3-5 page essay

Exam Choice 2

1. Economic Expansion: The United States experienced a dynamic period of

economic development. Compare the development of the economy of the Northeast,

the South, and the West, particularly paying attention to the role of the state, the

organization of labor, and the commodities of production.

Source One: American Progress (1872)

In 1872, John Gast painted American Progress, a symbol of the expansion of the United States into the West. The painting was commission in a travel guidebook by George Crofutt. Historian Martha Sandweiss explains that “in the painting, the simple Indian travois precedes the covered wagon and the pony express, the overland stage and the three railroad lines. The static painting thus conveys a vivid sense of the passage of time as well as of the inevitability of technological progress. The groups of human figures, read from left to right, convey much the same idea. Indians precede Euro-American prospectors, who in turn come before the farmers and settlers. The idea of progress coming from the East to the West, and the notion that the frontier would be developed by sequential waves of people (always men) was deeply rooted in American thought.

Then, of course, there is that “beautiful and charming female,” as Crofutt described her, whose diaphanous gown somehow remains attached to her body without the aid of velcro or safety pins. On her head she bears what Crofutt called “the Star of Empire.” And lest viewers still not understand her role in this vision of American destiny, he explains: “In her right hand she carries a book—common school—the emblem of education and the testimonial of our national enlightenment, while with the left hand she unfolds and stretches the slender wires of the telegraph, that are to flash intelligence throughout the land.” The Indians flee from progress, unable to adjust to the shifting tides of history. The painting hints at the past, lays out a fantastic version of an evolving present, and finally lays out a vision of the future.”

Found at Picturing United States History, part of the American Social History Productions, American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, with commentary from Martha A. Sandweiss, Amherst College, https://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/john-gast-american-progress-1872/.

Source Two: Management of the Butler Estate (1828)

Roswell King Jr., a manager for George Butler’s plantations, sent this contribution to a journal, the

Southern Agriculturalist.

ART. I -- On the Management of the BUTLER Estate, and the Cultivation of the Sugar Cane; by R. King, jr.

addresed to William Washington, Esq.

[COMMUNICATED FOR THE SOUTHERN AGRICULTURALIST.]

Hampton, (near Darien,) 13th Sept. 1828.

Dear Sir. -- Your letter of the 29th August came to hand on the 8th inst. Nothing would afford me more

satisfaction than to impart the little knowledge I possess of Southern Agriculture and plantation

economy, if such would benefit others.

We are dependent on each other, and each should contribute his mite. Therefore, I shall comply with

your request as minutely as possible.

The reputed good condition of the Butler Estate, has been the work of time, and a diligent attention to

the interest of said estate, and the comfort and happiness of the slaves on it.

To Mr. R. King, sen'r. more is due than to myself. In 1802, he assumed the management. The gang was a

fine one, but was very disorderly, which invariably is the case when there is a frequent change of

managers. Rules and regulations were established, (I may say laws,) a few forcible examples made, after

a regular trial, in which every degree of justice was exhibited, was the first step. But the grand point was

to supress the brutality and licentiousness practiced by the principal men on it; (say the drivers and

tradesmen.) More punishment is inflicted on every plantation by the men in power, from private pique,

than from a neglect of duty. This I assert as a fact; I have detected it often. No person of my age, knows

more the nature of these persons than myself; since childhood I have been on this place, and from the

age of eighteen to this time, have had the active management; therefore I speak with confidence. They

have a perfect knowledge of right and wrong. When an equitable distribution of rewards and

punishments is observed, in a short time they will conform to almost every rule that is laid down.

The owner or overseer knows, that with a given number of hands, such a portion of work is to be done.

The driver, to screen favorites, or apply their time to his own purposes, imposes a heavy task on some.

