AP US History AMSCO Guided Notes
4.13: Southern Society in the Early Republic
AMSCO Guided Notes
AP US History Guided Notes
AMSCO 4.13 - Southern Society in the Early Republic
Learning Objectives
- Explain how geographic and environmental factors shaped the development of the South from 1800 to 1848.
I. Agriculture and King Cotton
1. What role did agriculture play in the Southern economy and what was the region's primary cash crop?
2. How did Eli Whitney's cotton gin and British textile mills transform cotton production and trade?
3. Why did cotton planters continuously move westward and what economic relationship did this create with Great Britain?
II. Slavery, the "Peculiar Institution"
1. Why did White southerners use the term "peculiar institution" to describe slavery?
A. Population
1. How did the enslaved population change between 1800 and 1860 and what caused this increase?
2. What restrictions did southern legislatures add to slave codes and why did they do so?
B. Economics
1. What types of work did enslaved people perform in the South?
2. How did the internal slave trade between the Upper South and Deep South reflect economic changes in cotton production?
3. How did the heavy capital investment in slavery affect the South's ability to industrialize compared to the North?
III. White Society
A. Aristocracy
1. What defined membership in the planter aristocracy and how did they maintain their power?
B. Farmers
1. How did the majority of slaveholders differ from the planter aristocracy in terms of land and enslaved people owned?
C. Southern Farmers
1. What percentage of White households in the South owned no enslaved people and what was their economic situation?
2. Why did poor White farmers support slavery despite not owning enslaved people?
D. Mountain People
1. How did mountain people differ from other White southerners in their views on slavery and planters?
E. Cities
1. What was the largest city in the South and how did the region's urbanization compare to the North?
F. Code of Chivalry
1. What values and behaviors defined the code of chivalry practiced by southern gentlemen?
G. Education
1. What educational opportunities were available to different social classes in the South and what restrictions applied to enslaved people?
H. Religion
1. How did the slavery question affect religious denominations in the South?
2. Which churches gained members in the South and which faced declining membership, and why?
I. Social Reform
1. Why did the antebellum reform movement have little impact in the South compared to the North?
2. How did southerners view northern social reform movements and what did they see as a threat to their way of life?
IV. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: WHAT WAS THE NATURE OF SLAVERY?
A. Features of Slavery
1. How did Ulrich B. Phillips's portrayal of slavery differ from later historical scholarship?
2. What did Kenneth Stampp and Conrad and Meyers argue about slavery's profitability and its future?
B. Slavery's Impact on Black Culture
1. How did Stanley Elkins and Eugene Genovese disagree about the development of African American culture under slavery?
2. What have recent scholars revealed about how enslaved people created culture and resisted their condition?
Key Terms
planters
code of chivalry
hillbillies
mountain people
Deep South
King Cotton
Eli Whitney
peculiar institution
slave codes