Slavery In The 19th Century
When one views slave labor, a vision usually comes to mind. Most people when they view slave labor from a 19th Century perspective, view it as a large Southern style plantation where the main house has servants and the fields have slaves toiling over cash crops such as cotton or tobacco with a master overseeing the progress of the slaves. On occasion, this would be the ideal for some parts of the Southern countryside, such as societal functions, and the economy, but one must not overlook how slaves also played a role in the development of industries and factories. While it is true that the North had many factories and grew quicker than the South, the South also tried to keep up with
competition …show more content…
through urbanization and sporadic factories around the Southern region. One problem facing Southerners was the refusal to perform any manual labor that would equate with the slave population.1 Many white southerners refused to perform tasks that were equal to the slave population or work alongside them. Slave labor had a important role in the ongoing development of industrialization, primarily factories, in many
Southern cities such as Baltimore, Maryland, Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South
Carolina which brought on many changes in economic, social, and cultural changes not only in Southern communities, but also in the black community as well.
The institution of slavery not only affected the slaves, but the entire South. Since the
South was a part of the United States, if had much in common with other Americans, such as a shared history, language, religion, and government. But, one thing differed from other Americans outside of the South and that was the difference between black and white. Because the South was a slave society, many different aspect of southern society revolved around slavery. Because of this, slavery affected every inch of southern society and industry was also one that was affected by its institution.
Slavery can be viewed as a legal institution that bought property, humans, to be used as chattel labor or for other services. “Slavery is not a moral category, comparable to good manners or honesty; it is an institution performing various functions, in particular that of providing an important part of the labour supply.”2 That view, was the viewpoint of most people who had or owned slaves. There was no universal legal definition of slavery.
However, when viewing the Southern institution of slavery, legal elements such as a claim of ownership, heritability (the status of children of slaves and slavery from birth, responsibilities, etc. Indentured servitude did exist, but as time went on and industries were coming to fruition in the south, slavery for life as well as hereditary slavery became the norm for the South.3
Slavery was viewed with pride by southerners. Many looked to well-run plantations before industrialization as their reasoning for their near-unanimous enthusiasm for slavery in the south. Slavery was looked upon as the “southern prosperity” and the key to
1 Howe, Daniel W. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-
1848.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pg. 132.
2 Morris, Thomas D. Southern Slavery and the Law: 1619-1860. Chapell Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996, 426. 3 Morris, 426.
the continuation of the traditions, morals, and values of southern society.4 Slavery therefore, was key to not only the agricultural society of the south, but also it’s rise in industrialization as well.
Industrialization had started taking place for many years in many parts of the American economy and society. Ronald Lewis explains how “Although the southern economy of the eighteenth century was predominately agricultural, the seeds of industrialization took root during the half century prior to the American Revolution,”.5Because of the rise in immigration from Europe and the slave trade that dominated the south, industrialization was needed to help in the ongoing rise of the needs of the people. Daniel Howe explains how “The America of 1848 had been transformed in many ways: by the growth of cities, by the extension of United States sovereignty across the continent, by increasing ethnic and religious diversity as a result of both immigration and conquest-as well as by expanding overseas and national markets, and by the integration of this vast and varied empire through dramatic and sudden improvements in communications.”6The need for the continuation of slavery and its expansion into markets such as the industrial sector in the Southern region was necessary to continue the societal culture and norms. Even though many of the new immigrants coming into the country had knowledge of working in a factory, slaves could become just as efficient and economical with the same tasks.
Ronald Lewis explains in his book, “Coal, Iron, and Slaves: Industrial Slavery in
Maryland and Virginia 1715-1865”, how the qualities of business and industry in the Old
South are often obscured by the pervasive shadow or the plantation. “The roar of a blast furnace, or the din of a cotton factory, was more likely to jar the southern imagination than to capture it, given the South’s traditional idealization of itself as an arcadian paradise.”7 Southern entrepreneurs knew to capitalize on industries and factories as a way to profit. Many of them blended their careers as both an entrepreneur and planter/salve owner. This tendency was one of the most interesting characteristics of the development of industrialization in the South. Slave owners, planters, and wealthy businessmen who could afford to take risks invested in capital that gave rise to the industrial expansion in the South. Due to this investment by southerners, it would seem obvious that slaves would be required to work in factories just as much as pick cotton in the fields.
