North and South Part 4

North and South

People of the South

Southern Agriculture

HOW WERE SOUTHERN FARMS DIFFERENT FROM SOUTHERN PLANTATIONS?
• Slavery was the heart of the Southern economy, but that did not mean that

every white person owned large numbers of enslaved people.
• The society in the South was complex and had many levels.

• The four categories are: Tenant farmer, yeomen, rural poor, or plantation owner

• Small Farmers and the Rural Poor

• Most white people in the South were yeomen, who are farmers who own a

small farm (usually between 50 to 200 acres).

• These yeomen lived mostly in the Upper South and in the hilly areas of the Deep

South.
• They did not practice plantation-style agriculture.
• They grew crop to use themselves and to trade with local merchants.
• They generally owned few or no enslaved African Americans.

• Another group of Southern whites worked as tenant farmers, who rented land from

property owners.

Multiple Choice

What kind of farmers own a small farm, and lived in the Upper South?

• Tenant Farmers

• Plantation Owners

• Yeomen

• Slaves

Southern Agriculture

• Small Farmers and the Rural Poor cont.

• These classes (tenant farmers) of white Southerners made up the majority of

the white population of the South.

• They lived in simple house (cottages or log cabins).

• The rural poor, were often stubborn and independent.

• They lived in crude cabins.
• Though they were looked down upon by many, they were proud of their ability to

provide for their families.

• A few African Americans also held enslaved workers.

• Some free African Americans bought members of their own families to free them,

although others worked their enslaved workers in the same manner as white
Southern planters.

• Plantation Owners

• The larger plantations covered several thousand acres.

Multiple Choice

Who made up a majority of the white population?

• Tenant Farmers

• Yeomen

• Plantation Owners

• Slaves

Southern Agriculture

• Plantation Owners cont.

• In addition to the land they owned, plantation owners measured their wealth by

the number of enslaved people they had.

• In 1860 only about four percent of slaveholders held 20 or more enslaved workers.

• Earning profits was the main goal for owners of large plantations.

• To make a profit, they needed to bring in more money than they spent to run their

plantations.

• Large plantations had fixed costs.

• These are operating costs that remain much the same year after year.

• Example:The cost of housing and feeding workers is a fixed cost

• On the other hand, the price of cotton changed from season to season.

• A change in price often meant the difference between a successful year for a

plantation and a bad one.

Multiple Choice

What was the main goal of the plantation owner?

• Providing A Good Product

• Taking Care Of Their Workers

• Pushing The Slave Agenda

• Earning Profits

Southern Agriculture

• Plantation Owners cont.

• Plantation owners, who were always men, traveled often in order to ensure fair

dealings with traders.

• Their wives often led difficult and lonely lives.

• They took charge of their households and supervised the buildings.
• They watched over the enslaved domestic workers and sometimes tended to them when

they became ill.

• They often kept the plantation’s financial records.

• Keeping a plantation running involved many tasks.

• These jobs included: cleaning the house, cooking, doing laundry, sewing, serving

meals, and tending livestock.
• To those that were trained, they were: blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, or weavers.

• Most enslaved African Americans were field hands though.

• They worked from sunrise to sunset to plant, tend, and harvest crops.
• An overseer, or plantation manager, supervised them.

Multiple Choice

Who ran the plantation when the owner was away?

• Son

• Brother

• Wife

• Neighbor

Multiple Choice

What is the plantation manager called?

• Overseer

• Laborer

• Protector

• Leader

The Lives of Enslaved People

• The fate of most enslaved African Americans was hardship and misery.

• They worked hard, earned no money, and had little hope for freedom.

• They lived with the threat that an owner could sell them or members of their family

without warning.

• In the face of those brutal conditions, enslaved African Americans tried to build

stability.

• They kept up their family lives as best they could.
• They developed a culture all their own that blended African and American elements

• African American Family Life

• The law did not recognize slave marriages.

• However, enslaved people did marry and raise families, which provided comfort and

support.
• Uncertainty and danger, however, were always present.

• There were no laws or customs that would stop a slaveholder from breaking a

family apart.

• If a slaveholder chose to, or died, the families could be, and often were, separated.

Multiple Select

What TWO things were the fates of most African Americans?

• Peace

• Lonliness

• Hardship

• Misery

The Lives of Enslaved People

• African American Family Life cont.

• In the face of threat, enslaved people set up a network of relatives and friends.

• If an owner sold a father or mother, an aunt, uncle, or close friend stepped in to

raise the children left behind.
• These networks were a source of strength in the lived of enslaved people.
• Large, close-knit extended families became an important part of African American culture.

• African American Culture

• In 1808 Congress banned the import of slaves.

• Slavery remained legal, but traders could no longer purchase enslaved people from

other countries.

• Some illegal trading continued, but by 1860, almost all the enslaved people in the

South had been born there.

• Though most enslaved people were born in the U.S., they tried to preserve

African customs.

• They passed traditional African folk stories on to their children.
• They performed African music and dance.

Multiple Select

In the face of the threat of being separated, enslaved people set up a network consisting of TWO sets of people?

• Neighbors

• Relatives

• Friends

• Co-Workers

Multiple Select

What THREE traditional customs were passed down to the children?

