12 The South Expands: Slavery and Society

1800–1860

There was no unified South; the region was a complex patchwork of distinctive populations. Yet the South was united by the existence of slavery, which marked its politics, economics, and social relations. Over the period from 1800 to the eve of the Civil War, southerners became increasingly tethered to the economics of slavery. Planters moved in search of arable land to maximize their investment in human property. They enforced a discipline upon enslaved African Americans to control their lives, but fancied themselves to be good masters overseeing a servile race, otherwise destined for barbarism. Of course, African Americans experienced slavery from the other end of the whip. The brutalities they faced were not limited to the punishing physical violence many bore, but included the emotional and psychological toll mothers faced when their children and husbands were sold away from them. Still, African Americans drew on remarkable reserves to endure and survive. The South that careened toward war was the product of these diverse populations, acting and reacting within a context of slavery.