History 103 *** AMERICAN HISTORY TO 1877 *** Nov. 11, 1996

THE SOUTH: A SEPARATE CIVILIZATION?

I. Alexis de Tocqueville's Perspective on Sectional Differences

II. Rise of King Cotton

• Staple agriculture and slavery to 1800
• Eli Whitney's cotton gin (1793)
• Expansion of cotton agriculture
• Economic growth without development

III. Social Order of the Old South

• Caste divisions: free/slave, white/black
• Planter aristocracy and paternalism
• Slaveholding middle class and "gospel of prosperity"
• Yeomen and poor whites

IV. The Proslavery Argument

• "Herrenvolk democracy" and racism's appeal
• Benefits claimed for slavery over free (wage) labor

V. Slave Culture and Community

• Scholarly controversy over Stanley Elkins' thesis
• Demographic evidence
• African-American Christianity
• Slave family
• Day-to-day resistance

VI. Major Slave Revolts

• Gabriel's Rebellion (1800)
• Revolt in St. John the Baptist Parish (1811)
• Denmark Vesey's Conspiracy (1822)
• Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831) and its consequences