Students: Francisco Yan, Samuel Espinosa y Nicolas Schropp

Questionnaire on causes of American Civil War (War of Secession)

Video part 1

1. Which transformations took place in the North in the 1800s?

2. In the same period, which were the main activities in the south? Who
were the most powerful?
3. Which transformation took place as regards cotton and how did they
benefit from this?
4. How did slaves live in the South? Who was Frederick Douglass?
5. Were all the black Africans slaves? What jobs could free men do?
6. Did Afro-Americans ever resist slavery? How? What came because of
this resistance?
7. What or who inspired the Abolitionist Movement? Who joined the
abolitionist movement as it became more important?

Answers:

1) During the 1800s the Northern part of the United States was focused in the
internal improvements and trades, so that`s why investors put a lot of money in
order to improve the transportation systems to connect one region to another.
For example, the use of canals made investors wealthy man and helped to
transport more and more things quicker. There were still a lot of people working
in farms, but the north was rapidly industrializing, bringing new machines tht
made the making process much faster and correct. Also as consequence of
this, many farmers and people from Europe started coming to the North in order
to have more work possibilities and earn some money.

2) In the south, agriculture was the main activity and the major source of jobs
and wealth since they had long growing seasons and rich soil and they mainly
produced cotton, rice and tobacco. Even though in the south most of the white
men were poor farmers, the most powerful men were the big plantation owners
with many slaves who dominated the south economically, socially and
politically.

3) The Cotton was a very expensive material because it took too long to
separate the sticky seeds from the fiber, but in 1793, Eli Whitney invented the
cotton gin, which was a machine that let the slaves to be able to clean about 50
pounds cotton a day. Thanks to this machine, cotton was turned form the an
expensive item into the world's cheapest fabric, so both the northern states and
England paid a lot for all the cotton they could get and the south became world
biggest cotton supplier

4) Most slaves lived very bad lives since they were treated brutal and violent.
They only received two shirts per year and normally they worked from dawn to
dusk, did their own washing and cooking and then went to sleep on the cold
floor. Usually their masters beat them because everyone thought that a slave
could not be governed except with the whip.

Frederick Douglass was born as a slave in Maryland and wrote his own
autobiography where he narrated his own life and revealed the hardships and
horrors of slavery. He escaped in 1838 and then became one of the most
powerful voices against slavery of America

5) Actually, not all Africans where slaves. Some of them were free, because of
different reasons. For example, they managed to get free after his owner died,
they ran away, their relatives bought them or their owner released them. Most of
the people went north, specially to Philadelphia, where they developed many
occupations, like bricklayers or carpenters.

6) Afro-Americans resisted slavery in many ways such as by breaking tools,

burning down barns and houses, running away to the north or to the Indian
tribes on the frontiers, poisoning their masters, or revolting. In 1811, slaves
marched on New Orland’s, but were defeated in a battle and their decapitated
heads were hung on poles as a warning to others. In consequence to this
resistance, southern white people started to fear slaves, so they started to make
sure that slave patrols actually went to patrol to make sure the slaves weren´t
assembling. Apart from that, they also passed laws, which prevented to slaves
to learn to read and write so that they could not communicate with each other
and get the ideas of freedom and resistance.

7) A former slave called David Walker was the one that inspired the Abolitionist
Movement, which called for a violent rebellion by slaves. It was the most
vigorous denunciation of slavery ever made in the US. After this, the governor
of Massachusetts ordered to arrest him and put a reward of $10.000 for the
person who brings Walker´s head. William Lloyd Garrison started supporting
this cause after reading David´s appeal and seeing slavery in practice. He
created the New England anti-slavery society and he supported the cause in his
newspaper “The Liberator”, which became the main abolitionist publications in
the country