How Did Slavery Affect The Economy Of The South

Between 1800 and 1850, the North and South had grown distinctively different, but they also had some similarities. Some of the differences & similarities between the North and South included the economy, social attitudes & structures, and daily life. The North and the South had farmers and everyone including children worked on the family farms. As time went by, the North became more industrialized and manufacturing became the center point of their economy rather than agriculture. Factories popped up all along the east coast and the inland waterways.

As the steamship and transportation as a whole began to futher integrate itself into northern economy, the South focused more on cotton growth and strenghtening planations. The concerns about the workload were justified through the necessity of cotton, buhe concept of slaves being property and used harshly for profit went against the country’s Declaration of Independance which states that man is entitled to liberty. On the other hand, the North spent days at the factory to create product and participate in trade. Although the North used southern cotton for textile creation, there is no denying that with one clear side of manufacturing, and another on agriculture, the lines of national economy were clearly blurred as both ends of America continued to work without working

Slavery was considered an economic necessity in the nineteenth century. Plantation owners were able to make greater profits

As a result, the economy in the North began to flourish and develop, allowing women to establish some degree of a role within the economy and earn wages. In particular, “women exchanged work and produce, employing each other’s skills and easing their own burdens in the process” (Norton 605). Contrastingly, this integration of women’s work in the economy did not exist as prominently in the South where cash crops (tobacco and sugar cane) were the main source of income (DuBois, 88). Due to the amount of manual labor that is necessary to maintain the production of these crops, slavery became the foundation of the Southern economy, and “enslaved Africans were employed in a modern, commercial, globally oriented form of production (Dubois, 90)”. Subsequently, women in the South did not have a large role in the economy compared to women in the North; rather than contributing economically, elite southern women were responsible for the raising of their children and the maintenance of the property.

Throughout the development of the colonies in America, slave trade grew to be a significant source of labor in primarily southern plantations within the late seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. During the era, with slaves being condemned to be considered socially inferior by law, and the increase in demand of goods such as rice and indigo, the slave labor force became a notable source for southern plantations in the eighteenth century. Slaves and people of color had always been considered to be socially inferior even before the colonies existed. With a sense of paternalism in Great Britain, people have always believed that those considered slaves,or servants rather, were second class citizens, and these people needed to be suppressed for their own best interests.

As the agriculture production was in great demand in America, white men used indentured servant to cheaply produce the products they needed. However, during this time, slaves started to become more common than indentured servants because, “As Africans, they could not claim the protections of English common law. Slaves’ terms of service never expired…” (Foner, p. 80). This made white men desire to have slaves who they could control and treat however they pleased for however long they wanted.

The treatment of slaves between the North and the South was drastically different. Slaves in the North typically lived in the same house as their master and worked by themselves, or in small groups (pg. 94). Slaves in the South tended to live in large plantations in which they were housed in plantation outbuildings (pg. 104). The difference between the North and the South in housing and working environment had a direct effect on the integration of African Americans into their new American society. When they were housed in the North with their masters and had limited exposure to other slaves, they tended to adopt the ways of their masters.

Specifically, southern white women used this period to elevate their social status so that they could climb the social tower to gain power and compare to men. Southern women wanted to get out of the ideal that women should only be housewives, so they used slaves to relieve themselves of house chores, which brought them away from just being housewives. This elevated them socially because instead of being ridden with housework, they were give leisure time and time to focus on their husbands and wives. Slaves were thought to benefit because slave owners would take care of the slaves and that they would be better off being a slave than running around Africa. Slave owners would give slaves food, shelter, and clothing, take care of their children, and teach them christianity (Jones, 102).

No matter your stance at the time, one thing became clear: socially, politically and economically, slavery was the fabric of American success and gave birth to the Old South as we know it today. At the center of the entire institution of slavery, and central to its defense, was the economic domination it provided a young country in international markets. In the early 19th century, cotton was a popular commodity and overtook sugar as the main crop produced by slave labor. The production of cotton became the nation’s top priority; America supplied ¾ of the cotton supply to the entire world.

The people who watched oppression rose to the test advanced by the Abolitionists. The shields of subjection included monetary viewpoints, history, religion, authenticity, social extraordinary, and even charity, to propel their disputes. Shields of enslavement battled that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a noteworthy and executing money related impact in the South where reliance on slave work was the foundation of their economy. The cotton economy would fold. The tobacco yield would dry in the fields.

Most of the South’s influence in the world came from its colossal cotton crop, gathered by slave labor, for “cotton...tied the American economy to slavery” (Alexis). Southerner enjoyed the economic benefits of slavery and found those very difficult to just pass up like the abolitionists requested. With such big plantations, planters needed help to run them, but unlike small farmers in the South, they could not create enough children to contribute in running an estate of that size; Southern planters needed slaves to continue to make

Imagine if the cotton businesses had no slaves the Southerners would have to create their own factories, for example, if they did have to create their own industry, they would have to sell all their slaves and that’s one of the last things that they wanted to do. If the South had no slaves, they would have to do everything all by themselves. According to page 242 it says " planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories, most wealthy southerners had their wealth invested in land and slaves. Planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories. Most wealthy southerners were unwilling to do this.

During this era the north was industrializing but leaving the south behind. South was using slaves to harvest crops or do domestic work. There was also a cotton boom; therefore more blacks were needed to produce to the demand. Blacks did not have a choice to what they were. The Fugitive Slave Act stated that all blacks should be sent south to be a slave, whether they were free or a

Poor whites in the South were generally also subsistence farmers without employing slaves or any other paid or unpaid laborer. Much like the Yeoman Farmers, poor whites viewed slavery as a stepping stone to become richer, more powerful, and gain social status. Throughout all groups, it was realized that emancipation would rock the unity of the South down to its very foundations, and were in favor of keeping slavery intact to benefit the whole region and

The alliance between indentured servants and Africans united against bond-servitude disturbed the ruling class, who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Slave code of 1705. As we can see in “New York Documentary(directed by Ric Burns), slavery became larger part of the economy in big cities. The result of slavery is a direct result of the need for labor in plantations and large farms. In this time, having enough paid workers for your plantation would be unreal. At the time there were heavy taxes and smaller returns on crops, slavery was the best way to make a profit and live a comfortable