Domestic Slave Trade in the Deep South

10 Questions

The concentration of wealth among a small number of plantation owners

Fewer white households owned enslaved people in 1860 than in 1840

The belief in white supremacy shared by both poor and wealthy whites

The fear of slave uprisings and rebellions

The majority of white households in the South owned large numbers of enslaved people

To meet the demand for enslaved laborers in the Deep South cotton industry

To motivate slaves to be more obedient, as the conditions of slavery were worse farther south

It provided many economic opportunities for white men in the Upper South

It resulted in the forced migration of over half a million enslaved laborers from the Upper South to the Deep South

It led to Americans continuing to smuggle Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to meet the demand for enslaved labor

Study Notes

The South prospered due to enslaved people producing a substantial portion of the nation's wealth, but wealth was very unequally distributed.
Upward social mobility did not exist for the millions of enslaved people.
Poor southern whites envisioned owning enslaved laborers of their own, but only three percent of white people owned more than 50 enslaved people by 1860.

By 1860, there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley than anywhere else in the United States.
However, two-thirds of white households in the South did not own any slaves at all.
Distribution of wealth became more and more concentrated at the top, with fewer white people owning enslaved laborers in 1860 than in 1840.

Non-slaveholding white people, including yeoman farmers, shared a common set of values with white planters, notably a belief in white supremacy.
Whites, whether rich or poor, were bound together by racism, defusing class tensions among whites.
The institution of race-based slavery created a sense of unity among whites, regardless of their economic status.

The domestic slave trade supplied the necessary labor force for the cotton boom in the Deep South.
Although Congress abolished the foreign slave trade in 1808, Americans continued to smuggle Africans across the Atlantic Ocean.
The domestic slave trade offered many economic opportunities for white men, with over half a million enslaved laborers sold from Virginia between 1790 and 1859.

The phrase "to be sold down the river" refers to the forced migration of enslaved laborers from the upper southern states to the Deep South, where conditions were harsher and chances of escape were lower.
This forced migration made up one of the largest forced internal migrations in the United States.
Slaveholders in the Upper South wielded the notion of being "sold down the river" as a threat to keep their slaves in line.

10 Questions