Ch. 13.4 pp

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Guide to Reading

The South’s population consisted of wealthy slaveholding planters, small farmers, poor whites, and enslaved African Americans.

• yeoman

Main Idea

Key Terms

• tenant farmer • fixed cost • credit

• overseer • spiritual

• slave code


Small Farms• Most Southerners were small farmers without

enslaved people or were planters with a few enslaved laborers.

(pages 401–402)(pages 401–402)

• 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.


• 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.

Small Farms (cont.)

(pages 401–402)(pages 401–402)


• 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.

Small Farms (cont.)

(pages 401–402)(pages 401–402)


Plantations• Plantation owners wanted to earn profits, and

they did this by selling cotton.

(pages 402–403)(pages 402–403)

• 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.


• 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.

Plantations (cont.)

(pages 402–403)(pages 402–403)


• 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.

Plantations (cont.)

(pages 402–403)(pages 402–403)


• 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.

Plantations (cont.)

(pages 402–403)(pages 402–403)


• 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.

Plantations (cont.)

(pages 402–403)(pages 402–403)


Life Under Slavery• Life was full of hardships and misery.

(pages 403–406)(pages 403–406)

• 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.


Life Under Slavery (cont.)

(pages 403–406)(pages 403–406)

- 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.


• Although enduring many difficulties, they kept their African culture alive and mixedit 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)(pages 403–406)


• Many enslaved people accepted Christianity, and it became a religionof hope for them.

• The spiritual, or African American religious folk song, provided a way to secretly communicate with one another.


(pages 403–406)(pages 403–406)


• 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)(pages 403–406)


• 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 passedas a result.


(pages 403–406)(pages 403–406)


• 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)(pages 403–406)


• 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)(pages 403–406)


Life in the Cities• By 1860 several large cities existed, such as

Baltimore and New Orleans.

(pages 406–407)(pages 406–407)

• 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.


• 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.

Life in the Cities (cont.)

(pages 406–407)(pages 406–407)


• 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 orderedto leave the state.

Life in the Cities (cont.)

(pages 406–407)(pages 406–407)

Explore online information about the topics introduced in this chapter.

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Ch. 13.4 pp

Education

Transcript of Ch. 13.4 pp