages 402–403)
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9. Plantations (cont.)
• Plantation wives were responsible for the
enslaved people and supervising the plantation
buildings and other gardens. 
• They also kept the financial records. 
• Life was lonely, especially when planters
traveled to make new deals with agents.
(pages 402–403)
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10. Plantations (cont.)
• Plantation work involved many chores. 
• Some enslaved African Americans worked in
the house, cleaning, cooking, sewing, and
doing laundry. 
• Other enslaved African Americans were
skilled workers, trained as carpenters,
blacksmiths, shoemakers, or weavers. 
• Some worked in the pastures, but most were
field hands, supervised by an overseer,
working from sunrise to sunset.
(pages 402–403)
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11. Life Under Slavery
• Life was full of hardships and misery. 
• Enslaved African Americans worked long
hours, earned no money, and had little hope of
freedom. 
• Many were separated from their families when
sold to different plantation owners. 
- They had the bare necessities in their slave
cabins. 
- Each cabin was shared by dozens of people
living together in a single room.
(pages 403–406)
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12. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
- Family life was uncertain. 
- Law did not recognize marriages, but many
enslaved African Americans did marry. 
- Families were separated when wives or children
were sold. 
- The extended family provided some stability and
was an important aspect of the culture.
(pages 403–406)
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13. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
• Although enduring many difficulties, they kept
their African culture alive and mixed
it with American ways. 
• Even though slavery was legal in the South,
the slave trade was outlawed in 1808. 
• As no new enslaved Africans entered the
United States, almost all the enslaved people
by 1860 were born here.
(pages 403–406)
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14. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
• Many enslaved people accepted Christianity,
and it became a religion
of hope for them. 
• The spiritual, or African American religious
folk song, provided a way to secretly
communicate with one another.
(pages 403–406)
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15. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
• Slave codes made life more difficult. 
• These were laws that controlled the
enslaved people, such as prohibiting them
from gathering in large groups, leaving
their master’s property without a pass, and
making it a crime to teach them how to
read or write.
(pages 403–406)
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16. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
• Resistance to slavery took the form of working
slowly, pretending to be sick, or sometimes
setting fire or breaking tools. 
• Armed rebellions were rare. 
• Nat Turner, who taught himself to read
and write, led a group on a short violent
rampage in Southampton County, Virginia, in
1831. 
• They killed at least 55 whites before being
captured. Turner was hanged. 
• More severe slave codes were passed
as a result.
(pages 403–406)
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17. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
• Some enslaved people escaped slavery. 
• Most who were successful escaped via the
Underground Railroad, which was a
network of safe places to stop along the long
journey to the North in “safe houses” owned
by whites and free African Americans. 
• Most runaways were captured and punished.
(pages 403–406)
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18. Life Under Slavery (cont.)
• Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both
born into slavery, fled north. 
• They became African American heroes for
their efforts to help free more enslaved
people.
(pages 403–406)
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19. Life in the Cities
• By 1860 several large cities existed, such as
Baltimore and New Orleans. 
• Others were on the rise such as Charleston,
Richmond, and Memphis. 
• Baltimore’s population was 212,000. 
• New Orleans had 168,000 people. 
• Population included whites, some enslaved
people, and free African Americans.
(pages 406–407)
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20. Life in the Cities (cont.)
• Free African Americans became barbers,
carpenters, and traders. 
• They founded churches and institutions. 
• In New Orleans they formed an opera
company. 
• Not all prospered though, and many were not
given an equal share in economic and political
life.
(pages 406–407)
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21. Life in the Cities (cont.)
• Between 1830 and 1860, Southern states
passed laws that limited the rights of free
African Americans. 
• Most states would not allow them to migrate
from other states. 
• In 1859 in Arkansas, they were ordered
to leave the state.
(pages 406–407)
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23. Explore online information about the topics introduced
in this chapter.
Click on the Connect button to launch your
browser and go to The American Republic to
1877 Web site. At this site, you will find
interactive activities, current events
information, and Web sites correlated with the
chapters and units in the textbook. When you
finish exploring, exit the browser program to
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launch your Web browser and go to
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