Slavery In The Old South

Words: 1048
Pages: 5

Despite a common misbelief that white landowning “gentleman”, and African American captives knew and filled their place in society with an orderly fashion, the Old South was a cruel and vicious place. Although tobacco production had become relatively unprofitable by the American Revolution, the invention of the cotton gin created an enormous industry for the crop and brought along a demand for slave labor in the South. The immeasurable growth in the cotton industry sped the spreading of slavery, escaping Alabama and Mississippi, slavery rapidly spread to Arkansas, Texas and most of the rural South. Steps taken by congress to end slavery such as the ban of foreign slave trade had little effect and merely stimulated illegal slave trade. The patriarchal South, although most cruel to its slaves, …show more content…
The following is a series of accounts by the most significant figure in the Old South, an African American slave. William Wells Brown, was born a slave in Kentucky, then relocated to Missouri a mere 40 miles above the City of Saint Charles. He would soon escape his master, and begin his career as a successful author, writing the first novel, play, and black history ever by an African American. Living as a slave on a Missouri hemp plantation, William endured the most unimaginable of torment. Persistent relocation due to business failure of his overseers, or the method of “hiring out”. A process in which a slave master could essentially rent the labor of his slave to another in return for wages, rendered Brown consistently under stress and adversity. Met with a different overseer consistently, William built up a natural resentment of the white man. His story begins on a Missouri hemp plantation, upon which he worked as a house servant which he considered a privilege in comparison to work as a field hand. Memories of his