Industrialization of the south was by no means and easy task. Slave owners felt anxiety as slaves took work in the factories and questioned the result that industrialized slavery would be on production, effectiveness, and society. Slave owners felt that if slaves were to be given work in a factory, the loss between owner and slave would give slaves freedom to roam their minds and control. “Equally important, many slaveholders viewed cities with deep suspicion as places likely to corrupt, and undermine the subservience of,
4 Currie, Stephen. A Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Plantation South. New York: Lucent Books, 2005, 39.
5 Lewis, Ronald L. Coal, Iron, and Slaves: Industrial Slavery in Maryland and Virginia,
1715-1865. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979. Pg. 11 6 Howe, 4.
7 Lewis, 3.
their slaves. “There are, you may say, hundreds of Negroes in this city who go about from house to house…who never see their masters except at pay day, live out of their yards, hire themselves without written permit…This of course is very wrong, and exerts a most injurious influence upon the relation of master and servant.”8 Masters were fearful that slave labor in an industrialized society or an urban society would inevitably make masters lose control of not only their slaves, but also their mode of income due to a loss in efficiency from their slaves. However, due to competition from the ever-industrializing
North, the South’s competition and drive would have to make compromises on the fabric of commercial and cultural slavery.
Due to this ever rising issue, factory slave labor became more and more common not only because of the industrialization of the North and its competition, but also because it became economically sound practice to employ slavery in factories than hired workers.
Slaves were workers who could not quit nor come and go when he/she felt like it. A slave was given shelter, food, and clothing so that the slave performs his/her work daily without these regards. A slave would also be made to work long hours under brutal conditions with a ruthless overseer only so that his master can profit from his labor. A wage laborer though, could do the opposite in almost all conditions. He/She could come and go as one pleases, work long hours but can also have the option to quit, and be able to relocate as needed for food, clothing, and shelter. The only commonality would be the brutality of work and that the “master” or “boss” would end up with most of the pay.
Another issue could be that of the abilities of the labor that is hired. Many people felt that slaves were incapable of performing industrial work and that slaves would not be able to gain the knowledge or ability to do so. However, white, unskilled labor was no more able and even faced disadvantages that a slave had an advantage in. For example,
“Unrelenting physical labor in the heat of the furnaces may have been regarded as the urban equivalent of plantation field labor. Blacks were thought to have greater tolerance for working in heat…”9 Due to the harsh conditions of plantation labor and heat, it was viewed that blacks physicality and sturdiness made it a perfect fit for some of the extreme climates of the industrial factories of the South. For this reasoning, slaves were put to work in factories that were often torturous and backbreaking heat.
Slave labor also gave factory owners a chance to have an abundance of labor. Tredegar
Iron Works is a good example of this. “Thus it was that in 1847, as the contract expired,
Anderson began moving slaves into skilled positions at his furnaces. His plan had the desired effect of reducing costs: a reduction of twelve cents per ton of rolled iron for one example. Being really the only industrialized city that utilized slaves in factories to a large and successful extent, Richmond had no set guidelines as to how to treat employed
8 Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery:1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003. Pg. 177. 9
Whitman,
Stephen. The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997. Pg. 38.
slaves. Tredegar Iron Works, with Joseph Anderson at its head, set this precedent.”10
White laborers working in the factories or in the cities where the factories were located though did not always welcome having an abundance of slaves in the factories. One such example is where one man explains, “If we are to have negro labor in abundance, where will my support come from? If my labor is to be supplanted by that of negroes, how can I live?”11 Strikes as well as protests from the workers ultimately ensued with the victor being that of the owner. Even though Anderson’s intent was not to replace his workers with black slaves, he felt precedent to not let his workers tell him what to do with his slaves (property) and that is he did follow the wishes of the protests of the workers, it would mean the downfall of all slavery.12
Tredegar Iron Works and Mr. Anderson set an example that if workers protested about the use of slavery in the factories and property right’s, it would be in Mr. Anderson’s right to sue the workers for “forming an illegal combination to exclude slaves from his factory.”13 The principle of the case was that if it were to be approved would make the slave property useless and that the owner’s would be at the will of the worker. The positioning of slavery in industry would also be affected by how the workers felt whom and what should be employed.
Transforming from agriculture to industry was no quick matter in southern society. The south’s primary economy was based on agriculture and a change from rural to urban industrialization would not be possible without the use of slavery. Robert Starobin explains how “In this early stage, southern industries emerged from agriculture and were often so closely linked to it that certain enterprises remained in rural or small-town settings.”14 Most of the goods and production of goods were still focused in rural communities were farmers grew cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice.
