Slavery, Planter Family and Slave, 1860s

Unidentified planter family and slave, circa 1859-64. Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of chattel slavery that existed in the United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the Revolutionary War, abolitionist laws and sentiment gradually spread in the Northern states, while the rapid expansion of the cotton industry from 1800 led to the Southern states to depend on slavery as integral to their economy. By 1850, the South was exporting over one million tons of cotton annually to the hungry textile mills of England. Cotton was king in the South and its increased labor demands invigorated the institution of slavery. By the beginning of the Civil War over 3 million slaves tilled the South's soil

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Chattel Infamous Notorious Planter

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