Who could the southerners used instead of slaves?

[Cainkane1]

This is a what if question. What if slavery had been forbidden in the USA from the very beginning? Who could they have used instead of forced African slaves? Could they have hired someone to work the land and avoided the civil war altogether?

[theprestige]

This is a what if question. What if slavery had been forbidden in the USA from the very beginning? Who could they have used instead of forced African slaves? Could they have hired someone to work the land and avoided the civil war altogether?
A plan so crazy... it just might work!

[drkitten]

This is a what if question. What if slavery had been forbidden in the USA from the very beginning? Who could they have used instead of forced African slaves? Could they have hired someone to work the land and avoided the civil war altogether?

Or simply used voluntarily-indentured servants and/or criminals. I believe there's still a practice in much of the South of using convicted criminals for field work (see Cool Hand Luke).

Reconstruction probably provides a good model. Poor but free blacks were largely sharecroppers, working the fields for a share of the crops. This model lasted until the 1930s with the development (by John Rust) of a mechanical cotton picker.

[Skeptical Greg]

This is a what if question. What if slavery had been forbidden in the USA from the very beginning? Who could they have used instead of forced African slaves? Could they have hired someone to work the land and avoided the civil war altogether?

Really a strange question...

If slavery was not allowed, then all endeavors would have proceeded without it; for better or worse, by whatever legal means were available ..

... And a civil war, based on the right to own slaves, would certainly have been avoided ..

[Cavemonster]

Yes, the US may not have become as wealthy as it did. But we'd also be a very different nation if we hadn't killed off so many Native Americans with smallpox blankets and stolen their land.

Who knows what other pressures their might have been though? Without such a profitable cotton and tobacco industry in the south, it may have been much more sparsely populated by Americans and have been given over to Mexico without much fuss.

[Holler Hoojer]

Or simply used voluntarily-indentured servants and/or criminals. I believe there's still a practice in much of the South of using convicted criminals for field work (see Cool Hand Luke).

Reconstruction probably provides a good model. Poor but free blacks were largely sharecroppers, working the fields for a share of the crops. This model lasted until the 1930s with the development (by John Rust) of a mechanical cotton picker.

The widespread use of convict labor stopped in the civilized southern states in the 1970s or 1980s. Many were not what you might think of as criminals but were "vagrants", i.e., people who could not show proof of financial solvency (I forget the exact amount). So, Blacks were not allowed to work most places. If they didn't have a job, they were vagrants. If they were vagrants, they were sent to jail. If they went to jail, they were assigned work on farms. So they had jobs, but weren't let out of jail. Voluntary?

My dad was one of the last old-time chain gang guards, ala "Cool Hand Luke". It almost broke his heart when they had to start obeying the law in treatment of prisoners.

I think LA and Mississippi still use prison farms (Angola and Parchman).

[Holler Hoojer]

This is a what if question. What if slavery had been forbidden in the USA from the very beginning? Who could they have used instead of forced African slaves? Could they have hired someone to work the land and avoided the civil war altogether? There is some evidence that suggests industry and yeoman agriculture might have fared better without slavery. Plantations would not have been possible. Imagine Thomas Jefferson having to hook up a team of horses and farm that poor soil on Monticello.

[Steelmage]

Really a strange question...

If slavery was not allowed, then all endeavors would have proceeded without it; for better or worse, by whatever legal means were available ..

... And a civil war, based on the right to own slaves, would certainly have been avoided ..

That is not quite true...

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm

Top Five Causes of the Civil War
Leading up to Secession and the Civil War

1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South.

2. States versus federal rights.

3. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents.

4. Growth of the Abolition Movement.

5. The election of Abraham Lincoln.

http://www.ket.org/civilwar/causes.html

Though most of the reasons for Civil War (mainly slavery) may have avoided the conflict, still there would be other economical and factors such as the idea of state rights may still drive the conflict but it may not have last or was as bloodly as our Civil War.
Yes I admit that slavery was one of the main reasons but not the only reason.

[Skeptical Greg]

That is not quite true...
How so ?

I said " if there were no slavery, then there would not have been a civil war, based on slavery "..

If there had been a civil war for other reasons - then it would have been for -----
" The envelope please ...."

Other reasons ...


P.S.

Your link is hardly an authoritative source, and looks to be a " The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery " apologetic site..

The top five should look like this..

