[68] Hale and Merritt, II, 299.
[69] Ibid., p. 300.
[70] Fifth Annual Report of American Anti-slavery Society, 1838, pp. 72-73.
[71] Andrews v. Page, 3 Heiskell, 658 (1870).
[72] Acts of 1865, pp. IX-XIII.
[73] Nelson v. Smithfeter, 2 Caldwell, 14 (1865). See also Graves v. Keaton, 3 Caldwell, 14 (1866); Wharton v. The State, 5 Caldwell, 3 (1867); Bedford v. Williams, 3 Caldwell, 210 (1867).
CHAPTER VIII
Conclusions
The periods in the development of slavery in Tennessee are rather well defined. The institution made no remarkable progress before 1790. Its growth was slow and gradual. There were no special forces contributing to its development. Only the mountainous part of the state was being settled, and the cotton industry had not developed. The pioneers were not in thought or manner of living favorable to slavery. They either did their work single-handed, or combined with their neighbors in the performance of the heavier phases of it. Slavery was not a controlling factor, in a pioneer life characterized largely by hunting, fishing, trading, and small farming. It was more or less a useless luxury, which only the more fortunately situated could afford. Whatever progress slavery made during this period was due to purely natural forces and conditions. There were only 3,417 slaves in the state in 1790, and their value was less than $100 each.
From 1790 to 1835, slavery expanded very rapidly. In the first decade of this period, the slave population increased 297.54 per cent; in the second, 227.84 per cent; in the third, 79.87 per cent; and in the fourth, 76.76 per cent. There were 183,059 slaves in the state in 1840. Frontier conditions were largely supplanted by a more prosperous society. Cotton became the chief agricultural product of the state. West Tennessee, the part of the state especially adapted to the production of cotton, was settled during this period. Tobacco was profitably grown in Middle Tennessee, with the aid of slave labor. The river valleys of East Tennessee became cotton producing areas. Slavery in this period proved to be a profitable labor system in by far the larger portion of the state. This period is especially characterized by the growing economic importance of slavery and the weakening of the abolition sentiment. The slave was worth about $550 in 1835. The state reversed its policy toward the free negro in 1831, disfranchised him in 1834, and refused in the convention of 1834 even to consider abolition.