From: glhewitt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gary Livingston Hewitt)
Subject: Re: Civil War Alternate Histories
Followup-To: soc.history
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:00:12 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.130737.2090@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne) writes:
>In article <1992Dec17.184608.8045@Princeton.EDU> glhewitt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gary Livingston Hewitt) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec17.164841.28266@genie.slhs.udel.edu> nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>>>I've heard arguments that slavery for agriculture became uneconomical--
>>>I've never heard any sort of reason why keeping slaves as personal
>>>servants is uneconomical, but it's obvious that such slavery doesn't
>>>exist in industrialized countries (except for some scams involving
>>>illegal immigrants). Any theories about why?
>
>>A possible theory is that in a political sense, the abolition of slavery
>>enables a full conversion to a free-labor economy, that is, a system in
>>which one is required to sell one's labor-power in a market (or _the_
>>market, for that matter), in which the relationship between employer
>>(say, owner of land/capital) and employee is mediated only by a wage.
>>In this argumetn, the existence of slavery _in_any_form_ tends to
>>undermine this abstracted relationship, and so the political result is
>>that capitalists like to abolish slavery, in order that their new labor
>>system which involves fewer responsibilities towards their employees can
>>be justified.  This is often accompanied by Arminian religion, by the
>>way.
>
>There are several issues involved here; and though I agree in principal
>with your philosophical reasons why slavery would not exist in an industrial
>economy I doubt if this is the total reason.
>
>At the time slaves were introduced into the American Colonies (West Indies
>in the 16th century) there was a need for agricultural workers who could do
>well in that climate.  There was no great desire on the part of European
>farmers to emigrate and thus the slaves fulfilled the need.  This also was
>the case later in the American South.
>
>At the time of the settling of the Northern American Colonies (early 17th
>century), there was a desire for Europeans (whether farmers or mechanics)
>to emigrate.  These people later became the farmers and factory workers of
>the North.  The North thus developed without a need of using slave labor (which
>might not have been useful regardless).
>
The difference between European and African labor does not equal,
unfortunately, the difference between free and coerced labor.  In the
_18th_ century, fully 3/4 of all migrants from the British Isles (incl.
Ireland), are coming under some sort of indenture or obligation (1/2 as
servants, 1/4 as convicts).  Around 1/2 of migrants from Europe
indentured themselves.  And of course, the vast majority of Africans
come as slaves (though I just found an African woman who arrives in
Georgia in the 1750s as a free woman, from Africa (though via other
places in the British Empire).

What's my point?  That unfree laborers were the backbone of ALL
migration to the Americas, except for the initial Puritan migrations of
the 1630s.  But it may be the downfall of unfree labor (which occurs
really with the Revolution and the disruption of the commercial network
which enabled servants to be transported) that pushed alongside of
industrial development (which to my mind occurs in the North starting in
the 1790s seriously) to create an antislavery impetus.

On the other hand, some large portion of New York artisans
(Jeffersonians, liberty-men, the whole radical thing) were also
slaveholders.  Go figure.  :-)

>As the North developed industrially (late 19th, early 20th centuries) I doubt
>if the workers would have politically accepted a peripheral slave environment.
>Any labor movement developing would have resisted slave use in factories, farms
>or homes.

The relation between the development of a (for lack of a better word)
working class and the development of abolitionism is an interesting one
-- I know that the British textile workers were (allegedly) antislavery;
then again, I know that working-class mobs in the US often were
anti-abolition.  Hmmm.
>
>One can also remember that in the early colonial days an indentured servant
>was only slightly more expensive than a slave laborer (both had to be fed,
>clothed, housed and given medical treatment).  The indentured servants never
>became a lifelong slave for a number of reasons.

Actually, especially in the early Chesapeake and West Indies, an
indentured servant was cheaper than a slave, considering that they had a
mortality which guaranteed that either slave or servant would probably
die in a few years anyway.  Not until times get a little tougher and the
political pressures of freed servants build up (in the Chesapeake) or
when times get booming (sugar islands) do plantatino owners make the
shift to slaves.

Gary
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