Deck 10: The South and Slavery

Question 1

By 1860, America's largest single export was __________.

A) tobacco
B) cotton
C) slaves
D) rice

Answer 1

cotton

Question 2

Slave marriages __________.

A) were expressly forbidden by most slave owners
B) were considered legal in most southern states
C) were encouraged by most owners
D) had little chance to survive

Answer 2

were encouraged by most owners

Question 3

By the early 1800s, the South __________.

A) had become a slave society
B) was a society with slaves
C) had begun to question the morality of slavery
D) depended less on slavery than during the colonial period

Answer 3

had become a slave society

Question 4

Before universal manhood suffrage became more common in the 1820s, Southern politics was largely controlled by __________.

A) the slave-owning elite
B) southern land speculators
C) the professional class
D) the small slave owners

Question 5

In the mid-nineteenth century, what percentage of all slaves worked as field hands?

A) 35 percent
B) 50 percent
C) 60 percent
D) 75 percent

Question 6

Of all the New World slave societies, the one that existed in the South was the only one that __________.

A) grew by natural increase
B) freed the children of slaves
C) imported its slaves from Africa
D) never had a slave rebellion

Question 7

Which of these best explains the rapid growth of the slave population in the American South relative to other nineteenth-century New World slave societies?

A) higher fertility of enslaved African American women
B) better food given to African American slaves
C) greater number of slaves imported from Africa
D) better housing provided to African American slaves

Question 8

The most important export crops of the American colonial period were __________.

A) sugar, rice, and tobacco
B) indigo, sugar, and sorghum
C) cotton, tobacco, and rice
D) tobacco, rice, and indigo

Question 9

The evangelical religion that spread after the Second Great Awakening __________.

A) was used by whites as a means of social control over the slaves
B) was accepted wholeheartedly by the slaves
C) replaced African religions
D) encouraged many blacks to rebel

Question 10

Religion in the slave community __________.

A) encouraged many slave rebellions
B) counted for little in the slaves' daily lives
C) was based entirely upon the slaves' African tribal traditions
D) combined African tribal traditions with evangelical Protestantism

Question 11

A common defense of the institution of slavery by slave owners was that __________.

A) slaves were treated better than northern industrial workers
B) slaves were becoming Christianized and thus their souls would be saved
C) slave children played with white children
D) slaves lived better on southern plantations than the natives in Africa

Question 12

Following the "Alabama Fever" of 1816-1820, several later surges of southern expansion carried cotton planting into __________.

A) Georgia
B) Texas
C) Kentucky
D) South Carolina

Question 13

The failure of the South to industrialize in the nineteenth century is best explained by __________.

A) northern opposition
B) a shortage of labor
C) culture and tradition
D) Southerners choosing to depend on "King Cotton"

Question 14

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the American economy __________.

A) benefited greatly from the connection between southern slavery and northern industry
B) suffered because of the South's slave system
C) depended primarily on northern industrial production
D) depended primarily on profits from slave-grown cotton

Question 15

African religions managed to survive from the earliest days of slavery in forms that white people saw as __________.

A) superstitions
B) heretical forms of Christianity
C) dangerous
D) profound and moving

Question 16

One reason for the persistence of slavery in the South was that __________.

A) a child born of a slave was legally a slave
B) the international slave trade grew rapidly after 1808
C) free blacks were seized and enslaved
D) Indian slaves replaced black slaves after 1808

Question 17

Samuel Townes's failure as a cotton planter in Alabama in the 1830s demonstrates __________.

A) New England's stranglehold on the cotton market
B) the undeveloped state of community among cotton planters
C) the constant danger of slave rebellion
D) his lack of experience in the cotton business

Question 18

One of the most noteworthy features of the slave community in the American South was __________.

A) its acceptance of white paternalism within its own social structure
B) its refusal to incorporate Christian religious practices
C) its animosity toward free African Americans
D) the expanded kinship network that developed within it

Question 19

Prior to the Civil War, what fraction of white families owned slaves?

A) one-tenth
B) one-third
C) two-fifths
D) two-thirds

Question 20

The largest group of slave owners was composed of __________.

A) small yeoman farmers
B) urban industrialists
C) poor white tenant farmers
D) rich plantation owners

Question 21

One of the most common violations of the southern paternalistic code of behavior was __________.

A) plantation mistress cruelty to house servants
B) sexual abuse of female slaves by their masters
C) economic fraud against slaves
D) defiance of their husbands by plantation mistresses

Question 22

To what does the phrase "black belt" specifically refer in the South?

A) areas of greatest slave population
B) centers of large plantations
C) law codes that restricted free blacks
D) an area of fertile soil in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi

Question 23

Hinton Rowan Helper's The Impending Crisis (1857) was __________.