1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South. ( Cheap labor in the south ... in other words " Slavery )

2. States versus federal rights. ( A State's right to allow slavery ... in other words " Slavery )

3. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents. ( ... in other words " Slavery )

4. Growth of the Abolition Movement. ( to end slavery ... in other words " Slavery )

5. The election of Abraham Lincoln... ( an abolitionist ... in other words " Slavery )

[Cainkane1]

Various peoples have been used for cheap labor and are still being used for that purpose to this day. Couldn't poor people say from Asia have been hired cheaply? They couldn't be bought and sold but could you hire people from a very poor country for pay low enough to make a profit? Slaves were expensive to buy, feed and house.

[Skeptical Greg]

Couldn't poor people say from Asia have been hired cheaply?
They could have ..
How would they come to be here ?

Haven't you noticed ? Companies make profits today, while using hired labor instead of slaves ...

[Steelmage]

How so ?

I said " if there were no slavery, then there would not have been a civil war, based on slavery "..

If there had been a civil war for other reasons - then it would have been for -----
" The envelope please ...."

Other reasons ...


P.S.

Your link is hardly an authoritative source, and looks to be a " The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery " apologetic site..

The top five should look like this..

1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South. ( Cheap labor in the south ... in other words " Slavery )

2. States versus federal rights. ( A State's right to allow slavery ... in other words " Slavery )

3. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents. ( ... in other words " Slavery )

4. Growth of the Abolition Movement. ( to end slavery ... in other words " Slavery )

5. The election of Abraham Lincoln... ( an abolitionist ... in other words " Slavery )

Slavery was a form of cheap labor, and who own the slaves. Mainly plantion owners. The reason to keep slaves was for economical reasons, cheap labor helps you make more profits. The people purposing to keep slaving going in the South were people who would have profit for it. Again, economical reasons.

From the links:

However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods. This disparity between the two set up a major difference in economic attitudes. The South was based on the plantation system while the North was focused on city life. This change in the North meant that society evolved as people of different cultures and classes had to work together.


Why keep slaves if you are not getting a good profit. Sure the South puts their eggs in one basket. But it was still economical.

On State rights, you know this also affects more then the issue of slavery. Look at the home page for instance, where California legalize medical marijuana but the Feds still busted a guy for selling it. Yes, it may not have applied at the time of the Civil War but it's effects can be felt today.

[KingMerv00]

Illegal immigrants?

[Akhenaten]

Hittites

[Springfork]

John Deere Co. would have come into being much sooner.

[Eddie Dane]

I think that the relevant question is:

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?

I don't claim to know the answer to this question. But slaves may have made a portion of the population rich enough to have time for academic endeavours.

[drkitten]

I think that the relevant question is:

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?

I don't claim to know the answer to this question.

Given that I think the USA was about the only slave-holding nation left in the Western Hemisphere in 1860, I think the answer is a pretty firm "yes."

[Jeff Corey]

Brazil didn't abolish slavery until 1888, and according to this, may still have some slaves. http://www.mongabay.com/external/slavery_in_brazil.htm

[theprestige]

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?
Define "successful economy".

[TX50]

They could have outsourced everything to China.

[Steelmage]

I think that the relevant question is:

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?

I don't claim to know the answer to this question. But slaves may have made a portion of the population rich enough to have time for academic endeavours.

Unfortunely, this is true.

[Eddie Dane]

Define "successful economy".

A growing economy? An economy that frees up a portion of the population for tasks other than agricultural work? An economy that allows a civilization to develop?

Sorry if this is vague. It's what I can come up with from the top of my head.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Various peoples have been used for cheap labor and are still being used for that purpose to this day. Couldn't poor people say from Asia have been hired cheaply? They couldn't be bought and sold but could you hire people from a very poor country for pay low enough to make a profit? Slaves were expensive to buy, feed and house.



I haven't read the whole thread, so please forgive me if this has already been answered.............

The original labor force was indentured servants. However, indentures could only last for a fixed period of time, so once the indenture period expired the worker had to do something. The something they did was get their own piece of land and compete with the folks already there.

Keep in mind that the original cash crop was tobacco, which is a very work-intensive crop. Large numbers of people were needed to work the land in order to produce enough of it to make a good profit (and the profits were enormous initially). That worked out fine for the owners when almost all the indentured servants died before they could get a piece of land and compete with them.

As the land was developed, more people survived. This meant more competition and less revenue for the original inhabitants as more folks eventually competed for land. The indenture system gradually gave way to slavery because the plantation owners needed workers who would not relocate as competition -- there was actually a bust in the tobacco market about 20 or 30 years in IIRC because of all the competition.