Should they murmur, and opportunity is taken,, months after, to punish those unfortunate fellows for

not doing their own and others tasks. Should they not come at the immediate offenders, it will descend

on the nearest kindred. As an evidence of the various opportunities that a burial driver has to gratify his

revenge, (the predominant principle of the human race,) let any planter go into his field, and in any

Negro's task, he can find apparently just grounds for punishment. To prevent this abuse, no driver in the

field is allowed to inflict punishment, until after a regular trial. When I pass sentence myself, various

modes of punishment are adopted; the lash, least of all -- Digging stumps, or clearing away trash about

the settlements, in their own time; but the most severe is, confinement at home six months to twelve

months, or longer. No intercourse is allowed with other plantations. A certain number are allowed to go

to town on Sundays, to dispose of eggs, poultry, coopers' ware, canoes, &c. but must be home by 12

o'clock, unless by special permit. Any one returning intoxicated, (a rare instance) goes into stocks, and

not allowed to leave home for twelve months.

An order from a driver is to be as implicitly obeyed as if it came from myself, nor do I counteract the

execution, (unless directly injurious,) but direct his immediate attention to it. It would be endless for me

to superintend the drivers and field hands too, and would of course make them useless. The lash is,

unfortunately, too much used; every mode of punishment should be divised in preference to that, and

when used, never to lacerate -- all young persons will offend. A Negro at twenty-five years old, who

finds he has the marks of a rogue inflicted when a boy, (even if disposed to be orderly) has very little or

no inducement to be otherwise. Every means are used to encourage them, and impress on their minds

the advantage of holding property, and the disgrace attached to idleness. Surely, if industrious for

themselves, they will be so for their masters, and no Negro, with a well stocked poultry house, a small

crop advancing, a canoe partly finished, or a few tubs unsold, all of which he calculates soon to enjoy,

will ever run away. In ten years I have lost, by absconding, forty-seven days, out of nearly six hundred

Negroes. Any Negro leaving the plantation, field, to complain to me, is registered and treated as such.

Many may think that they lose time, when Negroes can work for themselves; it is the reverse on all

plantations under good regulations -- time is absolutely gained to the master. An indolent Negro is most

always sick, and unless he is well enough to work for his master, he cannot work for himself, and when

the master's task is done, he is in mischief, unless occupied for himself. And another evidence arising

from the encouragement of industry, I make on this estate as good crops as most of my neighbors; plant

as much to the hand, do as much plantation work, and very often get clear of a crop earlier than many

where these encouragements are not held out. I have no before-day work, only as punishments; every

hand must be at work by daylight. The tasks given are calculated to require so much labour. It is as easy

to cut three tasks of Rice, as it is to bind two, or to bring two home. It is easier to ditch eight hundred

cubic feet of marsh, than four hundred feet of rooty river swamp. There are many regulations on a

plantation that must be left discretionary with the manager. In harvesting a crop of Rice, some acres are

heavier, or further off than others, some hands quicker, or more able than others all these, considered,

make a wide difference -- by giving a far and a near task to bring in, or putting them in gangs, the

burthen is borne equally, and all come home at once. Frequently (always I can say) by Friday night, I

have nearly as much Rice in, as if the regular task during the week, had been given....

By this mode I not only gain time, but afford them some also. A man, white or black, that knows such

will be the result, will seldom deviate from the right course. All these things are not to be slipped into at

once; it has been the work of nearly twenty-seven years, and I find many things yet to correct. With

regard to feeding, they have plenty of the best Corn, well ground, by water and animal power, with a

portion of Fish, (No. 3, Mackerel,) Beef, Pork, and Molasses, and when much exposed, a little Rum. To

each gang there is a cook, who carefully prepares two meals per day. The very grinding and cooking for

them affords the time that they apply to their own purposes; if their provisions was given underground,

many would trade it off, or be too lazy to cook it. Any one that has spent a night on a plantation where

the Negroes grind their own Corn, must recollect the horrible sound of a hand mill, all night. It is this

that wears them down. He goes to the mill -- it is occupied -- he must wait until the first has done, and

