ECONOMICSTransportation

Beginnings of Industrialization

Slaves and the Plantation Economy

Economic Nationalism

Def. :Protecting the economic interests of America

Examples: Government subsidized internal

improvements (roads/canals) Tariffs or taxes on imported goods (First in

1816) Designed to protect American manufacturers Early on New England didn’t support,

South/West did. It would soon reverse

Henry Clay’s American System 1. Protective Tariffs

Promote manufacturing, a benefit to the East and help w/ 3.

2. A National Bank Provide a national currency

3. Internal Improvements Promote growth in the West and South

Panic of 1819

Fault of Bank of the United States Many banks failed Money became deflated High unemployment Most severe in the west where banks

foreclosed on land speculators

Transportation

Network for people, materials, and manufactured goods

Roads Lancaster Turnpike: 1790s, connected Philly

and farms Simulated other short, private, toll roads Highways that crossed state lines were

unusual Exception: Cumberland Road, over a thousand

miles from Maryland to Illinois.

Transportation cont’d

Canals Erie Canal in 1825

Linked farms and cities By 1835 all major lakes and rivers east of

the Mississippi were linked Effects:

Lower food prices in the East More immigrants in the West Stronger economic ties

Transportation cont’d

Steamboats 1807: The Clermont : Robert Fulton Made round trip shipping on rivers faster

and cheaper Railroads

First in the late 1820s Hampered by safety problems Competed with canals Helped grow small towns into commercial

centers Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago

Industrialization

Very little manufacturing in early 1800s By 1850 manufacturing was more

valuable than agriculture By 1900, the US lead the world in

manufacturing

Industrialization Factors

Inventions Eli Whitney

Cotton Gin 1793 Interchangeable parts for rifles

Became the basis for mass production in factories

Corporations 1811 NY law said a business could

incorporate, make money by selling stock Allowed businesses to raise large amounts to

build factories, transportation improvements, etc.

Industrialization Factors, cont’d Factory System

Samuel Slater Steals British spinning techniques Establishes first factory in 1791

Embargo and War stimulate US manufacturing New England becomes leader

Waterpower and seaports Decline of shipbuilding and farming NY, NJ, and PA follow

Encourages growth of financial business: banking, insurance

Industrialization Factors, cont’d

Labor Problem finding workers Lowell, Massachusetts

Young farm girls lived and worked in textile mills

“Lowell System” imitated Child labor

As young as 7 Immigrants not a factor early,

would be later on

Industrialization Factors cont’d Unions

Craft unions as early as 1790s Long hours, low pay, bad conditions Main goal was to reduce workday to 10

hours Hampered by:

Immigrants Laws Depression/High Unemployment

Plantation Economy

Agriculture = Southern economy 1850s factories were producing only15%

of country’s man. goods Mechanized textile mills + cotton gin

made cotton king Britain produced most of the world’s

cloth U.S South provided most of Britain’s cotton

Plantation Economy, cont’d

Originally only in South Carolina and Georgia Demand makes

planters move west

High yields meant soil was quickly depleted

By 1850s, cotton was 2/3 of all U.S. exports

Slavery, the “Peculiar Institution”

Land and Slaves were wealth Colonial times, slaves were economic necessity By 19th century historical and religious arguments were used

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  … You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  (Leviticus 25:44-45 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.  (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

 Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

Slaves – Population

Cotton boom leads to slave boom 1,000 Tons/Year in 1790 1,000,000 Tons/Year in 1860

500,000 slaves in 1790 4 million slaves in 1860 1808 slave importation was outlawed,

but smuggling continued Deep south, slaves were as much as

75% of population Tight control was needed

United States Labor Force, 1800-1860 (in thousands)

Year Free Slave Total1800 1,330 530 18601810 1,590 740 2,3301820 2,185 950 3,1351830 3,020 1,180 4,2001840 4,180 1,480 5,6601850 6,280 1,970 8,2501860 8,770 2,340 11,110

Slaves - Economics

Majority in fields Some learned skills, served in the

house, worked in factories, or construction

Greater profits in the West, many were sold “down the river” to the Deep South

By 1860 a field slave was worth $2000 ($47,188.48 in 2009 dollars)

Slave investment meant less $ for industrialization

Slaves - Life

Treatment varied Many families broken up Women vulnerable to sexual abuse Many clung to family/fellow slaves and religion “They say slaves are happy, because they laugh, and are

merry. I myself and three or four others, have received two hundred lashes in the day, and had our feet in fetters; yet, at night, we would sing and dance, and make others laugh at the rattling of our chains. Happy men we must have been! We did it to keep down trouble, and to keep our hearts from being completely broken: that is as true as the gospel! Just look at it,-must not we have been very happy?” - John Little, a former slave

Slaves – Life, cont’d

A typical plantation, between 1850 and 1855. 31 Died, 4 after 60, 4 after

50, 7 after 40, 7 after 20, 9 before 5

Barrow plantation in LA (200 slave) In 2 years: 160 whippings

administered, an average of .7 whippings per slave per year. Once every four or five days, some slave was whipped.

Slaves - Resistance

Gabriel Prosser, 1800 Denmark Vesey (Free), 1822

Plan to burn Charleston, SC, initiate a general revolt of slaves in the area. Made about 250 pike heads and bayonets and over three hundred daggers. Plan was betrayed, and thirty-five, including Vesey, were hanged.

Trial record was ordered destroyed, too dangerous for slaves to see.

Nat Turner, 1831 In VA, Turner, claiming religious visions, gathered 70 slaves, went

on a rampage, murdering at least fifty-five men, women, and children. They gathered supporters, but were captured as their ammunition ran out. Turner and perhaps eighteen others were hanged.

Quickly and violently suppressed Gave hope, demonstrated the evils of slavery,

tightened slave codes.

Slaves – Abolitionists in the North Free blacks in the North agitated for the

abolition of slavery. 1829, David Walker

son of a slave, but born in NC He wrote and printed, Walker's Appeal

Infuriated southern slaveholders GA offered $10,000 for Walker alive, $1,000

dead.

Walker’s Appeal Quotes (no notes) "... show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on

which a verse can he found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family."

"I would wish, candidly ... to be understood, that I would not give a pinch of snuff to be married to any white person I ever saw in all the days of my life."

“God has been pleased to give us two eyes, two hands, two feet, and some sense in our heads as well as they. They have no more right to hold us in slavery than we have to hold them... . Our sufferings will come to an end, in spite of all the Americans this side of eternity. Then we will want all the learning and talents among ourselves, and perhaps more, to govern ourselves.-"Every dog must have its day," the American's is coming to an end. “

One summer day in 1830, David Walker was found dead near the doorway of his shop in Boston.

Frederick Douglass

A slave sent to work as a servant and as a laborer in the shipyard, somehow learned to read and write

At 21, in 1838, escaped to the North,

Became the most famous black man of his time

A lecturer, newspaper editor, writer.

Autobiography of Frederick Douglass (No Notes)

“Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves, and others masters? Was there ever a time when this was not so? How did the relation commence? Once, however, engaged in the inquiry, I was not very long in finding out the true solution of the matter. It was not color, but crime, not God, but man, that afforded the true explanation of the existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important truth, viz: what man can make, man can unmake. .. .”