The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860 /
Schermerhorn, Jack Lawrence, author.
Calvin Schermerhorn's provocative study views the development of modern American capitalism through the window of the nineteenth-century interstate slave trade. This eye-opening history follows money and ships as well as enslaved human beings to demonstrate how slavery was a national business supported by far-flung monetary and credit systems reaching across the Atlantic Ocean. The author details the anatomy of slave supply chains and the chains of credit and commodities that intersected with them in virtually every corner of the pre-Civil War United States, and explores how an institution that destroyed lives and families contributed greatly to the growth of the expanding republic's capitalist economy.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes index.
Calvin Schermerhorn's provocative study views the development of modern American capitalism through the window of the nineteenth-century interstate slave trade. This eye-opening history follows money and ships as well as enslaved human beings to demonstrate how slavery was a national business supported by far-flung monetary and credit systems reaching across the Atlantic Ocean. The author details the anatomy of slave supply chains and the chains of credit and commodities that intersected with them in virtually every corner of the pre-Civil War United States, and explores how an institution that destroyed lives and families contributed greatly to the growth of the expanding republic's capitalist economy.
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

Slave trade
Slave traders
Slaves
Slavery
Capitalism