In what ways did the Upper South come to differ from the Lower South in the 19th century?
The Upper South came to be characterized less by cotton and sugarcane plantations and more by tobacco cultivation and normal food crop farming and cattle rearing. Large parts of the Antebellum Upper South, especially in Virginia and Kentucky, were hilly country, not suited for large plantation slavery. This led to a lower dependence on slave labor, although slavery as an institution did exist, along with racial discrimination. The politics of the Upper South also reflected this trend. Republicans did slightly better as the attitude was a bit more pro-Union than in the Deep South. Both the business classes as well as farmers tended to be in favor of more organic links with the North due to shared business interests. None of them heavily depended on slavery either.
However, the atmosphere in the Upper South reflected that of the Lower South in its opposition to emancipation of slaves, since they feared that such a step would upset the delicate racial balance as well as create social instability. Many of the poor peasants and frontiersmen of the Upper South, especially Kentucky, parts of Tennessee and North Carolina, and Virginia, were split in their loyalty between the anti-slavery Northerners and the pro-slavery Southerners. They considered themselves to be Southerners by language/dialect, culture, cuisine and shared history and family genealogies. They were also afraid that large numbers of emancipated Black people entering the workforce would push them, working class or poor Whites, out of employment and into poverty. However, many people in the Upper South were in principle, entirely opposed to Slavery (Acharya, Blackwell and Sen, 76).
There was a revival of slavery in the Lower South in the 1820s to 1830s as a result of the southwest expansion of the United States, more land being discovered and settled in the frontier regions of Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and the tropical climate of those regions making it easier to use slave labor. As a result of the early 19th century expansions and settlements through a variety of political agreements, geopolitical warfare and conquest, the United States acquired Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi – three Lower South States, by the middle of the 1830s. This new land was not previously settled by White American citizens, and as a result their potential for tobacco, cotton and sugarcane cultivation was not yet discovered. Hence, after slavery declined in the Upper South and Georgia by the late 1790s, being relegated to household and small scale slavery, it assumed a revival in the newly settled Lower South.
The discovery and introduction of the cotton gin for cotton thread spinning may have also contributed to the revival of slavery. By this time, cotton had become a major factor in the Industrial Revolution in the North and in Europe, and the discovery of the Gin enabled large scale textile production, increasing the demand for cotton. This made cotton an attractive cash crop to produce and sell, and became an important part of the economy of the Deep South especially South Carolina and Georgia. It was settlers from these States that further undertook the expansion into the southwest and thus increased the importance of sing slave labor to increase cotton production. The accompanying popularity of the short staple type of cotton plant was also a factor as it required labor intensive production which slavery made easier (Clark, 165).
How did slavery create a distinctive Southern economy and class structure? What restrictions did the free black population face?
Racial discrimination and segregation became an important aspect of Southern life and Southern social, political and economic structure. Racial segregation and discrimination against Black people was the principle that upheld the system of slavery. Slavery itself was based on race – by the 1820s it was no longer possible for White people to be made slaves or to enter slavery, so slavery became associated with African-American people. Accompanying this trend was a gradual but forceful downgrading of the status of ‘free people of color’, basically emancipated Blacks as well as Blacks born to free people and never enslaved. Previously, their position as free, equal citizens was secured by Law and by the Courts, especially in the Upper South and in the larger cities. However, by the 1830s they were subject to frequent raids and kidnappings by criminals who sold them into slavery, as happened to Solomon North, depicted in the story and movie ’12 years a Slave’. Since the institution of slavery became closely tied with race, it was relatively easy for ‘free people of color’ to be kidnapped and forced into slavery (Clark, 189).
Other aspects of the Southern economy left its mark on the class structure within the White community, as well as race relations between different races. At the top of the Deep Southern class society were the plantation owners, big farmer, businessmen and politicians of aristocratic lineage. They were heavily influential in framing the mores of society as well as in the Legislatures, and were mostly of English descent. The middle classes tended to be concentrated in the cities and into the educated professions, or as independent yeoman farmers and cattle farmers. They were not dependent on slavery except marginally and often tended to be opposed to it. The lower middle and lower classes among the Whites were extremely poor and destitute compared to their Northern counterparts, dependent on very small landholdings and odd jobs for survival. They often saw the African-Americans and Slaves as competitors and exhibited fierce racism. Their opinions were thus frequently manipulated by the upper classes that controlled politics and the Southern Baptist Churches. As the economy revolved around cotton, those who were not tied to this business had hard times and insecure incomes. Restrictions on the freedom of movement and of association of Blacks ensured the perpetuation of slavery. Blacks were not allowed to move out of their owner’s plantations or estate without their owner’s written permission, and had to keep the permit on their persons while travelling. They were not allowed to associate in unions or collectively negotiate with their owners or with the Government. Slaves who tried to escape were declared criminals who were to be killed and shot down. They were frequently shot or lynched by White mobs or by the armed guards of the Slave owners.
Characterize the lives of slaves—relationships with their masters, ways they resisted bondage and cultural institutions to which they turned.
The lives of the slaves were at the mercy of their owners and they had no legal position. They could not give evidence in a Court of Law – their legal value was less than that of a White man. However, a few slave owners did treat their slaves kindly and even humanely. Some decided to educate their slaves in the Bible, although teaching slaves to read and write was a punishable crime in the Deep South. There were also many cases where slave owners had sexual relations with slave women, resulting in numerous mixed race children. Often, such slave owners used to emancipate the woman and their children and give them a small share of money and inheritance. However, the vast majority of slaves were very inhumanly treated and many resisted this. In the 1850s, there were frequent escape attempts and organized revolts or uprisings, sometimes trying to collaborate with anti-slavery activists from the North. Many times slaves tried to sabotage the production in the plantations, attack and kill overseers and slave owners, and escape through the wild countryside to the North or through Mexico. This was matched by intense violence from armed patrols and mobs organized and manipulated by the slave owner lobby, mostly comprised of poor Whites. They actively hunted for escaped slaves and lynched them (Clark, 214).
Many slaves turned to religion and the Church in order to have some form of cultural life and association. Church music was a particular cultural expression in which the slaves took succor in. They were deeply religious Protestant Christians and composed many hymns or ‘spirituals’ in the many Black Churches which sprang up as offshoots of the Great Awakening and Southern Baptist and Methodist movements. The Blues music genre is a direct offshoot of the Slave Church singing and music movements. This later evolved into more modern forms such as Jazz and Rock.
References
Acharya, A., M. Blackwell and M. Sen. "The Political Legacy of American Slavery." Harvard University Journal (2015): 34-39.
Clark, Christopher. Social Change in America: From the Revolution Through the Civil War. Boston: Ivan Dee, 2006.
