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APUSH Review_ Antebellum Era Reforms.mp4Slavery.mp4
Did people know slavery would grow so much?
In the late 1700s, some people thought that slavery would end on its own. As time passed, though, people realized that the opposite was happening. Slavery wasn't dying; it was growing.
In the United States, most enslaved people worked on large farms that grew crops to sell called plantations.
During the antebellum period, most enslaved people worked on plantations that grew cotton.
What other crops did plantations grow?
More than six out of every ten enslaved people worked on cotton plantations. However, these other crops were also grown with enslaved labor:
tobacco
sugar
wheat
corn
rice
Plantations grew different crops depending on climate and other factors. Cotton needed a growing season of 180 to 200 days. So, it couldn't be grown anywhere with a long winter.
What else is cotton good for?
Cotton is both soft and fairly strong. Today, cotton is still valuable for making clothes, but it has many other uses. For example, cooking oil can be made from cotton. Cotton is also used to make dollar bills. Cotton has even been used to make explosives!
In 1793, Eli Whitney invented a machine to cheaply get the seeds and twigs out of cotton.
Why was the cotton gin such a big deal?
Cotton plants have a lot of twigs and seeds. Cotton needs to be cleaned before being sold. Before the cotton gin, people had to clean cotton by hand. The cotton gin has a filtering wheel that cleans the cotton. After the invention of the cotton gin, it became easier to grow and make money from cotton.
Sometimes technology works out in unexpected ways. For example, some people thought that the cotton gin would mean less work for enslaved people. Instead, plantation owners wanted even more enslaved people to work for them.
Where did the cotton go?
Cotton was mostly grown in the Deep South, in places such as Alabama and Mississippi. Once the cotton was picked and cleaned, it would travel by boat to Southern port cities such as New Orleans. Then the cotton would be carried by steamship to factories. Many of these factories were in New England and Great Britain. There, the cotton would be turned into clothes.
Cotton couldn't grow well in some slave states such as Virginia and Maryland. However, many slaveholders in those states still made a lot of money during the cotton boom.
As the value of cotton continued to rise in the 1800s, the demand for enslaved people in places such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia also grew. In 1808, the federal government banned the international slave trade. A slaveholder could no longer buy enslaved people from places such as Africa and the Caribbean. However, it was still legal to buy enslaved people from other Southern states.
The slave trade between different parts of the South broke up many enslaved families. Being sold farther south was often one of the biggest fears of enslaved people.
In the antebellum period, Great Britain was the largest economy in the world. Its biggest business was making clothes from cotton. To make these clothes, Great Britain imported cotton, bringing it in from other countries.
In the antebellum period, Great Britain was the largest economy in the world. Its biggest business was making clothes from cotton. To make these clothes, Great Britain imported cotton, bringing it in from other countries.
How did the British feel about slavery?
In the 18th century, the British Empire had helped spread the slave trade to new places. However, following the American Revolution, slavery became unpopular in Great Britain. In 1833, Great Britain banned slavery in its empire.
Still, there was a huge demand for slave-grown cotton in Great Britain. Tens of thousands of British people worked in clothing factories. Their jobs depended on cotton from the American South. So, many British people did not want to push against Southern slavery.
In both Great Britain and the United States, many women fought against slavery.
Was James Henry Hammond right?
Yes and no. When the Civil War broke out, many clothing factories in Great Britain had to be shut down. Tens of thousands of British laborers lost their jobs. The British government debated whether to help the South end the war.
However, most British people were unwilling to help slaveholders win a war.
Also, other places such as India and Egypt jumped in to supply cotton to Great Britain during the Civil War. The extra cotton made the British less dependent on the South.
Were the Northern states always free states?
The Northern states had once allowed slavery. Around the time of the American Revolution, Northern white and African American activists started pushing for laws to ban slavery. By 1804, all the Northern states had passed laws against slavery.
Between 1800 and 1860, the population of the United States grew quickly. The following table shows states in order of population size for 1800 and 1860. It shows the six most populous states, or the states with the most people.
Virginia was the most populous state in 1800, but it fell to sixth place in 1860. Virginia is at the top of the list for 1800 and the bottom of the list for 1860.
Northern states made up five of the six most populous states in 1860. In the 1860 column, Northern states make up the first five names.
In 1800, the six most populous states were evenly split between the North and the South. In the 1800 column, there are three Northern states and three Southern states.
The populations of Northern states grew quickly in the 1800s. By 1860, Virginia was the only Southern state in the six most populous states.
In the first years of the United States, Virginia was the most populous and powerful state in the country. Four out of the first five presidents came from Virginia! Virginia's population grew in the 1800s. It just didn't grow as fast as other states.
What were cities like in the antebellum period?
Cities were growing quickly in the 1800s. Many different kinds of people lived in places such as Philadelphia and New York City. These cities had problems such as poverty, dirty water, and bad sewer systems. Still, many people saw moving to cities as their best chance for improving their lives.