Cheap labor from a country other than England wouldn't solve the problem. We already had cheap labor from England. Whatever country the workers came from, they would eventually -- in the first or succeeding generations -- become competition for land and resources. For a crop like tobacco and then cotton, the original owners could never maintain their standard of living and make decent profits.

Slavery wasn't just one of those historical contingencies; it served a purpose for the original group of settlers that other economic systems could not.

[kbm99]

I think that the relevant question is:

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?

I don't claim to know the answer to this question. But slaves may have made a portion of the population rich enough to have time for academic endeavours.

Given that the economic disparity between the non-slave-holding North and the slave-holding South is often held up as one of the factors behind the war, does this question even make sense?

[Beerina]

Given that the economic disparity between the non-slave-holding North and the slave-holding South is often held up as one of the factors behind the war, does this question even make sense?

Ya, industrially and economically, it wasn't even close. The North was like some big dumb lummox that the bad guy takes a few good, cheap shots at, and stands there going, "Whuh ya punchin' me fer?"

[tomwaits]

Who could the southerners used instead of slaves?

Magical robots (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=128702)?

[drkitten]

The original labor force was indentured servants. However, indentures could only last for a fixed period of time, so once the indenture period expired the worker had to do something. The something they did was get their own piece of land and compete with the folks already there.

Hire them as sharecroppers. You don't have to sell them land if you don't want to. That was the solution between reconstruction and the development of the mechanical cotton picker; I see no reason why it woudn't also have worked in 1830.


Keep in mind that the original cash crop was tobacco, which is a very work-intensive crop. Large numbers of people were needed to work the land in order to produce enough of it to make a good profit (and the profits were enormous initially). That worked out fine for the owners when almost all the indentured servants died before they could get a piece of land and compete with them.

Remember that a "successful" or even "growing" economy doesn't necessarily imply huge profits (as you point out, the profits on tobacco were huge initially but dropped as cheap labor disappeared --- but tobacco was still a profitable crop for the next two hundred years). Similarly, the existence of slavery made huge cotton plantations profitable, but the South has and had some of the best agricultural land in the USA if not the world, and they could have grown something profitable on it if not cotton.

[Bill Thompson]

The Irish.

They used the Irish in the coal mines because the slaves were to expensive.

[Eddie Dane]

Given that the economic disparity between the non-slave-holding North and the slave-holding South is often held up as one of the factors behind the war, does this question even make sense?

It's a question.

Was there mechanization in agriculture in the South?

I admit to knowing very little about the American civil war.
But progress being made possible by slavery is recurring theory with regards to ancient Greece and Rome.

[Skeptical Greg]

I think that the relevant question is:

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?

I don't claim to know the answer to this question. But slaves may have made a portion of the population rich enough to have time for academic endeavours.If southern slave owners had found themselves with a lot of free time on their hands, to pursue scientific and academic endeavors, I think we would have heard about it - if it had amounted to anything..

[drkitten]

It's a question.

Was there mechanization agriculture in the South?

Some, but not much. For example, the reason cotton was so profitable was because of the cotton gin, which mechanized cotton processing but not cotton harvesting. It still had to be picked by hand, which was a very labor-intensive step.

But by the same token, there's no real reason that cotton, in particular, had to be the agricultural mainstay of the antebellum south and in some regions it wasn't. (I believe rice and indigo were still important crops in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, and tobacco was still the primary crop in tidewater Virginia.) The American South is astonishingly productive soil and could easily have supported huge amounts of food crops with less labor but probably a less well-developed export market, but it was also well positioned to handle food processing for the export market. After all, if it's worth it to ship sugar cane from Jamaica to Boston to be made into rum, you could ship it to Charleston and save substantially on both time and cost. Cotton was simply the most profitable cash crop given the huge supply of cheap slave labor.

[I Ratant]

Look at your history!
The state (at the time, colony) of Georgia was founded on the basis of using "indentured servants"... convicts serving time, in England as the workers.
Active importing of slaves began later.

[hgc]

Couldn't poor people say from Asia have been hired cheaply?


You mean like for building railroads? Hmmm... It just might work!

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_54349f234d2e5a51.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=16130)

[Holler Hoojer]

Some, but not much. For example, the reason cotton was so profitable was because of the cotton gin, which mechanized cotton processing but not cotton harvesting. It still had to be picked by hand, which was a very labor-intensive step.