A) an attack on northern abolitionists and manufacturers
B) an attack on slavery by a native Southerner
C) an attack on slavery by a northern abolitionist
D) a protest against the congressional "gag rule"

Question 24

Southerners blamed Denmark Vesey's conspiracy on __________.

A) the invention of the cotton gin
B) the publication of the Liberator
C) the Missouri Compromise crisis
D) British abolition of slavery in the West Indies

Question 25

A major reason for the reduction in the number of slave owners in the South prior to the Civil War was __________.

A) the rapidly increasing price of slaves
B) an increasing mortality rate
C) a rapid decline in slave birthrates
D) the abolition of slave markets in the United States

Question 26

George Fitzhugh defended slavery, claiming __________.

A) it was justified by the Bible
B) slaves were better off than northern "wage slaves"
C) the Constitution explicitly protected slavery
D) might makes right

Question 27

The planter elite consciously worked to create a lifestyle that resembled the __________.

A) French aristocracy
B) Creole aristocracy
C) English aristocracy
D) newly rich in the North

Question 28

In an effort to control its African American population, Charleston city officials __________.

A) enslaved free blacks
B) made blacks wear badges
C) banned the migration of blacks from the countryside to the city
D) required all blacks to join white churches

Question 29

The U.S. Constitution __________.

A) explicitly legalizes slavery
B) refers to slavery in three places, but only indirectly
C) ignores the issue of slavery altogether
D) gives Congress the power to regulate slavery in the states

Question 30

Southern apologists for slavery linked slave uprisings to __________.

A) northern antislavery opinion
B) the Second Great Awakening
C) operation of the Underground Railroad
D) free blacks in the North and South

Question 31

In the eighteenth century, __________ ships dominated the slave trade between Africa and British North America.

A) Mid-Atlantic
B) southern
C) New England
D) English

Question 32

Denmark Vesey was to South Carolina as Nat Turner was to __________.

A) Louisiana
B) Mississippi
C) Virginia
D) Georgia

Question 33

Although free blacks in the North could not, many blacks in the South, both free and slave, worked __________.

A) in professions such as medicine and law
B) in skilled trades such as carpentering and blacksmithing
C) as butlers and valets
D) in domestic service

Question 34

In 1850, what percentage of all slaves were engaged in cotton growing?

A) 25 percent
B) 35 percent
C) 40 percent
D) 55 percent

Question 35

The expansion of slavery in the Old Southwest was directly linked to __________.

A) the expansion of cotton production
B) the growth of a diverse economy
C) rapid urbanization
D) the international slave trade

Question 36

What conclusion can be made about life expectancy in the South before 1850?

A) Both whites and slaves had shorter life expectancies than in other regions due to disease, although slaves lived longer than their masters.
B) Both whites and slaves had shorter life expectancies than in other regions due to disease, although whites lived longer than their slaves.
C) The death rate for slave children under the age of five was lower than for that of their white counterparts.
D) Slaves had longer-than-average life expectancies due to the adequate diets, warm housing, and basic sanitation needs provided by their masters.

Question 37

The United States ended its participation in the international slave trade in __________.

A) 1800
B) 1808
C) 1820
D) 1825

Question 38

Of the 12 million people who lived in the South in 1860, how many were slaves?

A) 1 million
B) 3 million
C) 4 million
D) 6 million

Question 39

Georgian Robert Smith, who owned 11 slaves and 800 acres, was an example of a __________.

A) small yeoman farmer
B) skilled African American worker
C) large planter
D) southern abolitionist

Question 40

The first slave rebel to kill a large number of white people was __________.

A) Gabriel Prosser
B) Nat Turner
C) Denmark Vesey
D) Harriet Tubman

Question 41

What did the Constitution have to say about slavery? Did the literal language of the Constitution justify Southerners' confidence in the legality of slavery?

Question 42

Southerners found justifications for slavery in __________.

A) the Bible
B) English law
C) European public opinion
D) the writings of George Washington

Question 43

In 1794, Reverend Absalom Jones and Reverend Richard Allen founded the first African American Baptist and Methodist churches in the city of __________.

A) Boston
B) Philadelphia
C) Atlanta
D) Charleston

Question 44

Discuss the mythology and reality of the South and slavery.

Question 45

How did the cotton gin impact the growth of American slavery in the first decade after its invention?

A) Nearly 75,000 new slaves, the highest ever in one decade, were imported from Africa before the international slave trade was banned in 1808.
B) Northern states repealed laws that either abolished slavery or gradually emancipated slaves so that these states could profit economically from slave labor.
C) Southerners invested large amounts of capital in railroads and canals that made it easier to transport large numbers of slaves from the Upper South to the expanding black belt in western Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
D) The slave population in all parts of the South declined significantly as the cotton gin made it easier to prepare cotton for sale.

