HIST 4079 Chapter : HIST 4079 Sep 21
Document Summary
Slavery and the antebellum: rhetoric about equality lead to questions about slavery, upper south virginia, kentucky, tennessee, delaware. Started to make changes to commitment of slavery. Put it in your will, instead of a court process: between 1782-1806, number of free blacks increases. 2,000 to 20,000: deep south louisiana, texas, missouri, alabama, georgia, florida, south carolina, harder commitment to slavery. Eli whitney invented cotton gin, hardier in the deep south: removed the cotton seeds. Instead of building roads, etc, money that they earned went back into cotton, aka owning more slaves: not only cotton, but sugar. Sugar very dangerous, labor intensive: needed more and more slaves to develop this agriculture. 1850, over 4,000,000: even though illegal to import slaves since 1808, bought a lot of slaves from upper south. They usually sold their slaves, not let them free: broke families about. Concentration of slaves got into the hands of fewer and fewer whites: only 25% even owned one slave.