But by the same token, there's no real reason that cotton, in particular, had to be the agricultural mainstay of the antebellum south and in some regions it wasn't. (I believe rice and indigo were still important crops in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, and tobacco was still the primary crop in tidewater Virginia.) The American South is astonishingly productive soil and could easily have supported huge amounts of food crops with less labor but probably a less well-developed export market, but it was also well positioned to handle food processing for the export market. After all, if it's worth it to ship sugar cane from Jamaica to Boston to be made into rum, you could ship it to Charleston and save substantially on both time and cost. Cotton was simply the most profitable cash crop given the huge supply of cheap slave labor.

A big part of the problem was the farming methods. Some of that is cultural. I'll use corn as an example since it's the only one I know yields on. A farmer might open new land and get 40 bushels an acre first year. Within 3 years, he would be down to 10 bushels unless he had river bottom land or the equivalent of that four foot deep Ohio land. After 10 years, he would be down to 3 bushels - below the cost of farming. They didn't have chemical fertilizers and Scotch-Irish farmers tended to not use manure or rotation. The settlement of the upper south, at least, showed a clear pattern of played out farm land being bought dirt cheap (:D) by Pennsylvania Dutch farmers in the second wave. They used manure, third year fallow, cover crops, etc. and restored much of the land to decent productivity. Crops like tobacco were even worse since it really stripped out mineral nutrients. Few of the Pennsylvania Dutch (mostly Mennonites) used slaves; they had large families and everybody worked.

[linusrichard]

I think that the relevant question is:

Was it possible to have a successful economy without slaves prior to mechanisation?

I don't claim to know the answer to this question. But slaves may have made a portion of the population rich enough to have time for academic endeavours.

Given that the economic disparity between the non-slave-holding North and the slave-holding South is often held up as one of the factors behind the war, does this question even make sense?

And the academic disparity, for that matter. Slaves made a portion of the population rich enough for academic endeavors, but where are those academic endeavors? Where are the great southern antebellum universities? UNC and ...?

[Eddie Dane]

Once again, I don't know much about the period.

If South could have gone for an alternative (sharecropping, immigrant labor, freeing the slaves and jus paying them for their labor), why did they go to war over the issue?

This suggests to me that they thought they'd be ruined.

Of course, the Dutch tried to hang on to Indonesia and fought two wars over the issue. In the late forties we thought we'd be bankrupted without our colonies.

Boy, were we wrong.

[Cavemonster]

And the academic disparity, for that matter. Slaves made a portion of the population rich enough for academic endeavors, but where are those academic endeavors? Where are the great southern antebellum universities? UNC and ...?

Well, a certain amount of the wealth that allowed for academic pursuits in the north was based on industries, like textiles, that benefited from cheaper raw materials due to slave labor
A principal motivation of the reparations campaign and of the lawsuits is the lingering sense that America has never fully examined the economic powers behind slavery.

On the other side of the lawsuits are seventeen powerful corporations. They include financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and FleetBoston; insurance companies (e.g., Aetna and New York Life); railroads (Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and CSX); tobacco companies (R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson); and a textile manufacturer (WestPoint Stevens). The lawsuits claim that predecessors of the financial institutions loaned money to slaveowners and handled the monetary transactions of slavery; that insurance companies insured slaves and slave ships; that railroads forced slaves to build and run rail lines (a railroad rulebook prescribes thirty-nine lashes for recalcitrant slaves); that tobacco companies used slave labor in the tobacco fields; and that textile companies profited from cotton cultivated by slaves and sold the coarse garments slaves were forced to wear.
Nor are universities exempt. Advocates are discussing whether schools including Harvard, Brown, Yale and the University of Virginia should be sued because many of their original benefactors were allegedly wealthy slaveowners.

[drkitten]

Once again, I don't know much about the period.

If South could have gone for an alternative (sharecropping, immigrant labor, freeing the slaves and jus paying them for their labor), why did they go to war over the issue?

This suggests to me that they thought they'd be ruined.

Several reasons. The first is simple -- just because option B is "acceptable" (in the sense that it won't kill you), doesn't mean that option A isn't preferable (strongly preferable). The second is that the people making the decision to go to war were, naturally, the people best off in the system, so something that might have been equally good or even better for the Confederacy as a whole might have been rejected because it would be worse for the people making the decisions.

The third is simple path dependency. Once you've become accustomed to some particular aspect of your life, you can become dependent upon it even if earlier, you could have gone for an alternative. At one point in my life, I had a choice between being a science student or a professional musician; I chose science for variou$ rea$on$ that made sense at the time (and still do). But if for some reason I were prevented from being a scientist today, I couldn't return to professional music; I'm WAY too out of practice and no longer have the connections.

