Slave owners have always used slavery to benefit their own lives. Although historically this benefit has varied from serving religion to amassing a powerful army, most commonly, this benefit has been an economic one. The slaves do the work and the owners sell what they produce, making a healthy profit in the process. However, over time slavery garnered many opponents and, although these people first relentlessly tried to illegalize slavery, this initial process proved more time consuming than some of them had patience for. It was this link, then, between slavery and profit that appeared most vulnerable. Many of those opposed to slavery believed that, through both passive and active methods, slavery could be stopped by an economic force.
Antislave advocates often tried to convince slave owners that slavery wasn't the best option. James Raymond summarizes the main argument of such people in his Prize Essay on the Comparative Economy of Free and Slave Labor in Agriculture. “If we can convince him that free labour is the best, slavery, we hope, will in time go out of fashion, like an unhandy farming tool on the introduction of a new one upon an improved model. This, I shall endeavour to do. I shall endeavour to show that free labour is more convenient and cheaper than the labour of slaves.” (Raymond 3) The overall argument of antislavery advocates was that slavery can run an economy into the ground, and that it had already done this to the Southern United States. Eventually the South would switch to free labor, why prolong slavery's imminent end?
The cost of free labor when compared to slave labor isn’t significantly different. True, a slave works for nothing more than what it costs to feed and clothe him, but added to this cost is the cost of purchasing him, the possibility of him not working (losing that labor for the day), and the risk of losing him entirely if he choses to run away. The purchase of a slave was also likely one of the largest single purchases a southern farmer could make in the early nineteenth century. In 1853 a full grown male slave could easily be sold for around $1000 (Olmsted 34). At the same time, free laborers could be hired for $120 per year (Olmsted 185), meaning, apples to apples, a slave would pay themselves off after 9 years. However, added to this is the cost of feeding the slave and clothing him (most employers who hired laborers by the year also boarded them, just as slaves, so this cost is ignored).
To avoid the high cost of buying a slave, slave owners often relied on female slaves to produce children. This, however, meant the farmer also had to either raise the child or wait for his mother to raise him, all the while losing money to food costs for the child. Children couldn’t work hard enough to turn a profit for the master until about the age of 12. One of the more outstanding qualities of free labor was (and is) that it could be hired and let go as the farm needed it. Some plantation owners wouldn’t keep enough slaves on year-round to manage all the crops come harvest time and would end up hiring whites from nearby towns for a dollar per day.
Sadly, most employers weren't looking to hire whites for agricultural work year round. White free laborers at the time saw farming as something for slaves, and therefore below them. People who might hire such laborers often saw them as untrustworthy or simply bad workers. Some whites, when hired to work for a day, would show up drunk, work poorly, or, in a few cases, take their wages without working at all. These few workers, however, seem to be a problem with the Southern United States. One account states that, despite all the supposed inefficiencies of white laborers in the South, one free laborer in New Jersey could accomplish as much work in one day as 4 Virginia slaves. These differences in labor efficiency are something inherent in the two different societies; two societies that have grown to such a contrasting state in part as a result of their policies on slavery.
Of course one could easily ask, if slavery was so inefficient, how could it have gained such solid roots in the economy of the South? It’s first use there came about in part because of a brief shortage in labor supply. In the early seventeenth century, with so few new whites coming to America looking to be farm laborers, the plantation owners there turned to slave labor. After this, owning slaves was seen as something noble, a sign of a wealthy man. Even after the concept of free markets presented in “Wealth of Nations” became popular, slave owners still touted their ownership of slaves as something supportive of a free market, simply because it was the result of the slave masters operating to the best of their own interests.
This difference in political ideologies wasn’t the only difference caused by the use of slaves, the South’s economy also began to become stagnant because of its lack of progress. Planters were resided to always be planters, while the shippers shipping things to the North never needed to do anything but worry about their own methods of transportation; there was a surprising lack of industrialization. This lack of industrialization also led to a devaluation of land. In 1853 the average acre of land in New York went for $25, while the average acre in Virginia only went for $8 (Olmsted 170). The Richmond Enquirer, hoping to convince the residents of Virginia to industrialize their state through railroads, published the following.
The little State of Massachusetts has an aggregate wealth exceeding that of Virginia by more than one hundred and twenty-six millions of dollars--a State, too, which is incapable of subsisting its inhabitants from the production of its soil. And New York, which was as much below Massachusetts, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in wealth and power, as the latter was below Virginia, now exceeds the wealth of both. While the aggregate wealth of New York, in 1850, amounted to $1,080,309,216, that of Virginia was $436,701,082--a difference in favor of the former of $643,608,134. The unwrought mineral wealth of Virginia exceeds that of New York. The climate and soil are better; the back country, with equal improvements, would contribute as much. (Olmsted 165)
While the economies of New York and Massachusetts skyrocketed, those of Virginia and the southern states seemed to slow. This large difference came about more because of the uneducated working class in the South. People expected more educated labor to work more efficiently, and at harder jobs. It was arguably the skilled labor required for jobs in the northern states, such as shipping, textile manufacturing, and other industrial professions that allowed its economy to grow as it did.
