Slavery During The Antebellum Era

When analyzing the daily life and general treatment of slaves during the antebellum period, it is important to remember that first and foremost, slaves were property. Although oppressed and overworked, a common misconception is that slaves were severely abused or by slaveholders. While there were certainly many unspeakable human rights violations and beatings were commonplace, laws actually protected slaves from abandonment and execution. To understand why the constant beating and rape of slaves is a myth, consider the position of slaveholders from a strictly economic perspective. Slaves were essentially expensive pieces of farm equipment that their owners wanted to extract maximum productivity from in order to maximize the amount of revenue generated over the life of the slave. Calculating the projected value of the revenue a slave could be expected to produce included factors like their sex (i.e. the value of the children females might bear), age, location, how much they were likely to produce (depending on a slave's health and physical condition), and the market price of the goods they could produce.
Adjusted for inflation, the average cost of a slave would be $20,000 and the cost of a prime farmhand would be up to $40,000 in 2011 dollars. The total projected income value of a slave in 1860 assuming 20 years of productivity would be equal to $134,000 in 2011 dollars, less the opportunity costs like room, board, and clothing. Owning just one slave dramatically increased owner’s socioeconomic status, putting them in the top 1%. Large plantation owners with hundreds of slaves would be equivalent to today’s billionaires. Half of the total wealth held by the South in 1860 was tied up in slaves. This would be equal to $10 trillion in 2011 dollars, 70% of the 2011 U.S.