American cities of the 1800s were small by today's standards. In 1860, the biggest city in the United States was New York City. Back then, it had about 814,000 people. In 2010, New York City had a population of almost 8.2 million people. That's 10 times as big!
In the early 1800s, many immigrants came to the United States from other countries. Most of them chose to move to the North instead of the South.
Who were the Know-Nothings?
Many people in the North disliked that so many immigrants were moving to the United States. In the 1850s, many of these anti-immigrant people, called nativists, formed a political party.
The meetings of these parties were supposed to be secret, and any member who was asked about the party was supposed to say "I know nothing." People started calling them the Know-Nothings.
This is a flag from the Know-Nothing Party. Notice how the flag says "Native Americans." In the 19th century, this term was used to describe anyone born in the United States. Most of these people had ancestors who came from other countries.
Today, we use the term "Native American" for the indigenous peoples who lived in the Americas before European settlement.
In the antebellum period, there was an increase in manufacturing in the United States. Manufacturing took place in factories and mills. Most of these factories and mills were in the Northern states.
In places such as Lowell, Massachusetts, many of the mill workers were women. These women were usually young and had grown up on farms.
Jobs in the mills were hard and dangerous. But they also provided women the chance to send much needed money back to their families.
A tariff is a tax or fee charged for bringing certain goods into a country. For example, the antebellum United States charged a tariff on manufactured goods. This tariff placed a tax on every manufactured good brought in from another country.
Who disliked the tariff?
All Americans had to pay higher prices because of the tariff. However, Northern factory workers knew that the tariff helped protect their jobs.
On the other hand, many farmers and slaveowners hated the tariff. They didn't need the tariff to protect their jobs. A tariff just made their lives harder.
For example, many people in South Carolina called the 1828 tariff the "Tariff of Abominations." In 1832, arguing over the tariff almost led to a shooting match between the South Carolina state militia and the federal army!
When someone invents something, he or she can apply for a patent.
A patent protects an inventor's idea so that other people can't copy it.
What kinds of inventions were made in the antebellum period?
Americans invented many new things in the early 1800s. Here is a list of some of those inventions:
the telegraph
the steamship
dental floss
the reaper
the steam shovel
the Colt revolver
For antebellum Americans, railroads were an important form of transportation. The graph below shows the miles of railroad tracks in the North and the South in 1860.
What made railroads so useful?
Railroads cut down the time it took to get from one place to another. Many Southerners wanted more railroads. However, it was hard for a railroad to make money in the South because there were fewer people to use the trains.
This is a picture of Jefferson Davis. Davis was a Southern politician who believed the South needed more railroads. Davis pushed for a Southern railroad that would go to the Pacific Ocean. He organized exploratory trips to find a route.
Davis served as a senator and as Secretary of War in the government of the United States in the 1850s. Later, he became president of the Confederacy.
By 1860, there were almost four million enslaved African American people in the United States.
Where did the enslaved people come from?
Enslaved African American people's ancestors were from Africa. Traders captured people in Africa and sold them into slavery.
By the antebellum period, or the time period leading up to the Civil War, bringing enslaved people from Africa to the United States was illegal. Instead, the enslaved people were born in the United States.
People in the 1800s had many different opinions about slavery.
Life in the antebellum period
New inventions like the steamship and train were starting to make travel easier. Still, it took a long time to get places. Americans needed newspapers to know what was happening in faraway parts of the country.
What kinds of things were in newspapers?
Antebellum newspapers were usually connected to a political party. So, newspapers published articles that defended their party or attacked their opponents.
However, newspapers also published poems, interviews, or anything else the editors hoped their audience would like.
In 1852, the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe published an antislavery novel called Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Antislavery means "opposed to slavery." The book went on to be the best selling novel of the antebellum period.
What was Uncle Tom's Cabin about?
Harriet Beecher Stowe's book tells the story of Tom, a kind enslaved man. Tom goes through many hardships and is eventually killed by a cruel slavemaster. The book also tells a story of an enslaved woman named Eliza who escapes slavery.
Even though the characters in the novel weren't real, their story moved many people to think about the lives of enslaved people.
Slaveholders defended slavery with many arguments. For example, many slaveholders argued that the Constitution protected their property rights.
How did slaveholders think the Constitution protected their property rights?
Under the Fifth Amendment, it is illegal to take a person's property without a trial. To proslavery leaders such as John C. Calhoun, enslaved people were slaveholders' property. Calhoun believed the Fifth Amendment protected slaveholders' rights to keep their property.
People who opposed slavery disagreed with this belief. They argued that human beings should never be someone's property.
Was Fitzhugh right that enslaved people had an easy life?
No. Most enslaved people in the South worked on large farms called plantations. Most enslaved people worked from dawn until dusk in the heat. Slaveholders always looked for ways to force enslaved people to work even harder.
