Slavery in the Cotton Kingdom Slavery During

Slavery in the Cotton Kingdom

Slavery

During the American Revolution and the civil war, the North and the South experienced development of different socio-political and cultural environmental conditions. The North became an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse as a result of rise of movements like abolitionism and women's right while the South became a cotton kingdom whose labor was sourced from slavery (Spark notes, 2011).

The distinct feature of cotton kingdom is that her activities were empowered by slave labor. The cotton kingdom thus means a cotton producing region of the United States until the period of civil war.

The reason why slavery spread into the cotton kingdom after revolution is because the tobacco income plummeted as white setters from Virginia and Carolinas forcing the original Native Americans inhabitants farther and farther west where they established plantations. The wide spread use of the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, made these cotton plantations more efficient and profitable. Around 1820, slavery was concentrated in tobacco growing areas of Virginia, Kentucky along coastal region of South Carolina and Northern Georgia and in 1860s it spread deep in the South (Alabama, Texas, Louisiana) following the spread of cotton.

Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S. produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton-based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive as compared to capital-intensive means of production powered by advanced technology.

With time, the South remained rural and agrarian while the North became industrialized. The soil in the North became poor to support agriculture and therefore immigrants favored the development of manufacturing industries. Though these factories were used power from waterways to run mills, the industrial sector was also highly dependent on slaves hence the industrial slavery.

On the other hand, the introduction of cotton in the South required large number of field hands in picking of cotton and planting and harvesting rice, tobacco, and sugarcane. This was occupational distribution of slaves hence the agricultural slave labor. Wiley,(2011).

In large scale plantations, slavery was viewed as an economic institution. A small percentage of slaves were domestic servants, working in a planter's main residential house as cooks, nursemaids, seamstresses, and coachmen. Another group of slaves worked as carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths. There were no special slaves who would be preferred to provide labor in factory mills and skilled artisans would be hired out to other plantations.

On a normal day, the planter had no contact with slaves except those working in his house. The work of domestic slaves was supervised by the planter's wife who also maintained the domestic accounts and therefore they experienced slightly low difficulties as compared to skilled slaves since the skilled slaves would be hired out to other plantations. This made them to provide double income for their master's out their work as skilled and also income from their hire, but when also compared to the field hands they better off since they received better treatment than the field hands, that is, those slaves working out in a plantation field.

Virginian luxuries

Eric Foner,(2008) literature on the master and the mistress, describes the artistical works of unknown American artist who produced an arresting painting titled " Virginian Luxuries." This picture shows a slave owner exercising power over human and property. On this picture the white man raises his whip up high to whip a black man's bare back. It also shows the white man again making attempts to lasciviously caress a black woman.

The picture further suggests that the voice of the enslaved black was silenced by the fact that they were black. The whites held strong views of racial superiority and never allowed the black population to be free as they would compete with them for decent living. On the other hand, black women had no say to their bodies and were thus subjected to rape, sexual coercions while men deprived of their sexual rights as husbands. The sexual harassment and beatings deprived the black of rights and this deprived humanity out of the enslaved black community. This shows that their relationship was that of master and a slave, nothing more or less.

Family structures and way of life

While the southern women were expected to be models of virtue, the men were free from such standards. In effect, the women experienced disappointments and unending humiliation. There was no law that protected the slaves from sexual exploitations like rape by their masters nor did the white men face any social consequences as a result of inhumane actions.

Subjection to hard physical labor, corporal punishment, un-balanced diet, devastating and intolerable poor living conditions contributed to very high infant mortality. At least 20% of the slave children died before the age of five. In effect the slave community had a lower life expectancy and this also deprived slave women of their role to be mothers.