How Slavery Divided The North And The South

The Way Slavery Divided the North and the South When the first African slaves were brought to the Northern colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, slavery began in America. Slavery thrived in the South because of the production of such lucrative crops as tobacco and cotton. Most landowners highly depended on slaves to keep their farm going. This put out a high demand for slaves that only kept growing. However, the plantations of the South depended on slaves much more than the industrialized North. The existence of slavery greatly shaped the entire social structure and culture of the South, as well as controversy between the North. The use of African slaves was portrayed as a cheaper, more plentiful source of labor than indentured servants,

To some extent, the defining factor of slavery for Northern and Southern states was the climate. Northern states had more temperate climates with four individual seasons. That is why most industrial work was done indoors, so it would not be affected easily by constant changing weather. In the more agricultural South, where most work was done outside, the weather was more humid and hot. Many whites could not handle the working conditions, which led to using slaves, which also required no wages for their labor. The need for more slaves after the switch from tobacco to cotton perpetuated an economic battle between the North and the South. Even though the Northern states utilized the raw materials from the South, in trying to deny the South slavery, the North could gain an economic advantage over the Southern States. Between 1774 and 1804, the Northern states abolished slavery. However, the “peculiar institution” remained vital in the South. The “peculiar institution” is a euphemism for slavery and its economic ramifications in the South. The United States prohibited the African Slave Trade in 1808, but the domestic trade continued. The slave population then nearly tripled over the next fifty years and by 1860 it had reached nearly four million, while more than half of the slaves living in the cotton-producing Southern states. Slaves made up one-third of the population in the South.

The movement gained strength from the Northern states and was led by free blacks and white supporters. Many abolitionists based their reason for trying to end slavery on the belief that slaveholding was a sin, but others were more inclined to the non-religious “free-labor” argument. They believed that slaveholding was regressive, inefficient, and made little economic sense. Several antislavery northerners and free blacks began helping fugitive slaves escape from their plantations to freedom in the North. They used a loose network of safe houses, which also became known as the Underground Railroad. This act to free slaves was estimated to helping anywhere from forty thousand to one-hundred thousand slaves reach freedom. This helped spread abolitionist feelings throughout the North, while also convincing pro-slavery southerners of the northerner’s determination to defeat the slave upholding’s in the South. As America began to grow and acquire more land the conflict over slavery grew. Missouri’s application for statehood ended in a compromise, Missouri was admitted as a slave state, and Maine was free and all western territories north of Missouri’s southern border were free soil. However, the Missouri Compromise was only a temporary plan to maintain an even balance between slave and free states. When the America’s won new territories after the Mexican War, the Kansas- Nebraska Act opened the new