Lecture/PowerPoint on the growth and effects of King Cotton in the years before the American Civil War

1. Reflect:
How did “King Cotton” transform the South and the North? How might
the economic boom of the South transform the region’s social structure?
The Age of “King Cotton”
Brief video from PBS about ”King
Cotton” (above) and an unknown
cotton plantation (right)

2. 1
Rise of the Cotton Kingdom
Slaves with Eli Whitney’s “cotton gin”
Cotton production in 1850 (darker stripes = greater the
production)
1793, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin scrambled all early predictions about
how slavery would end – the cotton gin now chained slave to
cotton and planter to slave
Southern planters got caught up in an economic spiral: planters
bought more slaves and more land to grow MORE cotton – South
produced more than 50% of entire world’s cotton

3. 2
The Southern Social Pyramid in the 1850s
Photo of Madewood Plantation House,
Napoleonville, LA, circa 1870's – 1880’s
Slaves on James Hopkinson's plantation
planting sweet potatoes, circa 1862-63
Plantation Owners = ~1,733 families owned 100 or more slaves
Small Farmers = ~345,000 families (representing about 1,725,000
white persons) owned 10 or fewer slaves (worked with slaves)
Average White Southerner = by 1860 their numbers had swelled to
6,120,825 – Owned no slaves at all

4. 3
White Defense of Slavery and Free Blacks
“Cotton Pickers,” oil painting by William
Aiken Walker
Distribution of slave population in the South by 1860
Defense of the Slave System: whites hoped to one day buy a slave
or two, make money off those slaves, and then buy MORE slaves
1860, free blacks in South numbered about ~250,000 – some free
blacks even owned property AND slaves
~250,000 free blacks lived in the North – BUT they could not vote
and often were denied an education

5. 2:58History Channel: The System of
American Slavery

6. 5
Slave Trade, Slave Breeding, and Slave Auctions
Captured slaves in Central Africa Slave sale, Charleston, 1856
1808, legal importation of slaves into U.S. ended – BUT, slaves
were still smuggled into the U.S.
Planters saw slaves as investments (and, kind of, took care of them)
Breeding slaves like cattle was not encouraged, but it happened
Slave auctions were brutal sights which separated families – a theme
seen in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852)

7. 3:02History Channel: The Slave Auction

8. 7
The “Black Belt” and the Life of a Slave
Percentage of slaves in each county in 1860
Slave auction at Richmond, Virigina
By 1860, most slaves were concentrated in the “Black Belt” –
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana
No simple answer to how slaves actually lived as conditions varied
greatly from region-to-region
Most slaves were denied an education and practiced a religion of
Christianity and traditional African elements

9. Homework:
Reflect
Using Google, research what life was like for a Southern slave in the
1850s. Then, in two or more paragraphs, summarize their experiences.
Wrapping-Up
How does this map of Southern cotton production explain
what you know about the two sides of the Civil War?
Map of Southern cotton production in
the 1850s (above) and African slaves
laboring in a cotton field (right)