The document provides an overview of the economic, social, and political differences between the antebellum North and South. The North's economy was based on manufacturing and industry while the South relied on slave labor to grow cash crops like cotton. These diverging economic systems led to conflicts over the expansion of slavery and states' rights, ultimately resulting in the American Civil War.

1. Antebellum
America: North vs.
South

2. Setting the Scene
 Mid-1800’s
 Differences between the North and the South
grew so strong that compromise no longer
seemed possible
 Tragically, Americans turned to civil war to
settle their disagreements.
 The long and bloody war resulted in defeat for
the South and victory for the Union

3. Video

4. America Divided
 Economic changes
created divisions in the
United States
 Three areas of conflict:
 North – economy based
in manufacturing and
trade
 South – relied on
slaves to raise crops for
economy
 West – settlers wanted
cheap land and good
transportation

6. The North: Farming
 Mostly small farms
 Labor provided by
family members
 Subsistence
agriculture: food
crops and livestock
 Slavery not profitable
in this system

7. The North: Industry
 Factories first began in New
England
 92% of the nation’s industries
were in the North
 Produced fabric and shoes
 This is called the Industrial
Revolution
 Goods made in factories rather
than in homes
 75% of Nation’s Wealth in
North

8. The North: Labor
 Factories required
workers
 First factory workers
were young women,
called “Mill Girls”
 Paid an hourly wage
 “Free Labor” – no
slaves

9. The North: Labor
 Wages were low
 Working hours long
 Working conditions
often dangerous
 Child labor

10. The North: Labor
 By 1850, most “Mill
Girls” replaced by
immigrants in the
factories
 Immigrants willing to
work for lower wages
 Created a “working
class”

11. The North: Cities
 Factories and workers
in cities
 Several large cities:
Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, St.
Louis, Chicago
 Crowded conditions
and urban slums
 22 Million Americans

12. The North: Transportation
 Factory goods needed to
be moved to market
 Canals were built
 Erie Canal linked the
Hudson River with Lake
Erie
 Also steamboats and
railroads improved
transportation
 75% of America’s
Railroads were in the
North

13. The North: Social Classes
 The wealthy: businessmen,
factory owners and
professionals
 Working class
 Servants and urban poor
 Free blacks

14. The South: Farming
 Plantation economy
 Cash crops like tobacco,
sugar, cotton and rice
 Large “farms”
 Purpose was to make a
profit
 Also small farms on
poor land and in the
mountains

15. The South: King Cotton
 In 1790, Eli Whitney
invented the Cotton
Gin, which cleaned
cotton by machine.
 More cotton grown &
more slaves needed.
 By 1820s, cotton was
1/2 of our total exports
– big business!

16. The South: Labor
 Source of labor on cotton
plantations was slaves
 4 million by 1860
 Slaves were 1/3 of total
population of South
 Slavery was allowed by the
3/5’s Compromise
 In some places, slaves
outnumbered whites

17. The South: Chattel Slavery
 A system of slavery in
which one human
being owned another
as property
 Life-long condition
 Slavery inherited –
children of slaves
were also slaves
 Often cruel and brutal

18. The South: Social Classes
 Wealthy white plantation owners
 Lived on rich flat land near rivers
 10,000 wealthy families in 1860
 Owned more than 50 slaves
 A minority, but political & economic
power

19. Slave Cost
 Slave trade banned in 1808
 Slave demand rises as does the cost of slaves
 1790 - $300
 1860 – 1500
 Slave traders began to smuggle Slaves into the
United States
 1790 – 500,000 Slaves
 1850 – 4 Million Slaves

20. The South: Social Classes
 Yeoman farmers
 9 Million Southerners
 Some owned a few
slaves
 2/3 of all whites owned
no slaves at all
 Subsistence
agriculture – lived on
poor land

21. The South: Social Classes
 Slaves the lowest
social class
 No rights, could be
sold at any time,
families were split up,
most did hard labor in
the fields.