so on; some are at it all night -- their natural rest is destroyed. Many masters think they give provision

and clothing in abundance, but unless they use means to have these properly prepared, half the benefit

is lost. Another great advantage in grinding and cooking for them is, that the little Negroes are sure to

get enough to eat. On this estate, there are two hundred and thrity-eight Negroes from fifteen years

down, and every one knows that they do not increase in proportion in a large gang, as in a small one,

with the same attention. I cannot exemplify in too strong terms, the great advantage resulting from

properly preparing the food for Negroes.-- They will object to it at first, but no people are more easily

convinced of any thing tending to their comfort, than they are. In fact, a master does not discharge his

duty to himself, unless he will adopt every means to promote his interest and their welfare. Again, many

will say it takes too many to wait on the others. An old woman for a cook, who will raise one little Negro

extra, which will certainly pay her wages, besides the very great comfort it will afford the others; a

machine that will not cost in twenty years, more than $15 per annum; a little boy to drive an old horse

two days in the week, and an old man, (or even the overseer on a place of thirty hands,) to act as a

commissary in issuing the provisions, I am sure, well regulated, will add 25 per cent. to the owner,

including gain in Negroes, comfort to them, and to their master's feelings. During the summer, little

Negroes should have an extra mess. I find at Butler's Island, where there are about one hundred and

fourteen little Negroes, that it costs less than two cents each per week, in giving them a feed of Ocra

soup, with Pork, or a little Molasses or Hommony, or Small Rice. The great advantage is, that there is not

a dirt-eater among them -- an incurable propensity produced from a morbid state of the stomach,

arising from the want of a proper quantity of wholesome food, and at a proper time.

I have invariably found that women, that had been accustomed to waiting in the houses of white

persons, have the largest and finest families of children, even after going into the field. I believe it arises

from this circumstance, that they had contracted a habit of cleanliness, and of preparing their food

properly. You, on looking round, will find this the case. An hospital should be on each plantation, with

proper nurses and apartments for lying-in women, for the men, and for a nursery; when any enter, not

to leave the house until discharged. I have found physicians of little service, except in surgical cases. An

intelligent woman will in a short time learn the use of medicine. The labour of pregnant women is

reduced one half, and they are put to work in dry situations.

It is a great point in having the principal drivers men that can support their dignity; a condescention to

familiarity should be prohibited. Young Negroes are put to work early, twelve to fourteen years old;

four, five, or six, rated a hand. It keeps them out of mischief, and by giving light tasks, thrity to forty

rows, they acquire habits of perseverance and industry....

I am, dear Sir, your most obed't.

R. KING, Jr.

Southern Agriculturalist, December, 1828, South Carolina Historical Society. Found at Africans in

America, PBS.org, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2921t.html

Source Three: The American Woman’s Home. (1841)

The rise of a new Northern middle class brought with it new ideals of family life and gender roles. While

men worked outside the home, women were to preside over the domestic sphere, not only by performing

household labor but also by setting a moral example for children and creating a haven that was

protected from the outside world. This frontispiece and title page came from a popular 1869 guide to the

“formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes.” Expanded and

reprinted after its first publication in 1841, the book instructed young women on their proper role in the

middle-class home. Its lessons about Domestic Science ranged from the correct way to raise children to

he appropriate type of picture to hang in the parlor.

Source: Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home or, Principles

of Domestic Science . . . (1869)—American Social History Project. Found at History Matters, edited by

the American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the

Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6714

Source Four: The Lowell Girls Go on Strike (1836)

A group of Boston capitalists built a major textile manufacturing center in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the

second quarter of the 19th century. The first factories recruited women from rural New England as their

labor force. These young women, far from home, lived in rows of boardinghouses adjacent to the

growing number of mills. The industrial production of textiles was highly profitable, and the number of

factories in Lowell and other mill towns increased. More mills led to overproduction, which led to a drop

in prices and profits. Mill owners reduced wages and speeded up the pace of work. The young female

operatives organized to protest these wage cuts in 1834 and 1836. Harriet Hanson Robinson was one of

those factory operatives; she began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and

advocate of women’s suffrage.