The characterization of slavery in the industrial slave population changed as well in the south over time where slavery became more popular as Southern industry arose. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, 5 percent of slaves work in industry while women and children besides men where made to work in industrial work as well.15The slaves that worked the factories were “owned outright” by the masters in the factories such as Mr.
Anderson and were neither rented out nor borrowed to perform industrial labor. Masters though who did not own factories could rent or hire out their own slaves to collect on profits from the labor of their slave. Due to this rise in slave labor in the industrial work
10 Bumgardner, Sarah. “Tredegar Iron Works: A Synecdoche for Industrialized
Antebellum Richmond”http://srnels.people.wm.edu/antrichf95/bumgard.html. (Accessed
13 March 2012. 11 Potter, David. The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Pg. 400.
12 Ibid., Bumgardner. 13 Ibid., Bumgardner.
14 Starobin, Robert. “Industrial Slavery in the Old South.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, 10.
15 Starobin, 11.
force, this also fueled the inventions to process agricultural crops and new ideas on how to manufacture goods. This in turn led to widespread urbanization and trade.
One main point though is that urban and rural slavery was a point of debate for many slave owners. Slave owners felt that rural slavery was a means of race control and labor exploitation. Slaves that were in rural settings were confined primarily to agricultural labor and control was easily monitored by either the master or whom the master hired to watch over them. In an urban setting, slaves were not as easily monitored and supervision of slaves was harder to do. Another key difference is that many slaves who were not owned by a factory were hired by their masters to a factory where they would work for their master. This is turn would give slave owners a chance to keep the slaves who were in excess during a slow time in farming, rather than selling them to the deep South.16 This helped as well in the profits that slave owners would receive off their slaves and for slaves; it gave a sense of independence living in a city.
Proponents to this idea felt that by employing slaves in factories in cities would give them an exposure to freedom. In many ports of the south were trade occurred, much trade was done with other countries that either outlawed the slave trade or banned slavery all together. It would not be all too uncommon for slaves to seek freedom through free black sailors or an abolitionist white captain looking to help fellow slaves seek freedom. There were many rebellions of slaves and free black men, which had occurred in urban areas
(Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, Denmark Vesey in 1821).
Because of this, and white workers who felt that slaves performing the same labor as them was demeaning kept black industrial workers at a minimum.
Slaves, no matter where they worked, were always given the minimal amount of food, clothing, and shelter to live on. Slaves in urban settings though were more likely to have a better diet because they were in the areas of commerce and trade.17 Slaves in urban settings not only could have the chance of a better diet, but also live close or among free blacks and whites who opposed slavery, attend black churches, and have the chance to educate themselves. Rebellions too, were common amongst city dwelling slaves. Nat
Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 for example, was one of those rebellions. Slaves that were involved were from urban, rural, and coastal areas: some of the slaves involved were former slaves or slave artisans-slaves who had been hired out for work.18Slaves intermingled with the white working population and just like their white working counterparts, also came into contact with exiles from various parts of the world such as
England, France, Ireland, and the West Indies – people who had left their home …show more content…
countries because of politics or other upheavals.19 If a rebellion occurred amongst slaves, slaves would be killed and fear set into the hearts of the white population.
16 Engs, Robert F. “Slavery In The Civil War Era”. http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm (accessed 13 March 2012). 17 Starobin, 51.
18 Waldstreicher, David, 110.
19 Ibid., 110.
Virginians, after Nat Turner’s Rebellion, felt that slaves should be rid of all together, by sending them back to Africa, or by sending them to western territories. When the economy worsened, slaves were shipped south-to places such as Arkansas, Alabama,
Tennessee, and Mississippi to work on cotton plantations and to cover losses by the owners. Free blacks were viewed as threats to both the safety of the institution of slavery and the slaves themselves due to ideas of freedom.20
Industrial slavery during the Civil War era boomed. As male soldiers were needed to keep the war front, slaves were used to keep the factories that were still working going.
“In the Tredegar Iron Works of Richmond alone, thousands of slaves were employed.
The Augusta munitions plants of Georgia likewise were primarily staffed by bondsmen.
Thousands of others labored in the ultimately futile effort to keep Southern rail lines operating. As with service on the front lines, this labor--especially in extractive industries like the coal mines and salt factories--was harsher than life on the plantation…”21Slaves were employed in many diverse employments and the need for slaves in factories increased ever rapidly during the Civil War.
