Economic Development of South in 19th Century Flashcards

The most important economic development in the South of the 19^th century was the shift of economic power from the “upper south” , which was the original southern states along the Atlantic coast, to the “lower south”; the expanding Agricultural regions in the new expanding Agricultural regions in the South West. This shift of power was caused by the growing dominance of cotton because all other crops such as rice, tobacco, sugar, and wheat often took too long to grow, created strenuous labor for workers, was expensive, or needed a specific type of soil to grow. As the demand for cotton spread, the southern economy profited greatly. By the time of the Civil War, the US had taken in $200 million annually.

There were the tobacco growing regions of Maryland, North Carolina, and the coastal south, which consisted of the states Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. They cultivated rice, sugar, and long staple cotton.

Cotton became the “king” because other crops were not as available as the short staple cotton. It became king because it dominated the South and caused a lot of profit when the textile industry in Britain demanded cotton in the 1820s and 30s, and New England in the 1840s and 50s. Some crops that were grown in the South were rice, sugar, and long staple cotton.

Manufacturing: · Growth in flower milling · Textile and iron manufacturing · Total value of Southern textile industry in 1860 is $4.5million · Merchants/Planters: · Brokers, also known as “factors”. Merchants marketed planter’s crops, and worked to find cotton buyers and other crops and purchased goods for the planters they served. Professionals (lawyers, editors, doctors, etc.). The merchants were the most important of this group because they served as merchant bankers for the planters who were in debt if prices for cotton fell.

They mean that they do not have a fully developed or industrialized economy; that it was likened to the colonial times, where they did not have the technological advances and technology the North now had in the late 19^th century.

They are white Southern people who are free from the base, materialistic instincts of the Northerners. In other words, the cavaliers preferred to lead a refined and gracious lifestyle, rather then the rapidly expanding and development of the North. The planters helped create this cavalier image by demonstrating wealth and power.

It happened because the planter aristocracy exercised power and influence far in excess of their numbers. They were at the top of society, and determined the political, economic, and social life of their region. The uncertainty of plantation life and the newness of it caused white Southerners to view planters this way.

Both Northern and Southern women's lives were centered inside the house, and they never sought jobs. The difference would be more with the Southern women's roles because they were subordinate to their husbands, their sons and Husbands were dominant over them. Southern women were also engaged in the activities of the farm, and did not have an education. Lastly, white women of the South had to deal wit the infidelity of their husbands with black slaves.

The typical white southerner was a modest yeoman farmer. They were also plain folk because they were not wealthy, owned few slaves, and devoted themselves to subsistence farming, though it did not get them out of debt. Yeoman rarely had the chance to get an education because the educational system in the South provided poor whites with few opportunities to get an education.

So few opposed the slaveholding oligarchies because they were isolated form the plantation systems of the South. Non-slave owning Whites opposed slavery, and were called “hill people” because they lived in the backcountry away from the public. They lived in the Appalachian Mountains, and were the most isolated of southern whites. They practiced small subsistence farming, owned no slaves, and were not connected to the economy of the South. They did not like slavery because they felt it threatened their sense of independence.

Slave codes were laws established against African American slaves. They forbade slaves to hold property, leave their masters without permission, wander at night, congregate unless supervised, or to strike a white person. Slaves could not read or write, or receive any education, and were put to death or punished severely for resisting a white person or stirring revolt. The codes did not legalize slave marriages. In addition, they stated that any person with an ounce of African American decent was Black.

The nature of the relationship between masters and their slaves depended on the kind of plantations they were on. Most masters with few slaves tended to work alongside them, and developed relationships with his slaves that were paternal. On large plantations, such relations did not exist because there were too many slaves, so the master hired overseers to supervise them, and some were cruel. The masters on a large plantation could be cruel, and its overseers.

Yes, there were field hands, and house servants. Field workers included men, women, and children. The field workers had the most difficult jobs, and the most working hours of the day. House servants had it easier because they only engaged in household activities.

In the cities, a master could not supervise his slaves as closely as a slave owner in the South could. In a rural plantation, masters could keep an effective watch over his slaves because they had no contact with any free Blacks or people other than the ones in their plantation. They had nowhere to go. In the North, Blacks could run errands in the city, and their owners did not care to supervise them. Urban slavery had an effect on the “peculiar institution” and the relationship between whites and blacks because black laborers were hired to work at docks, construction sites, drive carriages, and perform other jobs in the cities. After their work was done, they had time to mingle with free blacks and whites, which caused the line between slavery and freedom to become indistinct. Slavery in the cities effected the “institution” of slavery because Blacks and whites were associating with each other. This was disapproved by whites, and was thought to violate the traditional way of slavery. It also made them suspicious of conspiracies to over run the white population, so they segregated free and black people from themselves, and removed slavery from the cities.

Manumission was not vey common in the South. It only occurred when a master died, or when slaves earned money to but their and their family’s freedom, which was usually achieved by urban blacks. Slaves could be set free if the master felt guilty about slavery. However, when the number of free blacks increased, whites thought it would encourage slaves to seek their own freedom, and forced some out of the slave states. Not all blacks that were set free attained wealth and profit. Most free blacks lived in poverty, under conditions that were worse than the condition of blacks in the north.