American History: A Survey (Brinkley), 13th Edition

Chapter 11: COTTON, SLAVERY, AND THE OLD SOUTH

Main themes of Chapter Eleven:

• The effect of short-staple cotton's rise on the economic development of the South, and the impact this enthroning of "King Cotton" had on subsequent Southern social and political development



• The class and gender dynamics of Southern white society, in both myth and reality



• The character of the different varieties of the South's "peculiar institution," and African-Americans' various forms of resistance to it



• The separate culture of African-American slavery, and how it manifested itself in religion, music, language, and family life

• The expansion of short-staple cotton throughout the South, and the role it played in shaping the "Southern way of life"



• The workings of trade and industry under the Southern agricultural system



• The structure and founding myths of Southern plantation society, and the role enslaved people played in that society



• The cultural and political practices and beliefs of the non-elite, non-slaveholding white population



• The forms of active and passive resistance African-Americans engaged in to combat slavery in the South



• The culture of African-American slavery, as expressed through religion, music, language, and family life



• The continuing historical debate over the South, its "peculiar institution," and the effects of enslavement on the blacks