Antislave advocates and abolitionists also believed that they could interfere with slave owners’ profit margins actively, again leaning on the idea that if slavery stopped being profitable, slavery would cease to exist. The first, and simplest, way was by refusing to buy goods that were known to be made by slaves. Boycotting a good was likely easiest to do for people in larger cities, such as London, where there was a tremendous amount of access to foreign goods (meaning finding replacements was easy), and one of the first such goods to be rejected was West Indian, slave made, sugar (Schama 265). This sugar, deemed moral poison at the time, could easily be replaced by honey and other sweeteners, or even sugar from other traders.
Another method favored by abolitionists to end slavery was actively trying to create an infrastructure in Africa which could support the labor supply available to them. If they could convince war lords and slave sellers in Africa that holding on to their labor, and preferably employing them through fair means, would yield the most profit, then slave traders could hopefully become employers and entrepreneurs. Chieftains in Africa they needed to convince, however, argued they only wanted three things: powder, bull, and brandy, and had three things to sell: men, women and children. To give an idea of just how little slave traders made compared to what they could have at the time, here are a few rough rough numbers:
African warlords and chieftains sell 250,000 African inhabitants every year. For these people, they were paid approximately £4 per person, though they often received their payment in various types of merchandise, merchandise that was usually of a very low quality. We can say there was an inflow of about £1,000,000 to Africa, with an outflow of 250,000 people per year. To continue running the slave trade, year to year, involved feeding already captured slaves, and the general upkeep of the army needed to control these slaves, which all cost about £300,000. Many of the goods they traded for were also used up while the armies were out on expeditions, this plus traders reneging on their trading deals, losses from the destruction of property, and the money lost from any other result of retaliation against them could easily eat up another third or more of the money they make on trade. So, the net income for all the warlords of Africa was less than £400,000. Many abolitionists believed that economic activity could easily be increased and improved in Africa, advantages which could give the chieftains even more bang for their buck. (Buxton 280)
Abolitionists such asThomas Buxton, a former member of the English Parliament, believed that Africa could achieve this economic productivity through agriculture, mining, and other land exploits such as timber development and sales. And although the profit motive to give up the Atlantic Slave Trade was there, some weren’t sure if handing the economy of a developing nation over to the largest military powers in the country, people who had already shown they support slavery, was the best idea from a humanitarian perspective.
The more popular method, and one that was shown to work, was recolonizing Africa with Whites and ex-slaves. This method was preferable for numerous reasons, including the fact that the organization that created the colony would still have control over its actions, its leaders, and its decisions. We can see how well it’s worked today, looking at the African city of Freetown.
Because the colony consisted primarily of ex-slaves, this ensured, to some extent, that they would be resilient to becoming re-enslaved by any force. Additionally, because of the past experiences so many of them had with agriculture, agricultural production would hopefully take off. Because the founding company would be involved in the development of the colony from the start, it ensured that they could weed out and push in any practices they wished to. In most cases, this was racial equality. This equality represented to many the end of what had haunted most of their lives, even after the North had emancipated them from slavery. In the case of Freetown, often times appointed whites would abuse the little power they had, causing some racial inequality, but an inequality that was quickly fixed by those that opposed it.
The possible results of such a movement were rather impressive. Assuming everything went perfectly in colonizing Africa, and the continent began to fill with educated free labor, the economic benefits of such a nation would ripple through the rest of the world. Considering many sugar producing colonies in the Caribbean and South America continent had not stopped the importation of slaves, these colonies would need to turn to industrialization of their process or a much fairer treatment of their slaves (who often died from being overworked). The abundant production in Africa would be able to supply other nations with additional trade. This new supply of goods, especially of cotton, would rival the United States’ goods, hopefully causing a change similar to that of the Caribbean colonies. Although idealized, such optimistic hopes for outcomes were held at the very least by Thomas Buxton, a prominent British abolitionist.
Through these multiple economic factors and forces, antislave advocates believed they could bring about the eventual end to slavery world wide. While many did hope that laws could be passed to demolish such an unjust institution, the little steps they could take, the more subtle nudges towards abolition, not only pushed slavery closer to its end, but also helped bring others to the cause. Eventually the laws they had waited so long for did get passed, but the economic benefits of what they did trying to end slavery on their own still benefit the world today. Not only do we have already explored methods for ending unsavory business practices, their actions produced whole cities founded on racial equality and social justice.
Bibliography
Buxton, Thomas Fowell, and William Clowes. The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy. London: John Murray, 1840. Print.
Fitzhugh, George. Cannibals All! Or, Slaves without Masters. Richmond: A. Morris, 1856. Print.
Goodloe, Daniel R. Inquiry into the Causes Which Have Retarded the Accumulation of Wealth and Increase of Population in the Southern States in Which the Question of Slavery Is Considered in a Politico-economical Point of View. Washington, D.C.: W. Blanchard, Printer, 1846. Print.
Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States: With Remarks on Their Economy. New York: Dix & Edwards, 1856. Print.
Raymond, James. Prize Essay on the Comparative Economy of Free and Slave Labor in Agriculture. Frederick: John P. Thomson, 1827. Print.
Wadström, Carl Bernhard. An Essay on Colonization Particularly Applied to the Western Coast of Africa ... London: Printed for the Author by Darton and Harvey, 1794. Print.