Question 46

How did the cotton gin affect the plantation economy?

A) By making it possible to clean 50 pounds of cotton in a day, the cotton gin made cotton profitable.
B) Since only the wealthiest planters could afford a cotton gin, fewer farmers grew cotton.
C) Planters needed fewer slaves for their plantations.
D) Planters in Virginia became the biggest cotton producers.

Question 47

Discuss the connection between southern slavery and the northern economy.

Question 48

Which of these was a consequence of the settlement of the Old Southwest in the early nineteenth century?

A) a lull in the expansion of slavery
B) the forced migration of Indian peoples
C) the Great Awakening
D) the strengthening of the white southern family

Question 49

Which of these fostered the growth of slave communities in the early nineteenth century?

A) new federal legislation governing slave ownership
B) the growing number of slaves imported from Africa
C) a rapid reduction in the number of manumitted slaves
D) the size of cotton plantations

Question 50

The planter ideology presented the male master as a __________.

A) father figure
B) king or emperor
C) corporate executive
D) factory supervisor

Question 51

Who grew the great export crops of the colonial period?

A) African American slaves
B) white indentured servants
C) Irish immigrants
D) small New England farmers

Question 52

White masters learned to live with the two key institutions of African American community life, which were __________.

A) African languages and African religions
B) literacy and individualism
C) music and traveling
D) the family and the African American church

Question 53

What was life like for slaves living on a large plantation in the South in the early nineteenth century? How much control did masters have? How did slaves exert control over their own lives?

Question 54

About what percentage of the slave population of the Upper South was uprooted and sold to the Lower South in the internal slave trade between 1820 and 1860?

A) 50 percent
B) 10 percent
C) 25 percent
D) 90 percent

Question 55

Most runaway slaves were __________.

A) young men
B) young women
C) older men
D) older women

Question 56

What was the range of slave resistance and how did slave owners respond?

Question 57

Which statement best describes how the expansion of cotton production in the South affected industry in the North?

A) Profits from the slave trade and cotton shipping and brokerage provided capital for new factories in the North.
B) Northern industry declined as most southern cotton was shipped to England.
C) Wealthy Northerners chose to invest in southern plantations rather than in factories in the North.
D) Many successful planters invested their profits in northern industry and abandoned cotton planting.

Question 58

Which of these explains why landless whites in the South had fewer economic opportunities than their counterparts in the North?

A) slavery
B) immigration
C) population growth
D) federal policies

Question 59

How did the growth of cotton production in the Lower South and the Old Southwest transform the national economy by 1860?

A) Cotton made up nearly 60 percent of American exports.
B) Most southern cotton was sold at the local level, rather than at the national or international level.
C) New England merchants and investors faced economic ruin as they were excluded from the sale and transport of cotton to European industrialized nations.
D) The price and number of slaves in cotton-producing areas of the Lower South and Old Southwest decreased rapidly as the cotton gin made it easier to prepare cotton for sale.

Question 60

The term "plain folk" was used to refer to __________.

A) the urban middle class
B) planters
C) yeoman farmers
D) the landless poor

Question 61

While masters expected Christianity to make slaves obedient and peaceful, slaves subverted their masters' expectations by __________.

A) holding nighttime prayer meetings and developing forms of religious expression that reflected their longings for freedom and justice
B) secretly practicing African religions while only pretending to be Christian
C) reading the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek and rejecting their masters' English translations
D) using African traditions to "revoke" any Christian practices they were made to do publicly to appease their masters

Question 62

Which phrase best describes the role of the southern commercial middle class?

A) small but vital to the agricultural economy
B) small and insignificant
C) mainly focused on the urban economy and little involved with agriculture
D) an important source of capital for agricultural improvements

Question 63

Which statement best describes the actions of state legislatures throughout the South in the 1830s?

A) Legislatures tightened restrictions on both free and enslaved African Americans.
B) Legislatures encouraged manumission by offering tax incentives to free slaves.
C) Legislatures debated the merits of the gradual abolition of slavery, but ultimately took no action.
D) Legislatures took steps to re-enslave some free African Americans and force others to migrate to the North.

Question 64

Why was Harriet Tubman unusual as a runaway slave?

A) She was a woman, and most runaways were young men.
B) She was a Christian, and most runaways practiced African religions.
C) She escaped alone, and most runaways escaped in large groups.
D) Her master never offered a reward for her return or made any effort to find her.

Question 65

About what percentage of southern white people owned more than fifty slaves in 1830?

A) 2.5 percent
B) 5 percent
C) 7.5 percent
D) 10 percent

Question 66

How would the methods employed by southern plantation owners in managing their slaves be best described?