[drkitten]

Well, a certain amount of the wealth that allowed for academic pursuits in the north was based on industries, like textiles, that benefited from cheaper raw materials due to slave labor

Yes, but that's not really a good argument for the economic and cultural benefits in the South, is it?

That's the 19th century equivalent of outsourcing, pure and simple, without the benefits. If the people reaping the long-term benefits from the sytem are also the people who were working to end the system itself, then that makes the southern plantation owners not only evil, but also stupid.

Perhaps "colonialism" (in its harshest sense) would be a better metaphor -- just as American companies propped up venile backwards regimes in Latin America to continue to get cheap bananas and pineappples, the North was, at worst, doing the same. Except that, unlike the American companies, the North wasn't "propping up" the venile backwards regimes, but actively working to undermine them and to improve living conditions for the field workers.

Under this analysis, things look even worse for the South. The plantation owners turn into a bunch of greedy banana republic generalissimos and they can't even shift the blame to American intervention, because the Americans are actively working the other way.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Hire them as sharecroppers. You don't have to sell them land if you don't want to. That was the solution between reconstruction and the development of the mechanical cotton picker; I see no reason why it woudn't also have worked in 1830.



Remember that a "successful" or even "growing" economy doesn't necessarily imply huge profits (as you point out, the profits on tobacco were huge initially but dropped as cheap labor disappeared --- but tobacco was still a profitable crop for the next two hundred years). Similarly, the existence of slavery made huge cotton plantations profitable, but the South has and had some of the best agricultural land in the USA if not the world, and they could have grown something profitable on it if not cotton.


Sharecroppers have a way of putting money aside and buying land too especially with high yield crops like cotton and tobacco. I don't think that would solve the problem, especially in the initial boom-town days when even small amounts of tobbaco could provide a very nice income; that's what happened with most of the share-croppers following the Civil War anyway -- we don't still see that system in place in large numbers today.

Essentially a type of share-crooping is what happened with the indenture system, but instead of paying for the land, they paid for their transportation across the Atlantic. If people come over willingly they would have to come for a reason. If we forced them to come, then why not slavery?

My reply was intended to speak to the history of why slavery began in the U.S., not the conterfactual claim that it could have been different. Anything could be different if people were different.

Given the economic forces in play at the time -- and this was not the 1830s but more like the 1650s -- and people being people, slavery was a most likely outcome. It fit what the South needed.

[drkitten]

Sharecroppers have a way of putting money aside and buying land too especially with high yield crops like cotton and tobacco.

You can't buy land if no one's selling. And if you've got your plantation, it doesn't matter who owns the plantation down the road.

The problem with the indentured servants "way back when" wasn't that they stopped working or that they bought their own land. It was that they cleared their own land and brought it under cultivation and into production, thereby raising the supply -- of cotton, tobacco, or tomatoes, it doesn't matter which.

But once the entire South is already under the plow, which it more or less was by 1830, it doesn't matter who owns a particular bit of land. As my real estate agent pointed out long ago when I bought my rolling acres -- "they ain't makin' any more of it."

that's what happened with most of the share-croppers following the Civil War anyway -- we don't still see that system in place in large numbers today.

What happened to the sharecroppers is the same thing that happened to the hello-girls and the "calculators"; technology more or less eliminated their jobs.

[SlayerofCliffracers]

Who could the southerners have used instead of Slaves? Themselves of course.

They could have got off their backside and actually done some work rather than sitting around living off others.

Of course the population would not have been high enough to sustain a very great productivity of suger, tobbaco, cotton and so on, but this merely increases profits doesn't it?

The wealth of the people growing the scarce commodities would have lured other people from other areas to cultivate the unused land. This would increase productivity of the commodities in question.

Also, without a cheap supply of slave labour, there becomes an incentive to have lots of children so they can provide you with an extra labour force. So the population would increase rapidly also.

All you really need to grow the sort of stuff slaves grow is peasants. And peasants are generally not in short supply.

[Holler Hoojer]

And the academic disparity, for that matter. Slaves made a portion of the population rich enough for academic endeavors, but where are those academic endeavors? Where are the great southern antebellum universities? UNC and ...?

Oh, sharp like the viper's tooth! There was also William and Mary (although, since this was Virginia, Mary was no doubt a Femme Covert, so it should have been known as William). Oh, and Princeton - don't forget Princeton. And, UVA was possibly potentially great. VMI had a good basketball program. And, never forget Transylvania - who can forget their rousing cheer, "Roll on Tranny".