One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took place in this country was that in

Lowell, in October, 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation

was felt, and it was decided to strike, en masse. This was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls

went in procession from their several corporations to the “grove” on Chapel Hill, and listened to

“incendiary” speeches from early labor reformers.

One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech,

declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a

woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her

audience.

Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. Hitherto the

corporations had paid twenty—five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was

their purpose to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a

difference of at least one dollar a week. It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls

turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang

songs, a favorite (but rather inappropriate) one being a parody on “I won’t be a nun. ”

"Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I-

Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?

Oh ! I cannot be a slave,

I will not be a slave,

For I’m so fond of liberty

That I cannot be a slave."

My own recollection of this first strike (or “turn out” as it was called) is very vivid. I worked in a lower

room, where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed; I had been an ardent

listener to what was said against this attempt at “oppression” on the part of the corporation, and

naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in

the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when

the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, “Would you? ” or “Shall

we turn out?” and not one of them 1laving the courage to lead off, I, who began to think they would not

go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, "I

don’t care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not;‘’ and I marched out,

and was followed by the others.

As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since at any

success I may have achieved, and more proud than I shall ever be again until my own beloved State gives

to its women citizens the right of suffrage.

The agent of the corporation where I then worked took some small revenges on the supposed

ringleaders; on the principle of sending the weaker to the wall, my mother was turned away from her

boarding-house, that functionary saying,“Mrs. Hanson, you could not prevent the older girls from

turning out, but your daughter is a child, and her you could control.”

It is hardly necessary to say that so far as results were concerned this strike did no good. The

dissatisfaction of the operatives subsided, or burned itself out, and though the authorities did not

accede to their demands, the majority returned to their work, and the corporation went on cutting

down the wages.

And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best portion of the girls left and

went to their homes, or to the other employments that were fast opening to women, until there were

very few of the old guard left; and thus the status of the factory population of New England gradually

became what we know it to be to-day.

Source: Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls (New York, T. Y.

Crowell, 1898), 83–86. Found at History Matters, edited by the American Social History Project/Center

for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George

Mason University,

Source Five: A Georgia Sharecropper’s Story (1900)

At the turn of the century the group of black women most subject to sexual exploitation and abuse were

those who lived under the system of quasi-slavery known as “peonage.” Under contract labor laws,

which existed in almost every southern state, a laborer who signed a contract and then quit his or her job

could be arrested. The horrors of this system of forced labor (as well as the equally horrific system of

convict labor) are detailed in this stark, turn-of-the-century personal account of life under the “peonage”

system in the South, published in the Independent magazine in 1904. Although this account by an

African-American man did not focus especially on the sexual exploitation suffered by his wife and others,

his report described how his wife was forced to become a mistress to the plantation’s owner.

I am a negro and was born some time during the war in Elbert County, Ga, and I reckon by this time I

must be a little over forty years old My mother was not married when I was born, and I never knew who

my father was or anything about him. Shortly after the war my mother died, and I was left to the care of

my uncle. All this happened before I was eight years old, and so I can’t remember very much about it.

When I was about ten years old my uncle hired me out to Captain. I had already learned how to plow,

and was also a good hand at picking cotton. I was told that the Captain wanted me for his house-boy,

and that later on he was going to train me to be his coachman. To be a coachman in those days was

considered a post of honor, and, young as I was, I was glad of the chance. But I had not been at the

Captain’s a month before I was put to work on the farm, with some twenty or thirty other negroes—

men, women and children. From the beginning the boys had the same tasks as the men and women.