• Religion

• Stories

• Music

• Dance

The Lives of Enslaved People

• African American Culture cont.

• Enslaved people also drew on African rhythms to create musical forms that

were uniquely American.

• One form was the work song, or field holler.

• A worker led a rhythmic call-and-response song, which sometimes included shouts and

moans.

• The beat set the tempo for their work in the fields.

• African American Religion

• Many enslaved African Americans followed traditional African religious beliefs

and practices.

• Others, however, accepted the Christian religion that was dominant in the U.S.

• Christianity became for enslaved people a religion of hope and resistance.

• They expressed their beliefs in spirituals, which is an African American religious folk

song.

Multiple Choice

What is an African American religious folk song called?

• Hymns

• Spirituals

• Messiahs Music

• Lords Lyrics

The Lives of Enslaved People

• African American Religion cont.

• Spirituals helped enslaved people express joy, but also sadness about their

suffering here on Earth.

• Enslaved people also used spirituals as a way to communicate secretly with

themselves.

• Slave Codes

• The slave codes, sometimes called black codes, were laws in the Southern states

that controlled enslaved people.

• These laws had existed since colonial times.

• One purpose if the codes was to prevent what white Southerners dreaded most,

a slave rebellion.

• For this reason, slave codes prohibited enslaved people from gathering in large

groups and required enslaved people to have written passes before leaving the
slaveholder’s property.

• The slave codes made teaching enslaved people to read and write a CRIME.

• White Southerners feared that an educated enslaved person might start a revolt, and

that if they couldn’t read or write, they would be less likely to rebel.

Multiple Select

What were TWO names of the laws in the Southern states that controlled enslaved people?

• Indentured Codes

• Captive Codes

• Slave Codes

• Black Codes

Multiple Select

What TWO things did the slave codes make it illegal to teach slaves?

• Read

• Write

• Count

• Use The Court System

The Lives of Enslaved People

• Fighting Back

• Enslaved African Americans did sometimes rebel openly against their owners.

• One in particular was Nat Turner.

• Nat Turner, who had taught himself to read and write, was a popular religious

leader among enslaved people in his area.

• In 1831, he led a group of followers on a brief, violent rampage in Southhampton

County, Virginia.
• He and his followers killed at least fifty five whites.

• Two months after the uprising began, authorities captured and hangedTurner.

• Still, his rebellion terrified white Southerners, resulting in many white mobs killing

dozens of African Americans, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion.

• Whites also passed more severe slave codes, making life under slavery even harsher.

• Armed revolts such as Turner’s were rare because enslaved African Americans

realized they had little chance of winning.

• For the most part, enslaved people resisted slavery by working slowly or by

pretending to be ill.
• Sometimes they might set fire to a plantation building or break tools.

• Such acts helped enslaved African Americans cope with their lack of freedom

Multiple Select

What were the TWO ways that slaves resisted slavery?

• Working Slowly

• Refusing To Work

• Pretending To Be Sick

• Not Showing Up

The Lives of Enslaved People

• Escaping Slavery

• Enslaved people also resisted by running away from their owners.

• Often their goal was to find relatives on other plantations.

• Sometimes they left to escape punishment.

• Less often, enslaved African Americans tried to run away to freedom in the

North, which was very difficult.

• Among those who succeeded were Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.

• Most who succeeded escaped from the Upper South

• A runaway might receive aid from the Underground Railroad, which is a system of

cooperation to aid and house enslaved people who had escaped.
• This network included safe houses, which were owned by people who opposed slavery.

• The bigger danger was capture.

• Most runaways were caught and returned to their owners.

• Their owners punished them severely, often using whips.

Multiple Choice

What is a system of cooperation to aid and house enslaved people who had escaped?

• Savior System

• Transit System

• Underground Railroad

• Radical Railroad

Southern Cities

• Though mostly agricultural, the South had several large cities by the mid-

1800s, including Baltimore and New Orleans.
• The ten largest cities in the South were either seaports or river ports.

• Cities located where the region’s few railroads crossed paths also began to grow.

• These included Chattanooga, Montgomery, and Atlanta.

• Free African Americans formed their own communities in Southern cities.

• They practiced trades and founded churches and institutions, yet their rights

were limited.

• Most states did not allow them to move from state to state.
• They did not share equally in economic and political life.

• In the early 1800s, there were no statewide public school systems in the

South.
• People who could afford to do so sent their children to private schools.
• By the mid-1800s, however, education was growing.

• North Carolina and Kentuckyset up and ranpublic schools.

Multiple Choice

What did the South not have in the early 1800s?

• State-Wide School System

• Learning Centers

• Reading Program

• Math Program

Southern Cities

• The South lagged behind other parts of the country in literacy, which is the

ability to read and write.
• One reason was that the South was thinly populated.

• A school would have to serve a wide area, and many families were unwilling or

unable to send children great distances to school.

• Many Southerners also believed education was a private matter.

Multiple Choice

What is the ability to read and write?

• Basic Education

• Literacy

• Reading Knowledge

• Linguistics

Open Ended

Why to you believe that the South was so behind in education?