You make a good point. The extra leisure was largely squandered. Part of the culture of the landed aristocracy was distain for science and industry. That showed during the war as the south came up short on just about everything manufactured.

[linusrichard]

Good catches... but Princeton?

[Holler Hoojer]

Good catches... but Princeton?

Well, it's south of Brooklyn. I was desperate.

Actually, Madison went there and learned more from Pres. Witherspoon than all the rest of the southern founders put together (maybe excepting Jefferson).

[Ichneumonwasp]

You can't buy land if no one's selling. And if you've got your plantation, it doesn't matter who owns the plantation down the road.

The problem with the indentured servants "way back when" wasn't that they stopped working or that they bought their own land. It was that they cleared their own land and brought it under cultivation and into production, thereby raising the supply -- of cotton, tobacco, or tomatoes, it doesn't matter which.

But once the entire South is already under the plow, which it more or less was by 1830, it doesn't matter who owns a particular bit of land. As my real estate agent pointed out long ago when I bought my rolling acres -- "they ain't makin' any more of it."



What happened to the sharecroppers is the same thing that happened to the hello-girls and the "calculators"; technology more or less eliminated their jobs.

Slavery didn't begin in the U.S. the 1830s but in 1654. If some other form of economic arrangement was going to evolve that is the time to look for it.

By 1830 one of the reasons why slavery persisted was probably because of the Crisis of Fear. I don't know if anyone in the South would ever have willingly converted their former slaves into sharecroppers especially after Nat Turner did his thing.

[drkitten]

Slavery didn't begin in the U.S. the 1830s but in 1654. If some other form of economic arrangement was going to evolve that is the time to look for it.

Because, of course, nothing at all changed in the South over two hundred years. Nothing's changed even today, which is why we still see huge fields of slave-operated cotton plantations and everyone uses horse-drawn transportation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Most historians that I've read credit the cotton gin with the reinvigoration of slavery. Cotton is so labor intensive that even with slave labor, it wasn't really profitable without mechanical processing, and yields were falling badly enough on the rest of the labor intensive crops that most people in the late 18th century (even Southerners) expected slavery to fail of its own in another generation or two. In the ten years after the invention of the cotton gin, however, cotton production in the US went from a hundred eighty thousand pounds of cotton to over three million -- all of a sudden, cotton was profitable and it was worth it to own slaves.

Absent the cotton gin, the South almost certainly would have switched to a sharecropping system, precisely because crop yields were dropping, and it's much better to pay your field hands a percentage of a failing crop than it is to "pay" them the fixed sum of room and board which isn't dropping.

[tomwaits]

I think I read somewhere that slavery wasn't even an economically sound model of production. It was more of a "status" thing. Is there any truth to that?

[drkitten]

I think I read somewhere that slavery wasn't even an economically sound model of production. It was more of a "status" thing. Is there any truth to that?

Some, but not as much as some people like to claim. Slavery puts you on an economic "garden path" that gives you short-term benefits in exchange for long-term problems. The problem is that slaves are actually really expensive to maintain -- you need to feed them, clothe them, provide them with medical care, and so forth. Machinery is much cheaper, but machinery wasn't available when the slavery system started, and there was too much investment in the system to make it practical to semi-mechanize.

The Foundation for Teaching Economics (http://www.fte.org/teachers/programs/history/lessons/lesson03.htm)has this to say:


Was Slavery Profitable?

Historically, slaves were as much an effect as a cause of wealth.

If unprofitable: 1) we should observe manumission and discouragement of births.

The prices were high for conspicuous consumption - prime field hand $1200-1500 in the late 1850s (about $18,000 in 1997 dollars)

Despite up front costs -rate of return about 10%

Future profitability expected: over the 1850s prices relative to rentals were increasing

Profits rested on efficiency of the gang labor system - Shorter hours but greater intensity than free whites

[Delvo]

I think I read somewhere that slavery wasn't even an economically sound model of production. It was more of a "status" thing. Is there any truth to that?The only alternatives were to not have a farm, and to pay free laborers as employees. The former wouldn't get the farming done, and the latter would have the same or greater expenses for the same results.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Who could the southerners used instead of slaves?Employees, duh!

[Eddie Dane]

Employees, duh!

And this, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the thread,

Thank you all for putting in your time and effort.

We look forward to seeing you again the next discussion.

Good night.