The Jacksonian era coincided with the rapid expansion of cotton slavery across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and eastern Texas. Enslaved people cleared land, planted and harvested cotton, built roads and communities and generated wealth they could not control. The domestic slave trade forcibly moved hundreds of thousands from the Upper South to the Deep South, separating families on a vast scale. Southern political power was strengthened by representation that counted enslaved people while denying them citizenship and votes. Jackson himself enslaved people at the Hermitage and supported the slaveholding order. The Democratic coalition joined northern and southern white voters partly by avoiding federal challenges to slavery.
NAT TURNER AND REPRESSION
In 1831, Nat Turner led an uprising of enslaved people in Virginia that killed approximately sixty white people before being suppressed. White retaliation killed many Black people, including individuals uninvolved in the revolt. Southern states tightened restrictions upon assembly, education, movement and preaching among Black communities. Debate over gradual emancipation in Virginia ended without action.
TEXAS
American migration into Mexican Texas brought conflicts over governance, immigration and slavery, which Mexico had moved to abolish. Texas rebels declared independence in 1836 and defeated Santa Anna after the Alamo and Goliad. Jackson recognized the Republic of Texas but delayed annexation, aware that adding a large slaveholding territory could provoke sectional conflict and war with Mexico.
“The ballot expanded for white men while the auction block expanded for Black families.”
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