Life+in+the+South

toc = = =Life in the South (1790-1860)=

[[image:http://politic.ology.com/files/2008/10/thomas-jefferson.jpg width="190" height="258" align="left" caption="http://politic.ology.com/files/ 2008/10/thomas-jefferson.jpg"]]Jeffersonian Democracy
Took on the idea of an agrarian society with the yeoman farmer as the common man. Saw the debut of the infamous War Hawks John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay. Most influential moment for the South was the Missouri Compromise which admitted Missouri as a slave state only with the admittance of northern Massachusetts, Maine, as well as a free state. Allowed for an equal balance between the North (free) and South (slave).

Jacksonian Democracy
Continued with the idea of the common man. Federal government imposes the Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations, which aids the Northern economy but hurts the Southern economy. John C. Calhoun advises his home state of South Carolina to nullify the law. Once Congress adds on to the tariff with the Tariff of 1932 South Carolina declares that they will not acknowledge the new tariff and threaten to secede from the Union if Jackson enforces the tax collection. Jackson sends in federal troops to collect their taxes and South Carolina doesn't secede from the Union. Removal of Native Americans from Georgia along the Trail of Tears.

Yeoman Farmers
Small farmers who owned their own farms and lived Thomas Jefferson's ideal agrarian life style. Yeoman farmers were not self sufficient on their own, but as a community they were all able to provide for each other. Bought and sold goods within the community to stimulate the economy.

Plantations and Slave Labor
Plantation owners were the highest people in Southern society. Large plantations had up to 200 slaves. Slave labor drove the economy and helped with harvesting and producing crops. The crop of the South was cotton due to Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin which allowed for a large reduction in the amount of labor and time needed to harvest cotton. The new arrival of cotton from the South aided textile factories in the North to grow and stimulate both economies during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Second Great Awakening
Revivalism occurred in response to the Enlightenment that inspired great thinkers of the late eighteenth century. Preachers would have revivalist camps where people from around the country would attend to be converted. Some people got really into the converting and they would shake, shout, and bark in reaction to this excitement. Christian evangelism spread during this point in time and the church is reimmersed into the White South.

African-American Christianity
Plantation owners were so moved by the Second Great Awakening that they believed they should be "kinder" to their slaves. They did so by giving them Sunday off as a Christian rest day and even brought in preachers to teach their slaves about Christianity. Large growth in African-American churches and Christian African-Americans.

Social Hierarchy
Wealthy plantation owners who owned around 100 slaves and up were at the forefront of Southern society controlling state legislatures and representing the South in Congress. On the next rung down were the landowning subsistence "yeoman" farmers who had typically less than five family slaves. Following the yeoman farmers were landless white people who worked on the land of richer whites. And at the bottom of society were the black slaves who held up society.

Slavery
Male slaves did the tougher jobs that required more strength such as plowing, mowing, sowing and carting goods whereas women took on tasks that required less strength such as clothes making, sewing, candle mowing, and some farm work.

Reform Movements
The Great Awakening fueled many new desires within Northerners and Southerners to help fix and improve society. Abolition was one of the strongest reform movements that introduced abolitionists such as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyed Garrison, among many more. These abolotionists fought slavery through leading slaves across the Underground Railroad, speaking out against slavery, and writing about emancipation. The temperance movement also gained lots of strength and was mainly backed by wives who were tired of seeing their husbands waste their money and spend all their nights drinking. The women's rights movement also had a lot of support in the antebellum time period just not from the people of the South.

[[image:http://www.gardenofpraise.com/images/rocky.jpg align="right" caption="http://www.gardenofpraise.com/images/rocky.jpg"]]Romanticism
Literary and artistic movement that appealed towards feeling and emotion. Romantic writers such as Louisa May Alcott stressed feeling and emotions in their stories whereas Dark Romantics such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne provided a critical view of American society. This newfound writing style opposed the rationale found in the Enlightenment. The arts of the Romanticism period focused on landscape paintings, lithographs, and other new aesthetic art forms.