CHAPTER OUTLINE

Myth and reality in the Old South Contrasting myths about southern whites Paternalistic and aristocratic Arrogant and brutal Distinctive features of the Old South Geography and weather Slavery Native-born population Other characteristics Assumption of distinctiveness Diverse farming King Cotton Food crops Soil exhaustion and erosion Manufacturing and trade Dependence on North Reasons for lack of industry Unsuitability of blacks Disdain of elites Profitability of slavery White society in the South Tragedy of dependence on cotton Plantation Definition Extent of slaveholding Way of life Planters’ wives Middle class Overseers Yeoman farmers “Poor whites” Different from yeomen “Lazy diseases” Culture of honor and violence Sense of honor Origins Role of women Manliness Violence Duels Anti-dueling societies Black society in the South Free persons of color Origins and status Mulattoes Black slaveholders Occupations Discrimination against Slavery Plantation slavery Work Owner’s control Rebellion or flight Slave women Reproduction Demands of motherhood Work Sexual abuse Slave life Community Religion Family The Frontier South The Southwest Migration patterns To economic opportunity Young men Slaves Settlement Land purchases Environment Masculine culture Sex roles Drinking, gambling, fighting The example of Celia Antislavery movements Efforts for colonization American Colonization Society, 1817 Free black community’s reactions to colonization Creation of Liberia Development of abolitionist movement From gradualism to abolitionism Garrison’s Liberator Nat Turner’s rebellion Antislavery groups Split in movement Radical wing Simple abolitionism Issue of women’s rights New York anti-feminists Black efforts against slavery Issue of involvement in white antislavery groups Former slaves as leading abolitionists Sojourner Truth’s role Frederick Douglass’s contributions Harriet Tubman Nature of the Underground Railroad Northern discrimination against blacks Reactions to antislavery agitation The “Gag Rule” in Congress Petitions to end slavery in District of Columbia House decision to table petitions John Quincy Adams’s role Creation of the Liberty party (1840) Efforts to support slavery and deny abolitionism Biblical arguments for slavery Belief in intrinsic inferiority of blacks Socially impossible for blacks and whites to live together Attacks on northern wage slavery in the factory system Views of George Fitzhugh Calhoun’s arguments Critics of slavery in the South silenced