Maturation of the Plantation System 17761860 essays

Maturation of the Plantation System 17761860 essays In the essay, Maturation of the Plantation System 1776-1860, John B. Boles writes about the evolution of the Southern way of life from the end of the Revolutionary war to the beginning of the Civil war. Unlike the North, the South depended on agricultural products for revenue such as sugar, indigo, and tobacco, but mainly cotton in the later years. In order to produce these products, the plantation owners of the South used the cheapest labor available, which was slave labor. Slavery evolved to become the backbone of the South. Slavery was upheld in the early stages of the United States because Southern slaveholders referred to their slaves as property. Slaves realized that all men arent created equal as stated in the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. Freedom was only a dream. Slavery increased because of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 that doubled the size of the United States. In 1810, the Census reported that there were 1,163,854 slaves in the South, mainly due to the growing production of cotton and sugar. England first realized the potential of black slaves when in 1775, Lord Dunmore granted freedom to all indented servants, Negroes, or others...(83). Southern whites did not like this proposition and they took emergency militia and police action to prevent a slave exodus to the British side. By 1777, the need for men forced the English and Colonials to rely on the use of black troops. However, although some blacks did fight side by side with their white counterparts, the majority of black involvement in the war was in a supporting role as cooks, wagoneers, and servants. After the war, there was an industrial revolution in the production of cotton cloth in England. Several species of cotton were known in the South before the revolution, but it was not easy to produce. However, with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, the production of cotton in the...