4.12 & 4.13: Southern Society

4.12: Explain the continuities and changes in the experience of African Americans from 1800 to 1848.

4.13: Explain how geographic and environmental factors shaped the development of the South from 1800 to 1848.

In the last set of notes, we talked about reform movements and now, we’re going to specifically focus on African Americans and southern society.

Firstly, there’s a few things that need to be prefaced. While it would be easy to chalk up the lives of slaves in the South as just a constant cycle of misery, dehumanization, and torture, that’s not the whole story. Despite all of this, slaves were still able to create a rich culture and resisted in subtle ways against their enslavers.

Many slaves continued to address each other by their African names and continued to use their native languages amongst each other. Many also continued to practice their religions and maintain their culture through music and dance. Some slaves practiced their religion in secret, such as Muslims, despite being forced to attend Protestant churches. Others became Christian preachers and incorporated elements from their African cultures into their services. In the north, African Americans expressed their culture more openly because of their freedom. For example, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was created as the first black-run Protestant Church. David Walker, an African American abolitionist, wrote Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, a series of essays calling for abolition.

Violent Resistance

But for some, resistance wasn’t this subtle. In some cases, they rebelled. And this was a great fear of the plantation owners, especially because of the great destruction and death that could happen as a result, and also because the Haitian Revolution made plantation owners paranoid of another slave revolt.

In the Vesey Slave Conspiracy of 1822, a former slave, Denmark Vesey, bought his freedom and planned to kill the governor of Charleston and burn the city. This plan was found out and as a result, Vesey was hanged.

Another rebellion was Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831. In Virginia, a slave named Nat Turner led a group of slaves to kill over 50 white people before being stopped by the Virginia militia the next day. He and 55 others were hanged. Because of this rebellion, planters throughout Virginia went into a panic and started a mass torture of their other slaves.

One other example would be the mutiny on Amistad, a Spanish slave ship, in 1839. This ship was transporting slaves to the West Indies. However, the slaves in there broke free and killed the ship’s captain. Once they arrived on the American coast, they were all arrested and tried in the Supreme Court case United States v. The Amistad, which actually ruled in favor of them and set them free.

Some slaves would engage in passive resistance against slavery, in which they would make life more difficult for plantation owners. Some examples include by working slowly or inefficiently, pretending to be sick, stealing tools, setting things on fire, and poisoning food.

But as a result of these rebellions, plantation owners began making the lives of slaves more difficult in order to control them more strictly. For example, many southern states made it illegal for anyone to free a slave or teach an enslaved person how to read and write. Marriages between slaves were outlawed and slaves lost access to the courts. Many were routinely beaten and psychologically abused to be made obedient. Plantation owners justified this treatment by believing that slaves were akin to a farm animal or a tool, not a human being.

The Life of Slaves

Because slavery in the South was considered an uncomfortable term, the practice of slavery became known as the “peculiar institution”.

In the South, the majority of slaves worked in the fields, although some worked as craftsmen, servants, or in factories and construction. On large plantations, slaves worked under an overseer from sunrise to sunset for at least six days a week. Some overseers had black "drivers" who assisted them in supervising the slaves. While some slaves lived in urban cities, more and more of them were being sold to the Deep South to work on plantations.

Southern Society

In the South, while there were certainly a lot of large plantations filled with slaves scattered throughout, most of the white farmers in the South didn’t actually own any slaves. These farmers were called yeoman farmers. These farmers occasionally challenged plantation owners because the large plantations were causing yeoman farmers to lose profit, but they were unable to do anything to affect slavery in the South. The plantation owners were rich and had a large amount of influence on Southern politics and the Southern economy, so nothing could be changed.

As other countries in Europe and South American began abolishing slavery, especially Britain in 1834 (one of the South’s biggest customers), the abolitionist movement began gaining momentum during the 1830s and 1840s. However, the Three-Fifths Compromise allowed planters to still maintain the status quo in Congress and state legislation. They essentially controlled Southern politics by hiring poor whites and helping yeoman farmers transport goods to market, making the South reliant on the plantation owners. They maintained a monopoly over cotton production and made sure slaves were kept illiterate, ensuring their control over the Southern economy. Some Southerners, including Thomas Drew and John Calhoun (remember Jackson’s vice president), argued that slavery was natural in a civilized society and even claimed that it was beneficial for both slaves and society due to, according to them, differences in color, physical attributes, and intelligence between the two groups.