United States History Student Edition

Understanding the Time and Place: The United States, 1619–1840

Long before any fighting began, differing economies and views about slavery had created deep divisions between the Northern and the Southern states. By 1861, these differences would erupt into the American Civil War.

Slavery The tensions that led to the Civil War centered on the role of slavery in the country’s history. Enslaved Africans were first brought to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. As more colonies were established, farming was the most important economic activity in both the North and the South. Southern farming relied on enslaved people to work in the fields, planting and harvesting cash crops, such as tobacco, rice, and cotton. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The cotton gin made it possible for cotton seeds to be removed from cotton quickly, and the production of cotton increased rapidly. But so did the demand for workers to tend to the cotton crops. As a result, the use of enslaved labor greatly increased. Even though Congress banned bringing enslaved people into the country in 1807, the children of enslaved parents were also enslaved, and so the practice continued on into the 1800s. In the North, the soil was rockier and the climate was cooler than in the South. Farms were, in general, smaller, and there was little need to find another source of labor to farm the land. During the early 1800s, industrialization and manufacturing began to grow in the North. Factories expanded, and new factories were built. The number of cities increased, and their populations grew as people from rural areas and immigrants from Europe moved there to work in the factories. Regional Differences Beginning in colonial days, distinct attitudes emerged that created deep divisions between the North and the South. While slavery existed in every Northern state for many years, the number of enslaved people there was far fewer than in the South. As slavery expanded in the South, the practice faded in the North. Although the North’s

growing textile industries depended upon the cotton harvested by the enslaved people of the South, many Northerners came to believe in free labor rather than enslaved labor. Some Northerners considered slavery a moral evil while others resented that slaveholders held land that they felt should go to free white people. They disliked the wealthy aristocracy that had developed in the South and argued that Southerners would do anything to protect their restrictive way of life. Most Southerners, however, defended slavery. They argued that their agriculturally based economy was prosperous, which increased the overall prosperity of the United States. In this way, the entire country benefited from slavery. In addition, Southerners argued, enslaved people were treated well, and they lived in better conditions than many Northern industrial workers did. Many Southerners thought that Northerners were corrupt, money-driven, and selfish. They believed that the Southern way of life created a stable society, protected the

Eli Whitney’s cotton gin

Bettmann/Getty Images

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