Urban slavery not only effected the population of cities, but also its economy and social norms. Slaves made up 55 percent in some states such as South Carolina and Mississippi and in some places even more.22 Throughout the South, slaves made up a greater part of society. In cities such as Richmond, Savannah, St. Louis, New Orleans, Charleston, the industrial economy was growing along with the need for workers. For example, in
Charleston, South Carolina, slave populations were about 50 percent of the total cities population.23 In these cities, the South’s most viable industries were located there and much of the goods from the plantation’s in the vicinity shipped their good such as cotton in Georgia, iron in Maryland, and tobacco in South Carolina and Virginia were slaves and workers alike would produce and process these cash crops for market.
Tobacco factories, for example, were where slavery was used almost exclusively. Two areas of the South dominated tobacco markets- eastern portions of Virginia and North
Carolina, and the western portions of Kentucky.24 Hemp production was also a leading industry in southern industries. Hemp from Virginia was manufactured to make goods such as linsey-woolsey, linen, rope, and sail.25Slaves were needed to spin and wove the finished products for sale. James Hopkins explains how “Without help, slavery might not have flourished in Kentucky, since other agricultural products of the state were not conducive to the extensive use of bondsmen.”26So much was hemp an industry dominated
20 Ibid., 111. 21 Ibid, Engs. 22 Waldstreicher, David. The Struggle Against Slavery: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 105.
23 Ibid. 105. 24 Lewis, 4.
25 Lewis, 4. 26 Lewis 4-‐5.
by slave labor that white Kentuckians gave hemp the name a “nigger crop.”27Hemp factories later grew to nearly two hundred by the turn of the Civil War and had spread as far as Missouri.28
Slaves in the south not only practiced their craft, but many learned new ones for labor in factories as well. Bondsmen became machinists or “engineers,” cobblers were grouped together into shoe factories, and many slaves worked in the innumerable tanneries, bakeries, and printing presses.29 Many also worked in brickyards, and in the gristmill were thousands of slaves ground flour.30 One such example is the Gallegos and Haxall
Mills in Richmond, Virginia, which was totally operational on slave labor.31 Rice mills in
South Carolina and Georgia relied on slave labor and sugar mills in Texas and Louisiana used slaves exclusively.32Slave labor was a key driving for in the industrialization of many regions of the South and without this labor force, industrialization might not have taken place.
J.H. Ingraham found in 1835 that, in the South, “slaves are trained to every kind of manual labor. The blacks, cabinet-maker, carpenter, builder, wheelwright [sic]- all have one or more, slaves laboring at their trades. The negro is a third arm to every working man, who can possibly save money to purchase one.”33 Slaves not only toiled in factories to help in the industrialization of the south, but also built many of the roads, canals, and railroads used to ship goods from factories to other parts of the region and to ports for trade. A total of about twenty thousands slaves alone worked on southern railroads during the antebellum period.34Many others, such as Frederick Douglas, worked in shipyards helping to bring in goods for import or for export to other countries. Some also worked
as deckhands on steamboats, porters, firemen, and engineers; all helping in the industrialization of the south.35None of these jobs though, required the use of picking cotton or agricultural labor.
Since the need for slave labor for factories have been mentioned, the confrontation now is to find representative indications that factory slave labor was used in the South. In John
O’Brien’s article, “Factory, Church, and Community: Blacks in Antebellum Richmond” gives one interesting find. In 40 years from 1820 to 1860, the slave population of
Richmond, Virginia grew to 28 percent due to the ever-rising factories that were coming to the city. O’Brien explains that “The tobacco in industry relied exclusively on black workers. Its rise was intimately linked to the growth of the cities slave
27 Lewis 5.
28 Lewis 5.
29 Lewis, 5. 30 Lewis, 5. 31 Lewis, 5. 32 Lewis, 5. 33 Lewis, 5.
34 Lewis, 6.
35 Lewis, 6.
population.”36Slave labor was the driving force, but not the only force that helped to increase both the urbanization and industrialization of cities throughout the southern part of America. The Civil War is what changes this though, later.
Stephen Whitman in his article, “Industrial Slavery at the Margin: The Maryland
Chemical Works” explains three interesting points on industrial slavery. The first is that both the North and the South were undeveloped when it came to chemical industry.
Second, slave labor was not anymore productive with the advantage in technology than it had been before. Third, that industries could profit from having a labor force made up of both free and slave.37 Even though slavery as industrial slavery had its faults and quirks, it served as a profitable and equitable business for both a capitalist and entrepreneur and valuable for the slow industrialization of the South.
