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Chapter Ten
How did attitudes in the South toward slavery change after the invention of
the cotton gin?
What was life like for the typical slave in the American South?
How did African Americans endure and resist slavery?
What were the values of yeoman farmers?
Who made up the planter elite?
What proslavery arguments were developed in the first half of the
nineteenth century?
Slave Labor
75% of slaves worked as field hands usually in a gang system, from sunup to
sundown, performing the heavy labor needed for getting out a cotton crop,
usually supervised by overseers and their whips
Old people tolerated by masters, usually took care of young children
Some slaves worked as house servants which carried some benefits, but also
more subject to white supervision
Some slaves were skilled workers, but wages belonged to their masters
Southern slaves had more opportunities at skilled trades than free African
Americans in the North because of competition from white immigrants
Slave Families
Slave marriages were:
not recognized by law
frequently not respected by masters
a haven of love and intimacy for the slaves, more equal than whites
Slave families were often split up
Separated children drew upon supportive networks of family and friends
History 120 Mary-Jo Wainwright, Instructor
Slave Revolts
A few slaves organized revolts
Nat Turner, a slave and lay preacher, led the most famous slave revolt in
Southampton County, Virginia in 1831
Turner used religious imagery to lead slaves as they killed 55 whites
After Turner’s revolt, white southerners continually were reminded of the threat
of slave insurrection
Planters
Small Slave Owners
Only 36% of southern white people owned slaves and only 2.5% owned fifty or
more slaves
Most slaveholders owned only a few slaves, couldn’t afford to own more
Bad crops or high prices that curtailed or increased income affected slave-
holding status
Middle class professionals had an easier time climbing the ladder of success
Andrew Jackson used his legal and political position to rise in Southern
society. Beginning as a landless prosecutor, Jackson died a plantation owner
with over 200 slaves