There was no difference. We all worked hard during the week, and would frolic on Saturday nights and

often on Sundays. And everybody was happy. The men got $3 a week and the women $2. I don’t know

what the children got. Every week my uncle collected my money for me, but it was very little of it that I

ever saw. My uncle fed and clothed me, gave me a place to sleep, and allowed me ten or fifteen cents a

week for “spending change,” as he called it. I must have been seventeen or eighteen years old before I

got tired of that arrangement, and felt that I was man enough to be working for myself and handling my

own wages. The other boys about my age and size were “drawing” their own pay, and they used to

laugh at me and call me “Baby” because my old uncle was always on hand to “draw” my pay. Worked up

by these things, I made a break for liberty. Unknown to my uncle or the Captain I went off to a

neighboring plantation and hired myself out to another man. The new landlord agreed to give me forty

cents a day and furnish me one meal. I though that was doing fine. Bright and early one Monday

morning I started for work, still not letting the others know anything about it. But they found it out

before sundown. The Captain came over to the new place and brought some kind of officer of the law.

The officer pulled out a long piece of paper from his pocket and read it to my new employer. When this

was done I heard my new boss say “I beg your pardon, Captain. I didn’t know this nigger was bound out

to you, or I wouldn’t have hired him.

So I was carried back to the Captain’s. That night he made me strip off my clothing down to my waist,

had me tied to a tree in his backyard ordered his foreman to give me thirty lashes with a buggy whip

across my bare back, and stood by until it was done. After that experience the Captain made me stay on

his place night and day—but my uncle still continued to “draw” my money…

When I reached twenty-one the Captain told me I was a free man, but he urged me to stay with him. He

said he would treat me right, and pay me as much as anybody else would The Captain’s son and I were

about the same age, and the Captain said that, as he had owned my mother and uncle during slavery,

and as his son didn’t want me to leave them (since I had been with them so long), he wanted me to stay

with the old family. And I stayed I signed a contract—that is, I made my mark—for one year. The Captain

was to give me $3.50 a week, and furnish me a little house on the plantation—a one-room log cabin

similar to those used by his other laborers.

During that year I married Mandy. For several years Mandy had been the house-servant for the Captain,

his wife, his son and his three daughters, and they all seemed to think a good deal of her. As an evidence

of their regard they gave us a suit of furniture, which cost about $25, and we set up housekeeping in one

of the Captain’s two room shanties. I thought I was the biggest man in Georgia. Mandy still kept her

place in the “Big House” after our marriage. We did so well for the first year that I renewed my contract

for the second year, and for the third fourth and fifth year I did the same thing. Before the end of the

fifth year the Captain had died, and his son, who had married some two or three years before, took

charge of the plantation. Also, for two or three years, this son had been serving at Atlanta in some big

office to which he had been elected I think it was in the Legislature or something of that sort—anyhow,

all the people called him Senator. At the end of the fifth year the Senator suggested that I sign up a

contract for ten years; then, he said, we wouldn’t have to fix up papers every year. I asked my wife

about it; she consented; and so I made a ten-year contract.

Not long afterward the Senator had a long, low shanty built on his place. A great big chimney, with a

wide, open fireplace, was built at one end of it, and on each side of the house, running lengthwise, there

was a row of frames or stalls just large enough to hold a single mattress. The places for these mattresses

were fixed one above the other, so that there was a double row of these stalls or pens on each side.

They looked for all the world like stalls for horses. Since then I have seen cabooses similarly arranged as

sleeping quarters for railroad laborers. Nobody seemed to know what the Senator was fixing for. All

doubts were put aside one bright day in April when about forty able-bodied negroes, bound in iron

chains, and some of them handcuffed were brought out to the Senator’s farm in three big wagons. They

were quartered in the long, low shanty, and it was afterward called the stockade. This was the beginning

of the Senator’s convict camp. These men were prisoners who had been leased by the Senator from the

