How Did The Industrial Revolution Cause Tension Between North And South

The North had a far better economy than the south, with about twice as many soldiers, factories benefited the North’s economy rather than the South, increasing tensions between the two regions. Southerners relied on their plantations and slaves to work on them, so the fact that the Northerners wanted to take away their slaves just pushed the South to the edge. By 1860 the North had over twice the amount of railroads as the South; despite the fact that the South had a larger population due to slaves (Doc A). The mass amounts of railroads in the North upheld the large amounts of deliveries between factories. While the North was mostly industrial and the South was more agricultural.

As discussed in class, slavery became a cornerstone of wealth and status for colonial Americans in the 17th century. Before then indentured servants were used for hard work and labor in order to pay off debts and passage to colonial America, while slave trade was dominated by Royal Africa Company. After Royal Africa Company’s slave trade monopoly was ended in 1689, slavery then became inexpensive since acquiring slaves was easier and slavery developed into a lucrative business. In accordance to a law declared in 1662 in Virginia, “When a child is born to one free parent and one slave parent, the child’s status will be inherited from the mother,” thus causing the sexual abuse of slave women to be more acceptable in society’s perspective. Slaveholders were then abusing their power and taking advantage of young slave women resulting in the birth of many mulatto children, where slaveholders would then sell their children for profit to other slave owners.

Enslaved women depending on their work could utilize varying quantities of time with their mistresses and female owners. Although not recorded my mistresses some “plantation mistresses” begrudged their maternal duties. Enslaved women were lashed out at by their mistresses perhaps from the frustration of having their maternal duties. For ladies the ideal of gentility necessitated a

Typically, female slaves had roles in caregiving and raising the children of the plantation owners, this motherly relationship gave women the opportunity to conquer the divide between black and white. While there are cases of this happening, since black women were viewed as property, not as human, this relationship could be disregarded (West, 58) (Jacobs, 1). Often slave masters raised children that were the same age as their slaves, (these children often were half siblings as a result of the masters rape of female slaves) this means that the women grew up together and were given the opportunity to form strong relationships, however with their growth the two women would face very different fates. Slave masters “granted them (young slaves)

Slaves during the civil war saw their ability to act independently and autonomously rise dramatically due to the chaotic time period they found themselves in, while antebellum slaves often had far more restrictive, intrusive, and detailed systems in place to restrict their agency. In the antebellum, slave “autonomy was sharply circumsized” as close contact and operation between masters and slaves meant that “whites were impinged to an unusual degree on slave life”, and used this proximity to restrict the agency of their slaves (Kolchin, pg.118). Masters would often set up a long list of rules which “told them when to rise in the morning, when to go to the fields, when to break for meals, how long and how much to work”, along with a large catalog of other tasks, actions, and privileges which were enforced in brutal fashions (Kolchin pg. 118). In a stark shift from this time period, the civil war allowed slaves to act more autonomously and enact agency they previously had been limited in as both man and woman “took advantage of opportunities the war uncovered to gain freedom” (Manning, pg 109). Other examples of slaves enacting agency include when they would be caught “dressing themselves in their masters’ ‘best apparels’ and ‘valuables’”, an action unthinkable during the antebellum due to the close eye of the owners (Manning, pg. 109).

The use of slaves has always been present in the world since the beginning of civilization, although the use and treatment of those slaves has differed widely through time and geographic location. Different geographies call for different types of work ranging from labor-intensive sugar cultivation and production in the tropics to household help in less agriculturally intensive areas. In addition to time and space, the mindsets and beliefs of the people in those areas affect how the slaves will be treated and how “human” those slaves will be perceived to be. In the Early Modern Era, the two main locations where slaves were used most extensively were the European dominated Americas and the Muslim Empires. The American slavery system and the

The way slavery was practiced in England, in the Mid-Atlantic colonies, and in the southern colonies was similar in many ways. For example, in document 1 Fontaine says, "As to your second query, if enslaving our fellow creatures

The United States in the 1700 used slavery as a common way of generating a mass production of cotton which at the time was a prosperous commodity grown in the new world. The Northern states recognized that slavery was cruel and unjust. Even so, by the time of the American Revolution and eventual adoption of the new Constitution in 1787, slavery was actually a dying institution. As part of the compromises that allowed the Constitution to be written and adopted, the founders agreed to end the importation of slaves into the United States by

When slavery is paternalized, it is seen not as a necessary evil, but a positive good. People who paternalized slavery genuinely believed that slavery helped everyone. The idea was that slave owners benefitted because they gained free labor and that their business would prosper and contribute to a healthy economy. This was during the cotton boom, which is when slave population was at its peak of 1.5 million and growing (Jones, 257). The Antebellum period was a time where the amount of slaves a slave owner had, determined social status.

The South was able to produce 7/8 of the worlds cotton supply. The South became more dependent on the planted field system and it’s full of force part, slavery. Notably, at that moment, the North was flourishing industrially. The North depended on factories and others

With slaves came the opportunity to work. With more hands that were not paid plantation owners only had more to gain as this went on through several states. Several slaves were sent in abundance to the West Indies to speed up the process of collecting sugar cane. This was extremely hard work for the slaves and only pushed the separation bar further apart. Along with Native Americans and slave women had no say over what went on in their lives a majority of the time.

Their fathers and husbands would use them as slaves, housewives, objects, etc. They were seen as property to their fathers and husbands. Once a father chose a husband for his daughter, her husband would basically own her. He would misuse and abuse her.

The American Civil War was the war that ended slavery. The civil war was known as one of the bloodiest and deadliest conflicts the United States had ever seen. The loss of life was an estimated amount of 620,000 men. It lasted four years, from April 12, 1861, through May 9, 1865. However, while slavery was a major cause of the American Civil War, there were several other major factors.

Between 1800 and 1860 two major things changed within the country. The cash crops changed from tobacco and rice to the new money maker cotton. Along with the crops changing the slave trade grew to replace the economic short fall in the Chesapeake area. These changed occurred due to the supply and demand of commonly bought goods. Another contributing factor for the crops changing was the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the use of cotton in textile facilities.

Slavery, is the condition in which a human being is owned and controlled by another. This institution has deep roots in human history. It was practiced in most of the world, from prehistoric times to the modern era. Despite this commonality, slave systems have varied considerably. Societies have experienced different degrees of it, with different practices and different outlooks, even though the basic characteristic was the same.