The South was generally warm and sunny, with long, hot, humid summers, mild winters, and heavy rainfall. This climate was ideal for agriculture the rain and long growing season enabled farmers to grow many different crops in large amounts. The Southeast bordered on the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico and had many broad, slow-moving, navigable rivers. Cities developed along those rivers and as ports along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The Atlantic Coastal Plain, an area of fertile, rich soil and swamps, covered much of the Southeast. To the west of this plain rose the Piedmont, another area of good farmland and forests.
POPULATION
The population of the South was made up of Europeans (mostly of English and Scotch-Irish descent) and enslaved Africans. By 1860 the population of the South reached 12 million, one third of whom were slaves. The number of slaves increased from about I million in 1 800 to 4 million in the next 60 years.
The South was an overwhelmingly agricultural region of mostly farmers. Most of these farmers lived in the backcountry on medium-sized farms, while a small number of planters ran large farms, or plantations. Only one fourth of the Southern population owned slaves. Most of these were the planters. The rest of the white population were independent farmers, tenant farmers (who rented land and paid the landowners in crops or money), laborers, or frontier families.
CITIES
Most Southerners lived on farms, spread out in separate communities--the planters scattered along the coastal plains and the small farmers in the backcountry. Since the economy was based on agriculture, industries and towns developed at a slower pace than in the North. There were numerous small towns, which grow up along the banks of rivers and the coasts. Only a few large cities developed as trading centers in the South. Plantations were so large and so distant from each other that they became almost self-sufficient, like small towns.
ECONOMY
The Southern economy was based on agriculture. Cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane and indigo (a plant that produces a blue dye) were grown in great quantities. These crops were known as cash crops, ones that were raised to be sold or exported for a profit. They were raised on large farms, known as plantations, which were supported by slave labor.
After Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, cotton took over as "king" of the southern economy. The cotton gin was a machine that separated the seed from the cotton fiber much faster than it could be done by hand. As a result, the cotton industry began to develop rapidly, spreading to many parts of the South. In 1793, for example, Southern farmers produced about 10,000 bales of cotton. By 1835, they were growing over 1,000,000. By 1860 cotton exports made up two thirds of the total value of I American exports (products sent to other countries). To clear the land and grow the cotton, Southern planters began to use increasing amounts of slave labor. In the first sixty years of the 1 800's, the slave population quadrupled. Southerners was essential to the prosperity of the Southern economy.
Having little manufacturing to protect, the Southerners wanted cheap imports (products brought from other countries). Since they exported most of their cotton and tobacco they believed that high tariffs--taxes on imported goods-would scare away the foreign markets that bought their goods. For these reasons the South was against
tariffs.
CULTURE
The life of the South revolved around the small, wealthy class of planters and the agricultural system they controlled. The planters were the aristocracy-the upper class-of the South, many of them descendants of wealthy colonial coastal planters. They lived like country gentleman of England and ran the political and economic life of the South. Since the plantations were far apart, they developed their own communities. Visits between friends on different plantations became major social events, giving great importance to hospitality. Recreational activities included such things as fox hunting, dancing, horseracing, and watching cockfights.
There were few schools or churches in the South, since neither education nor religion were very organized. The beat educated in the colonies were the sons of planters. On plantations there were sometimes small schools, and often planters hired private tutors to teach their children until they were sent off to private schools. Small farmers, meanwhile, had little or no education.
TRANSPORTATION
The new methods of long-distance transportation, such as steamships and railroads, affected the South because products could more easily be sold to more distant markets. By 1860 about 10,000 miles of railroad spread across the Southern states. Still, this was not nearly as vast a railroad system as the North had. Meanwhile, hundreds of steamboats moved Southern crops to the North and to European markets.