22. The South: Industry, Cities and
Transportation
 Economy entirely
focused on agriculture
 Very little industry
 Few cities
 Not a lot of canals or
railroads
 Rural society

24. Slavery and Society, 1800-1860

25. Slavery and Society, 1800-1860
 King Cotton & the  Slave Life
Old South  Population
 Economics  House and Field
 Identity  Community
 Culture  Resistance

26. King Cotton and the Old South
 Cotton and the
South
 Climate, geography
 Profitable
 England/industry
 Cotton gin
 Outlawed int’l trade
in 1808

27. King Cotton and the Old South
 Economics
 60% of U.S. exports
 Basis of southern
economy
 Linked N & S
 Linked U.S. &
Britain

28. Cotton, slavery, race identity
 Southern Identity
 Rural
 White privilege
 “Honor”
 Fear of uprisings
 “Dependence”

29. Cotton Culture
• “…people live in cotton
houses and ride in cotton
carriages. They buy
cotton, sell cotton, think
cotton, eat cotton, drink
cotton, and dream cotton.
They marry cotton wives
and unto them are born
cotton children…”
• British visitor Hiram
Fuller’s views of Mobile,
AL in 1858

30. Slavery and Expansion
• Post 1812 & Indian Removal
• Westward expansion
• Missouri Compromise
• Texas “Independence”
• Louisiana, ARK, OK, TX
• Profits used to buy more
land, more land=more
slaves, more crops=more
profit=more land=more
slaves=more crops

31. American Slavery
 19/55 signers of the Constitution owned
slaves
 Majority of southern Congressmen owned
slaves
 4/6 Presidents up to and including Jackson
owned slaves
 $25 million in U.S. revenue vs. $1 billion in
slave “property”
 Shipping & ship building, insurance, banks,

33. Population
• 1790: 700,000
• 1850: 4 million
• 1850: 50% grew cotton
• 25% of whites had slaves
• 50% of owners had
less than 5 slaves
• 5% of planters owned
40% of all slaves in south

35. Slave Life
 Mortality rates
were 3 times
higher
 Life expectancy
 Blacks 20’s
 Whites 40’s
 25% sick

36. Slave Codes
 State laws to limit movement of slaves and
define them as property
 Cannot own a gun
 Marriages not legally recognized
 No alcohol
 Passes to leave plantation
 Illegal to teach slaves to read or write
 Legalized homicide as “punishment”

37. “House slaves”
 15%-20%
 Constant contact
 Raise children
 Gendered
violence
 Reading
 News

38. “Field Slaves”
 75% of slaves
 18 hours
 “Gangs”
 Overseer
 Music and group
identity

41. “Virginian Luxuries,” nd. Anonymous

42. African American Community
 Family
 Auctions
 Fictive kin
 Tribal culture
 Music, dance,
spirituality

43. Christianity
• 2nd Great
Awakening
• Lay preachers
• Justice, salvation
• “Call and
Response”
• Gospel
• African American
Methodist Church,
1816

44. Free Blacks
 Non-slaves in the South
 6% of total Black population
 3% of total population
 Laws limited their rights and citizenship,
papers, no access to courts
 Most descended from blacks freed in Upper
South
 Mainly manual labor
 Racial hierarchies based on skin color

45. Resistance
 Work slow
 “Sick”
 Break tools
 “Theft”
 Run away
 Rebellion
Gabriel Prosser

46. Resistance
 Run away
slaves
 Over 1,000
 Upper south
 Canada
 West

47. Harriet Tubman
 Underground
Railroad
 Homes, barns,
woods, trails north
 19 missions
 300 people

48. Family on Underground Railroad

49. Slave Rebellions
 Gabriel Prosser 1800  Denmark Vescey, 1822
 Literate  Telemanque, born in
 Richmond, VA Africa or W. Indies
 1000 slaves  Free, literate, preacher
 “Death or liberty”  Charleston
 Missouri Compromise
 100 men

50. Rebellions
 Nat Turner, 1831
 Virginia
 Literate, preacher
 Killed 70

51. Concluding Thoughts
 Despite dependence on cotton and slavery,
Southern economy became more diverse
 Slavery in Upper South declined
 Immigration provided cheap & flexible labor
 Changes to economy made slave owners
more worried
 More rebellions, abolitionists, Westward
expansion, made slave codes more harsh