UNDERSTANDING THE SLAVE SOUTH

Printed Page 358

Printed Page 358

13

UNDERSTANDING THE SLAVE SOUTH

1820–1860

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> How did slavery shape the institutions and values of the antebellum South? Chapter 13 explores the emergence and development of a distinctive slave society in the American South. It examines the causes and consequences of the divergence of North and South, the social world of the plantation, and the lives of nonslaveholding whites and free blacks. Finally, it assesses the impact of slavery on southern politics.

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Figure false: Slave quarter. This early photograph depicts a slave family in Savannah, Georgia, ca. 1860. Collection of the New-York Historical Society.

> Why did the South become so distinctly different from the North?

> What was plantation life like for masters and mistresses?

> What was plantation life like for slaves?

> How did nonslaveholding southern whites work and live?

> What place did free blacks occupy in the South?

> How did slavery shape southern politics?

> Conclusion: How did slavery come to define the South?