State of Georgia at about $200 each per year, the State agreeing to pay for guards and physicians, for

necessary inspection, for inquests, all rewards for escaped convicts, the cost of litigation and all other

incidental camp expenses. When I saw these men in shackles, and the guards with their guns, I was

scared nearly to death I felt like running away, but I didn’t know where to go. And if there had been any

place to go to, I would have had to leave my wife and child behind. We free laborers held a meeting. We

all wanted to quit. We sent a man to tell the Senator about it. Word came back that we were all under

contract for ten years and that the Senator would hold us to the letter of the contract, or put us in

chains and lock us up the same as the other prisoners. It was made plain to us by some white people we

talked to that in the contracts we had signed we had all agreed to be locked up in a stockade at night or

at any other time that our employer saw fit; further, we learned that we could not lawfully break our

contract for any reason and go and hire ourselves to somebody else without the consent of our

employer, and, more than that, if we got mad and ran away, we could be run down by bloodhounds,

arrested without process of law, and be returned to our employer, who, according to the contract,

might beat us brutally or administer any other kind of punishment that he thought proper. In other

words, we had sold ourselves into slavery—and what could we do about it? The white folks had all the

courts, all the guns, all the hounds, all the railroads, all the telegraph wires, all the newspapers, all the

money, and nearly all the land—and we had only our ignorance, our poverty and our empty hands. We

decided that the best thing to do was to shut our mouths, say nothing, and go back to work. And most of

us worked side by side with those convicts during the remainder of the ten years.

But this first batch of convicts was only the beginning. Within six months another stockade was built,

and twenty or thirty other convicts were brought to the plantation, among them six or eight women!

The Senator had bought an additional thousand acres of land, and to his already large cotton plantation

he added two great big saw-mills and went into the lumber business. Within two years the Senator had

in all nearly 200 negroes working on his plantation—about half of them free laborers, so-called, and

about half of them convicts. The only difference between the free laborers and the others was that the

free laborers could come and go as they pleased, at night—that is, they were not locked up at night, and

were not, as a general thing, whipped for slight offenses. The troubles of the free laborers began at the

close of the ten-year period. To a man, they all wanted to quit when the time was up. To a man, they all

refused to sign new contracts—even for one year, not to say anything of ten years. And just when we

thought that our bondage was at an end we found that it had really just begun. Two or three years

before, or about a year and a half after the Senator had started his camp, he had established a large

store, which was called the commissary. All of us free laborers were compelled to buy our supplies—

food, clothing, etc.—from that store. We never used any money in our dealings with the commissary,

only tickets or orders, and we had a general settlement once each year, in October. In this store we

were charged all sorts of high prices for goods, because every year we would come out in debt to our

employer. If not that, we seldom had more than $5 or $10 coming to us—and that for a whole year’s

work. Well, at the close of the tenth year, when we kicked and meant to leave the Senator, he said to

some of us with a smile (and I never will forget that smile... I can see it now)…

I lived in that camp, as a peon, for nearly three years. My wife fared better than I did, as did the wives of

some of the other negroes, because the white men about the camp used these unfortunate creatures as

their mistresses. When I was first put in the stockade my wife was still kept for a while in the “Big

House,” but my little boy, who was only nine years old, was given away to a negro family across the river

in South Carolina, and I never saw or heard of him after that. When I left the camp my wife had had two

children for some one of the white bosses, and she was living in fairly good shape in a little house off to

herself. But the poor negro women who were not in the class with my wife fared about as bad as the

helpless negro men. Most of the time the women who were peons or convicts were compelled to wear

men’s clothes. Sometimes, when I have seen them dressed like men, and plowing or hoeing or hauling

logs or working at the blacksmith’s trade, just the same as men, my heart would bleed and my blood

would boil, but I was powerless to raise a hand. It would have meant death on the spot to have said a

word. Of the first six women brought to the camp, two of them gave birth to children after they had

been there more than twelve months—and the babies had white men for their fathers!

Source: The New Slavery in the South “An Autobiography,” by a Georgia Negro

Peon, Independent, LVI, 25 February 1904, 409–14. Found at History Matters, edited by American

Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for

History and New Media, George Mason University. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/28