• Eli Whitney, 1793.
• Idea of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene, Georgia widow.
• Separates sticky seeds from short staple cotton.
• Revolving drum with wire teeth reaches through slats to pull cotton away from seeds.
• Moves cotton production inland.
• 200 frost free days.
• 50-60 inches of rainfall.

• Cotton gin cleans sticky seeds from long and short staple cotton 10 times faster than slaves can.
• Makes cotton profitable across lower south.

• Major cotton production area: red
• Other cotton production areas: yellow

• Journeys and Explorations into the Cotton Kingdom, 1861 [1856].
• "For hours and hours one has to ride through the unlimited, continual, all shadowing, all-embracing forest, following roads in the making of which no more labor has been given than was necessary to remove the timber."
• "For days and days he may never see two dwellings of mankind in sight of each other."
• South is mainly rural.

• 1790: Slaves on coast; tobacco, rice, sea island cotton.
• External slave trade banned in 1807. Natural reproduction as source of slaves.
• 1860: Slaves all across south; cotton; sugar, rice, tobacco.

• Slaves moving in gangs hundreds of miles along roads to newly opened plantations were common sights in south. 

9. Plantation Economy

• Mules and slaves as labor.
• Cotton and corn rotations.
• Shovels, hoes, cultivators, harrows, bull tongue plows.
• The Big House and the slave house; cotton gin house.

11. Plowing it Under

• Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), 1934.
• Land deeply plowed in spring.
• After plants appear, bull tongue plows were used to loosen dirt around plants.
• Hoes used around roots.

• A moth larva.
• Not a boll weevil (beetle).
• Problem in 19th century (before the boll weevil).
• Labor intensive management by slaves.

• Black slaves as cotton production labor.
• Cheap, controllable.
• "Pick a bale a day." 250 lbs.

• Task labor
• Individual, intensive
• Fresh lands
• Hills; squares
• Weeds; suckers; tobacco worms
• Slave trade
• Mercantile capitalism
• Luxury crop

• Gang labor
• Factory-like system
• Cotton/Corn rotations
• Row crops
• Cotton boll worms; boll weevil
• Natural reproduction
• Industrial capitalism
• Fiber crop; necessity

• T. W. Wood, 1858.
• Foods for slaves and livestock.
• Wheat, oats, rye, corn.
• Peas planted between rows of corn; harvested, dried, shelled; marketed.
• Cabbages, yams, coarse sweet potatoes.

• Slave way of life.
• One room cabin; dirt floor; glassless window.
• Straw mattresses; rope lashed bed-frames.
• Clothing of osnaburg (coarse cotton); African patterns, kerchiefs.
• Diet of cornmeal, fat pork, molasses.
• Typhoid, malaria, dysentery, infections.

• William Sydney Mount, 1836. 
• Evolution of culture of defiance.

• Nathaniel Jocelyn, artist. 
• 1839 mutiny aboard a Spanish slave ship.
• Noble, strong, exotic.
• Roman toga as clothing.
• Slave culture of defiance.

• David Claypoole Johnston, 1799-1865.
• Whites vs. slaves.
• Wealthy merchant despairs over bees following him.
• Black housekeeper is amused.

• William Sidney Mount, 1845.
• Black woman spearing eels.
• Hunting, fishing for plantation and slave subsistence.

• Typical southerners; 2/3 of southern families did not own slaves.
• Scotch-Irish immigrants.
• Herded cattle and pigs in back woods (antebellum southern herdsman).
• Independent, self-sufficient; not connected to market; raised subsistence surplus for needed items.
• Followed by small yeoman farmers.

• Hilly and mountainous lands cleared for crops.
• Loved the beautiful mountains and wilds.
• Moved on when they could hear sound of another man's axe.
• "Weíve been movin' all our lives. As soon as ever we git comfortably settled, it's time to be off to something new."

• Based on family, church, community.
• Religious and camp meetings.
• House-raisings, logrollings, quilting bees, corn shuckings; work, fun, fellowship.
• Gender division of labor: men farmed; did outdoor work; women helped at harvest.
• Women preserved and prepared food, made clothes, blankets, candles; indoor work, household economy.

• 25% of white population had slaves.
• 88% of southern slaveholders had fewer than 20 slaves; 72% had 10 slaves; 50% had fewer than 5 slaves.
• Paternalism: custodians of welfare of blacks; benevolent guardians; anti-abolition.
• Ambitious; aristocratic; profit-oriented.

• Household managers; subordinate female companions of husbands.
• Daughters attended boarding schools; learned grammar, composition, penmanship; geography; literature; not science and mathematics.
• "Violations of the moral law made mulattoes as common as blackberries."
• 1839, Mississippi gives women some property rights to protect them from husbandsí debts; women gain control.

• In what ways were African Americans trapped within a system of domination and power under slavery?
• In what ways were they able to resist this system and achieve a measure of self-autonomy?