Chapter 7 Notes:

• 1790 - the future of slavery was uncertain in the Chesapeake
• tobacco market had been going down since before the Revolution
• slave labor became less necessary
• Chesapeake planters continued to switch to grain and livestock-which required less labor than tobacco-and thought up new uses for slaves: 1) their land was divided into small plots, then rented both the plots and their slaves to white tenant farmers 2) tenants were recruited from the growing ranks of free blacks 3) planters hired out their slaves as artisans and urban laborers
• none of the solutions could employ the great mass of slaves or repay the planters' huge investment in slave labor
• farmers began to set their slaves free
• white Virginians feared the social consequences of black freedom
• British industrialization created a demand for cotton from the 1790s onward
• 1793- Eli Whitney created the cotton gin, with which a slave could clean 50 pounds of cotton in 1 day rather than the previous single pound
• cotton became the American cash crop
• cotton was a labor-intensive crop that could be grown in either small or large quantities: farmers with only a few or no slaves could still make a decent profit while farmers with a large amount of land and many slaves could make enormous amounts of money
• demand for slaves grew in the new cotton-growing regions of the South
• Chesapeake planters continued to diversify crops since they lived too far north to grow cotton
• in order to finance the transition to mixed agriculture, they sold their excess slaves at high prices to planters in the cotton frontier
• coastal South Carolina and Georgia recommitted to slave labor in the years after the Revolution
• increase in grain crops caused an increase in the demand for better roads, wagons, carts, and mills
• increase in demand for slave artisans
• the rice and cotton plantations of South Carolina and Georgia required intensive labor in a diseased-ridden environment
• planters turned to the task system of slavery
• Seaport cities were the largest: growth in the urban population from 1790-1820
• in parts of these cities, there was unprecedented poverty as well, which caused severe epidemics such as yellow fever
• status of artisans in the big cities changed: skilled workment were replaced by cheaper labor
• 1815-most young craftsmen could no longer hope to own their own shops
• Decline in parental power: from mid-18th century onward, many young people grew up knowing that their father would be unable to help them
• changing patterns of courtship and marriage; young men knew that they would not inherit the family farm; young women knew that their father would be able to provide only a small dowry
• fathers exerted less control over marriage choices
• increased number of pregnancies outside of marriage
• erosion of the old family economy was paralleled by a dramatic rise in alcohol consumption
• United States became an "alcoholic republic"
• in the early stages of democracy, leaders were assumed to be the "best and brightest"
• the voting qualification changes-some states remove the land-holding policy
• belief that all white men should have equal rights;
• pressure to remove land qualifications
• step away from the vision of the founding fathers
• step toward equality among white men
• the right to vote is limited to those who were white and male
• women and free blacks lost the right to vote

By Natalie I.