The Old South: The Antebellum Era

In the old south the Antebellum era was characterized by a slave society that affected nearly everything. In the South’s slavery defined social and political institutions while also fueling their economy. Slavery influenced made the South’s cotton trade more efficient with codependence on northern banks and merchants. The south’s cotton industry depended on slave labor a lot and later fueled political debates at economic conventions in 1837 to 1839. Regards the south northern dependence on financiers and importers these two things were the threat of the Old South’s commercial independence. Slavery had many other effects on politics where yeomen farmers wished to shape the society off their own democratic values. Communally, being a biracial
society the south developed as a distinctive region characterized by a growing society. The slave society worked together to preserve old social contracts and racial orders that enforced white supremacy. Within the social idea of slavery, different classes developed within the black slave community. It successfully separated the slaves off the way they look from skin tone to if they were attractive or not. The world of the slave owner was expressed and warranted by the pride of paternalism. Slaves were often treated as property, not human beings unworthy of cruelness and brutality. Slave’s were abused by hard physical labor, grief, and resentment that often fired rebellion. Over time they adopted Christianity and used it as a new form of resistance and also sung to each other with hiding messages inside.