American Slavery as it was.

2017-09-27

Washington and Jefferson

Ruth Bonner

The Big Questions about Slavery

  1. How central was it to the economic development of the United States as a whole?
  2. Was slavery fundamentally pre-modern, or modern and capitalist?
  3. What is the right way to talk about the fact of slavery and its legacies? Can slavery be reduced to its economic impact?
  4. How did the experience of slavery, for blacks and whites, shape their ideas about freedom?

The old Slavery and the new Slavery

Washington and Jefferson

Tobacco

Gradual Abolition



Congolese man called "Renty," 1850

Sugar plantations

Cotton becomes King

Age of Homespun

Shopping in 1809

Cotton Mills



Mills in Lowell

Francis Cabot Lowell

Waltham, Mass

Eli Whitney's Cotton gin

Slave Market, Atlanta

Isaac Jefferson

James Hammond

would any sane nation make war on cotton?   Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. … What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years?   I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain:  England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South.   No, you dare not make war on cotton.   No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king.

Frontline

Runaway ads

Handout:

  • What kind of document is this? How is it organized? What did it take to build it?
  • What evidence of slavery does it give us? Can you build out a story from any of thes?
  • What questions does it raise that you don't know how to answer?