Industrial slavery though was considered by far to be worse than plantation slavery.
Slaves did not have their owner’s protection and many times slaves were unprotected from harm from many practices of industrialists whose main goal was to extract labor at all costs from slaves. “With this assumption in mind, it is easy to gather examples of harsh treatment and then to conclude that industrial slavery brutalized blacks. Industrial slaves received harsh treatment, but so did plantation slaves.”38 Slaves treatment was not considered when profit was concerned. Even though slave codes and court proceedings helped to protect the humanity of slaves, slaves in industries were always treated with the lowest respect and given the brutal labor.
Slavery is an institution that was used for both the agriculture of the South and its industrialization and urbanization. Even though industrialization took a slow process to mold itself into the southern economy, slavery was undoubtly the highest and profitable form of labor for southerners. With the rise in industrial factories, it would only seem common to employ slave labor in these factories in both rural and urban settings with many diverse functions based on the regions of the southern agricultural good. This
“peculiar institution” would be the only system of labor that could not only help in the viewpoint of the status of blacks in society, but also that of the fears of white unemployment as well.39 That being said, slaves were a precious resource and a driving force in the industrialization of not only the South, but also the United States.
36 O’Brien, John T. “Factory, Church, and Community: Blacks in Antebellum Richmond,” Journal of Southern History 44, no. 4 (1978): 511.
37 Whitman, Stephen T. “Industrial Slavery at the Margin: The Maryland Chemical Works,” Journal of Southern History 59, no. 1 (1993), 37.
38 Lewis, 8. 39 Lewis, 9.
Bibliography
Bumgardner, Sarah. “Tredegar Iron Works: A Synecdoche for Industrialized Antebellum
Richmond” http://srnels.people.wm.edu/antrichf95/bumgard.html. (Accessed 13 March
2012).
Currie, Stephen, A Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Plantation South. New York: Lucent Books, 2005.
Engs, Robert F. “Slavery In The Civil War Era,” http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm (accessed 13 March 2012).
Howe, Daniel W, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-
1848.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Kolchin, Peter, American Slavery:1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.
Lewis, Ronald L., Coal, Iron, and Slaves: Industrial Slavery in Maryland and Virginia,
1715-1865. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979.
Morris, Thomas D., Southern Slavery and the Law: 1619-1860. Chapell Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
O’Brien, John T. “Factory, Church, and Community: Blacks in Antebellum Richmond,” Journal of Southern History 44, no. 4 (1978).
Potter, David, The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
Starobin, Robert, “Industrial Slavery in the Old South.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Waldstreicher, David, The Struggle Against Slavery: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Whitman, Stephen T. “Industrial Slavery at the Margin: The Maryland Chemical Works,” Journal of Southern History 59, no. 1 (1993).
Whitman, Stephen, The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
competition …show more content…
through urbanization and sporadic factories around the Southern region. One problem facing Southerners was the refusal to perform any manual labor that would equate with the slave population.1 Many white southerners refused to perform tasks that were equal to the slave population or work alongside them. Slave labor had a important role in the ongoing development of industrialization, primarily factories, in many
Southern cities such as Baltimore, Maryland, Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South
Carolina which brought on many changes in economic, social, and cultural changes not only in Southern communities, but also in the black community as well.
The institution of slavery not only affected the slaves, but the entire South. Since the
South was a part of the United States, if had much in common with other Americans, such as a shared history, language, religion, and government. But, one thing differed from other Americans outside of the South and that was the difference between black and white. Because the South was a slave society, many different aspect of southern society revolved around slavery. Because of this, slavery affected every inch of southern society and industry was also one that was affected by its institution.
Slavery can be viewed as a legal institution that bought property, humans, to be used as chattel labor or for other services. “Slavery is not a moral category, comparable to good manners or honesty; it is an institution performing various functions, in particular that of providing an important part of the labour supply.”2 That view, was the viewpoint of most people who had or owned slaves. There was no universal legal definition of slavery.
However, when viewing the Southern institution of slavery, legal elements such as a claim of ownership, heritability (the status of children of slaves and slavery from birth, responsibilities, etc. Indentured servitude did exist, but as time went on and industries were coming to fruition in the south, slavery for life as well as hereditary slavery became the norm for the South.3
Slavery was viewed with pride by southerners. Many looked to well-run plantations before industrialization as their reasoning for their near-unanimous enthusiasm for slavery in the south. Slavery was looked upon as the “southern prosperity” and the key to
1 Howe, Daniel W. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-
1848.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pg. 132.
