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Playlist U.S. History: 1800 – 1848 11 videos
AP U.S. History 1.1 Period 4: 1800-1848. The "separation" that the American Colonization Society advocates for is...what?
AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 4: 1800-1848. A growing trend among slaveholders in the South was to argue that slavery was...what?
AP US History: Politics in Antebellum America Drill 1, Problem 1. Expanding government and regulation into the Louisiana territory proved chal...
AP U.S. History 1.5 Period 4: 1800-1848 231 Views
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AP U.S. History 1.5 Period 4: 1800-1848. Southern plantation owners supported slavery in the Louisiana Territory primarily because of what environmental development?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Tobacco Road,
- 00:07
the cloudiest street in the neighborhood.
- 00:09
All right.
- 00:14
Southern plantation owners supported slavery
Full Transcript
- 00:17
in the Louisiana Territory primarily because of
- 00:20
what environmental development?
- 00:23
And here are your potential answers.
- 00:24
[ toilet flushes ]
- 00:28
All right. So what's this question asking?
- 00:30
Well we know that Southern plantation owners
- 00:32
would have supported the expansion of slavery
- 00:34
pretty much anywhere.
- 00:36
But this question makes it sound like there was something related
- 00:38
to the environment that made this new acquisition
- 00:41
particularly acquirable.
- 00:43
So let's check out the answers.
- 00:45
Did plantation owners want slavery in the Louisiana Territory
- 00:48
because of A - the ongoing drought in the West Indies?
- 00:52
Hmm. The weather was pretty normal in the West Indies
- 00:54
at that time, so it's not A.
- 00:57
Did they want slavery in the Territory because of B -
- 00:59
the lack of usable ports along the Atlantic Coast?
- 01:02
Well, actually, the Atlantic Coast had dozens
- 01:04
of major ports. That's how all these colonies
- 01:07
got started in the first place. So that eliminates B.
- 01:10
Were plantation owners supportive of the expansion of slavery
- 01:13
because of D - the rise of plantation farming in New England?
- 01:16
Oh, no way.
- 01:18
New England has never relied on plantation farming.
- 01:20
That was exclusively the South's game. So D is a no-go.
- 01:24
And that means they supported slavery in the Louisiana Territory because of C -
- 01:27
the over-cultivation of arable land in the South.
- 01:30
Tobacco is as bad for the land as it is for your lungs.
- 01:33
And when it's planted year after year, the soil ends up
- 01:36
losing its nutrients, which makes it
- 01:38
inhospitable for crops down the line.
- 01:40
So with all this over-cultivation happening in the South,
- 01:44
plantation owners looked to the new Territories
- 01:46
for more arable land.
- 01:48
So this means that choice C is the right answer.
- 01:50
Well, looks like too much of a good and bad thing can kill you.
- 01:56
[ hiss ]
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