A) as a system that claimed to be paternalistic, but was actually characterized by force and violence
B) based on a familial system with foundations in gentle persuasion and Christian love
C) distinguished by constant attention to the welfare of their slaves
D) characterized by indifference and inattention on the part of masters

Question 67

Aside from the slaves themselves, which group probably benefited least from the southern slave labor system?

A) poor whites
B) middle-class professionals
C) yeoman farmers
D) large planters

Question 68

How did the American slave population grow from 700,000 in 1790 to more than 4 million in 1860?

A) primarily from natural increase, through births in the slave community
B) from increased slave imports directly from Africa
C) from slave imports from the Caribbean and South America
D) through enslaving millions of Indians and adding them to the slave population

Question 69

How did field workers on cotton plantations generally do farm work?

A) in gangs of 20 to 25, under the supervision of overseers with whips
B) independently and at their own pace
C) by working as family units on their own plots of land
D) divided by gender into gangs with same-sex overseers

Question 70

To whom does the term "yeomen" apply in the antebellum South?

A) independent farmers with family farms
B) landless tenant farmers
C) planters with more than 30 slaves
D) small-town merchants

Question 71

Why were planters around Natchez, Mississippi, known by the Hindi term "nabob"?

A) The Hindi word described Europeans who had amassed fabulous wealth in India.
B) Many of them had first made their fortunes in India.
C) Mississippi, like India, based its wealth on cotton.
D) Well-educated Southerners commonly referenced historical "great empires" to describe their society.

Question 72

In what sort of communities did most slaves live from 1800 to 1860?

A) in groups of 10 or more on plantations
B) in groups of 5 or fewer on small farms
C) in gangs of about 100 on commercial farms
D) dispersed in small groups on small farms

Question 73

What role did black Christianity play in the slave community?

A) It helped slaves survive, giving them a spiritual freedom whites could not destroy.
B) Masters let slaves hold their own religious gatherings as a way to make them content with their status.
C) Christian teachings suppressed slaves' longing for freedom and justice.
D) Christianity played only a small role, since most slaves practiced African religions.

Question 74

How did slave communities respond to the reality of separation as a consequence of the internal slave trade, especially when young children were removed from their parents?

A) Slave communities attempted to act like larger families that provided a source of comfort for separated children.
B) Few slaves married and formed families, so the number of enslaved children was not significant.
C) Slaves would threaten work slow-downs to prevent children and other family members from being sold away from the local slave community.
D) Slaves responded so violently to separation that few masters dared sell off individual slaves, including children.

Question 75

Which statement best explains why yeoman farmers with no slaves still supported the slave system that mainly benefited wealthy planters?

A) Planters and non‒slave-owning yeomen shared a belief in white skin privilege.
B) The democratization of politics made the gap between rich and poor largely disappear.
C) Non‒slave owners often became as wealthy as or wealthier than slave-owning planters.
D) Yeoman farmers saw capitalism and industrialization, not farming with slave labor, as their best path to wealth.

Question 76

Which statement best explains why southern cities offered both slaves and free blacks greater opportunities in skilled occupations than did northern cities?

A) Low-paying jobs in the South failed to attract as much immigrant labor as similar employment opportunities in the North.
B) Southerners trusted slaves and free blacks more than Northerners did.
C) The South was more industrial than the North.
D) White Southerners refused to do any manual labor.

Question 77

What was the lasting effect that slave revolts had on white Southerners?

A) Whites believed they could never be completely safe from slave revolts.
B) To white southerners, slave rebellions were trivial because they always ended in defeat for the slaves involved and did not result in white fatalities.
C) Local legal officials and white slaveowners banned slaves from participating in organized religious ceremonies or from listening to black preachers.
D) White slave owners began to make offers of manumission to larger numbers of slaves after Nat Turner's rebellion ended so that their slaves would stop organizing additional revolts.

Question 78

What legal consequences did white masters face if they punished slaves excessively, generally abused their slaves, or raped slaves?

A) No legal action was taken against them.
B) Planters could be sentenced to jail for physically abusing slaves.
C) Planters had to pay fines, depending on the seriousness of the punishment.
D) Slaves were often removed from plantations of violent masters.

Question 79

Which statement best describes how the majority of the southern slaveholding elite in the 1830s had acquired their wealth?

A) Almost all slave owners had inherited their wealth.
B) Almost all slave owners were self-made men.
C) About half of the slave owners inherited great wealth, and about half earned it.
D) Slave owners nearly all first made their fortunes in business before they bought slaves.

Question 80

About what proportion of white Southerners did not own any slaves?

A) two-thirds
B) one-third
C) one-half
D) three-quarters