Cultural Divide

 

The Cultures of the North and South were influenced by the climate, soil, religious beliefs, ideas, politics and traditions, and geography of the people living in those areas. There wasn’t necessarily a coverall culture for the North or the South, because the subgroups in those areas all embraced the benefits that worked for them. The general thought of Union vs. Confederacy is that of Slaveholding or emancipation, and that is the ideology of an initial look at the culture, but culture itself goes much deeper.

Geography has a bearing on how countries grow.  Although both the North and South depended on agriculture, the difference was the population and the size of the plots that the areas had, for example the north had smaller land plots and limited seasons to farm. The North also was more densely populated, and was going through the industrial Revolution. Even the South itself was divided into upper and lower (deep) south.

The upper south revolved around tobacco growing, and diversified farming, with the focus being livestock, wheat, and corn. The lower Deep South focused on Plantation agriculture and produced sugar, rice and cotton since it was easy to grow. By 1850 3/4ths of the Worlds cotton was from the Deep South. Because of the continuous reaping and sowing in the South, they became dependent on slavery. The development of the cotton gin, didn’t quell the need for slaves, the Deep South just grew more cotton.

The South was all about Class, with slaves being below “hillbillies”. The highest, the planters class of the south were dependent on the slaves they owned. They made up about 2% of the South population. They lived in grand plantation homes and had great wealth. “…The plantation household was the center and model of social, economic and cultural production”¹ Their male children would focus on law and business and military and their daughters would learn socials graces. But 88% of the Southern population was actually at the bottom of the class system. They had a handful of slaves and worked right alongside them. As you can see there was a very small “middle class” at this time.

The black society of the south was dependent on the plantations they live on. They influenced by their exposure to the European religious beliefs of the United States, their heritage, and if they were African slaves, African free or Creoles.  African ancestors also identified themselves by communities or nations within Africa that were all different. Slaves struggled with identity and culture in the South. Utilizing Christian hymns learned from their American landowners, they drew on their sense of culture, many having spent time in the Caribbean. People contributed a sense of their culture through religion and voodoo. Mixing with the European influence of classical instruments, these slaves started out singing “Plantation songs” and spirituals that incorporated the “blue note”. Slaves evolved into a culture that depended on music for socializing and that became “blues”. This was a unique culture that emerged from slaves in the United States, and existed only here at that time.

Blacks in the North had different experiences as well. There continued to be prejudices towards them, especially from the Irish who had immigrated in droves and competed for work. “Irish… were blamed for the Anti-black riots.”² But they definitely had more privileges, in some states they could vote and many free blacks in the North Atlantic became seamen. The slaves that came to the north brought with them their cultural heritage.

Northern whites were experiencing the industrial Revolution, although there were some who were criticized for being prejudice, and believed in separate but equal, abolitionists did not believe in slavery/ The first woman’s convention had already been held at this time, as women were seeking rights as well. The north tended to focus more on education, as northern forefathers, although with the massive immigration rates, there were many  poor in the north who worked long hours digging canals, building railroads or working in mills or steel factories. The northerners were the ones responsible for shipping all the cotton that the southerners were producing. There were indentured servants who were indebted to work for someone for 7 years before they could be free to live life in the northern states as they wished.

Religion, climate, geography, and economics played a part in all the differences and similarities between what would become the Union and Confederacy. Different ideologies and political and religious beliefs would be what would lead to the division of the north and the south.

1.      Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox Genovese, Fatal Self Deception: A Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 5

 

2.      Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox Genovese, Fatal Self Deception: A Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 114

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