Fitzhugh was also wrong that enslaved children didn't work. Young enslaved children often worked in slaveholders' houses, doing cooking and cleaning. Most enslaved children were sent to the fields around the age of eight.
The graph below shows how many white families owned enslaved people in the South.
Why did so few Southern families own enslaved people?
Most Southern families had small farms and could not afford to buy an enslaved person. These farmers were able to grow food for themselves but not much extra. There was almost no chance to save enough money to buy an enslaved person.
Many wealthy families owned large plantations. They sometimes owned hundreds of enslaved people to work on these plantations.
Most white Southerners were too poor to buy enslaved people. However, many of these Southerners still supported slavery.
Slaveholders controlled almost all the news in the South, so Southerners mostly read arguments defending slavery. Slaveholders owned almost all the newspapers in the South. These newspapers supported slavery.
They hoped that they could afford to be slaveholders one day. Many poor Southerners hoped to save enough money to buy an enslaved person.
They didn't want African American people to be treated equally with white people. Most white Americans of the 1800s thought that they were better than African American people.
In the 1800s, millions of immigrants arrived in the United States. An immigrant is a person who moves from another country. Most of these immigrants moved to Northern cities. They often had to take the lowest paid jobs. Given this, why were many immigrants against ending slavery in the South? They worried that freed enslaved people would move to the North and take their jobs.
Were all immigrants proslavery?
No. Many immigrants fought against slavery.
For example, many German American immigrants left Europe to escape unfair treatment. They did not like that their new homeland let millions of people be enslaved.
German Americans such as Carl Schurz opposed slavery in the 1850s. Schurz believed that both immigrants and enslaved people deserved to have their rights protected.
William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and the Grimké sisters were famous abolitionists (against slavery). The word abolitionist comes from the word abolish, which means "to get rid of something."
Abolitionists tried to educate other Americans about the lives of enslaved people. A book written by someone who used to be enslaved is a source that would be most useful to understanding the lives of enslaved people.
America's most famous former enslaved person
In 1845, Frederick Douglass published an autobiography, or a book he wrote about his own life. In the book, Douglass told his story of being an enslaved person in Maryland. Douglass escaped Maryland and made his way to the Northern states.
Douglass's book made him famous, but it also put him in danger. As an escaped enslaved person, he could still be captured and returned to his owner. To avoid capture, Douglass took a trip to Europe after his book was published. A year later, he returned to the United States and continued to fight against slavery.
What kinds of people often became abolitionists?
Freed slaves
Christians
Women
"The Spirit calls me, and I must go"
The former enslaved person Isabella Baumfree said these words to her friends in 1843. She felt God had given her a mission.
Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and dedicated herself to fighting slavery. Sojourner Truth became a famous abolitionist. She gave powerful speeches for abolition and women’s rights. During the Civil War, she helped recruit African American soldiers for the Union army.
Were abolitionists ever hurt or killed?
Yes. For example, in 1843 a mob, or angry group of people, chased and beat Frederick Douglass.
In 1837, an Illinois mob targeted the abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy. Lovejoy owned a printing press that he used to publish an antislavery newspaper. The mob attacked Lovejoy's printing press to stop him from printing the newspaper. When Lovejoy tried to stop the mob, he was killed.
Why did Frederick Douglass mention Liberia?
In the 1800s, a group of Americans called colonizationists believed that Liberia would be a good place for freed enslaved people to move.
Most colonizationists were white Northerners. Most African American people didn't agree with the idea of leaving the United States. Only 13,000 out of millions of African American people moved to Liberia.
Did African American abolitionists agree with Douglass about not celebrating the Fourth of July?
Yes and no. Some African American abolitionists thought it was better to celebrate other days. For example, many African American communities held celebrations to mark the day the British government had ended slavery in their empire.
But many African American people still wanted to celebrate the Fourth of July. They were proud that over 5,000 African American soldiers had fought for independence in the American Revolution.
In 1854, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison publicly burned a copy of a the Constitution.
"I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard!"
William Lloyd Garrison published this line in the first issue of his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. Garrison meant he would never stop attacking slavery.
Garrison was willing to risk his life to oppose slavery. He spent time in jail in Maryland for publishing antislavery articles. Another time, Garrison had a rope thrown around him by an angry group of Northerners.
Many abolitionists quoted the Declaration of Independence to argue against slavery of "all men are created equal".
Why did abolitionists want to use the Declaration of Independence?
Most Americans in the antebellum period had a deep respect for the country's founders. Slaveholders argued that founders such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington had been Southern slaveholders. But abolitionists argued that most of the founders, including Jefferson and Washington, had hoped slavery would fade away with time.
Did abolitionists agree on a strategy?
No. Abolitionists argued with each other almost as much as they argued with slaveholders. Abolitionists tried many different strategies to end slavery during the antebellum period.
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