1301.11a - Slave Economics and Southern Free Society

The Southern Economy and Cotton00:00:00

The lecture introduces the defining characteristic of slavery in early America. It explains that the Southern economy was agriculturally based and self-sufficient in food, focusing on cash crops like tobacco and rice. Cotton supplanted tobacco as the primary cash crop after the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. While Whitney intended to reduce the need for slave labor, the machine instead catalyzed the expansion of slavery, with U.S. cotton exports jumping from 72 million pounds in 1815 to 2 billion pounds by 1859. The South primarily exported raw cotton to Britain and the North, as it lacked the textile mills to process it into finished goods.

Southern Free Society00:07:52

The focus shifts to the free population of the South, which made up 55 to 60 percent of the total population. Social stratification included slave owners (10-15% of Southerners), with large plantation owners representing the ultra-wealthy top 1-5%. Non-slave owning whites comprised 35-40% of the population, mostly small sustenance farmers. Free blacks, about 1% of the population, lived mainly in cities like Baltimore and Washington DC. The segment concludes by discussing Black Codes, discriminatory laws that limited the rights of free people of color, including denying voting rights and citizenship privileges.