2 Morris, Thomas D. Southern Slavery and the Law: 1619-1860. Chapell Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996, 426. 3 Morris, 426.
the continuation of the traditions, morals, and values of southern society.4 Slavery therefore, was key to not only the agricultural society of the south, but also it’s rise in industrialization as well.
Industrialization had started taking place for many years in many parts of the American economy and society. Ronald Lewis explains how “Although the southern economy of the eighteenth century was predominately agricultural, the seeds of industrialization took root during the half century prior to the American Revolution,”.5Because of the rise in immigration from Europe and the slave trade that dominated the south, industrialization was needed to help in the ongoing rise of the needs of the people. Daniel Howe explains how “The America of 1848 had been transformed in many ways: by the growth of cities, by the extension of United States sovereignty across the continent, by increasing ethnic and religious diversity as a result of both immigration and conquest-as well as by expanding overseas and national markets, and by the integration of this vast and varied empire through dramatic and sudden improvements in communications.”6The need for the continuation of slavery and its expansion into markets such as the industrial sector in the Southern region was necessary to continue the societal culture and norms. Even though many of the new immigrants coming into the country had knowledge of working in a factory, slaves could become just as efficient and economical with the same tasks.
Ronald Lewis explains in his book, “Coal, Iron, and Slaves: Industrial Slavery in
Maryland and Virginia 1715-1865”, how the qualities of business and industry in the Old
South are often obscured by the pervasive shadow or the plantation. “The roar of a blast furnace, or the din of a cotton factory, was more likely to jar the southern imagination than to capture it, given the South’s traditional idealization of itself as an arcadian paradise.”7 Southern entrepreneurs knew to capitalize on industries and factories as a way to profit. Many of them blended their careers as both an entrepreneur and planter/salve owner. This tendency was one of the most interesting characteristics of the development of industrialization in the South. Slave owners, planters, and wealthy businessmen who could afford to take risks invested in capital that gave rise to the industrial expansion in the South. Due to this investment by southerners, it would seem obvious that slaves would be required to work in factories just as much as pick cotton in the fields.
Industrialization of the south was by no means and easy task. Slave owners felt anxiety as slaves took work in the factories and questioned the result that industrialized slavery would be on production, effectiveness, and society. Slave owners felt that if slaves were to be given work in a factory, the loss between owner and slave would give slaves freedom to roam their minds and control. “Equally important, many slaveholders viewed cities with deep suspicion as places likely to corrupt, and undermine the subservience of,
4 Currie, Stephen. A Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Plantation South. New York: Lucent Books, 2005, 39.
5 Lewis, Ronald L. Coal, Iron, and Slaves: Industrial Slavery in Maryland and Virginia,
1715-1865. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979. Pg. 11 6 Howe, 4.
7 Lewis, 3.
their slaves. “There are, you may say, hundreds of Negroes in this city who go about from house to house…who never see their masters except at pay day, live out of their yards, hire themselves without written permit…This of course is very wrong, and exerts a most injurious influence upon the relation of master and servant.”8 Masters were fearful that slave labor in an industrialized society or an urban society would inevitably make masters lose control of not only their slaves, but also their mode of income due to a loss in efficiency from their slaves. However, due to competition from the ever-industrializing
North, the South’s competition and drive would have to make compromises on the fabric of commercial and cultural slavery.
Due to this ever rising issue, factory slave labor became more and more common not only because of the industrialization of the North and its competition, but also because it became economically sound practice to employ slavery in factories than hired workers.
Slaves were workers who could not quit nor come and go when he/she felt like it. A slave was given shelter, food, and clothing so that the slave performs his/her work daily without these regards. A slave would also be made to work long hours under brutal conditions with a ruthless overseer only so that his master can profit from his labor. A wage laborer though, could do the opposite in almost all conditions. He/She could come and go as one pleases, work long hours but can also have the option to quit, and be able to relocate as needed for food, clothing, and shelter. The only commonality would be the brutality of work and that the “master” or “boss” would end up with most of the pay.
Another issue could be that of the abilities of the labor that is hired. Many people felt that slaves were incapable of performing industrial work and that slaves would not be able to gain the knowledge or ability to do so. However, white, unskilled labor was no more able and even faced disadvantages that a slave had an advantage in. For example,
“Unrelenting physical labor in the heat of the furnaces may have been regarded as the urban equivalent of plantation field labor. Blacks were thought to have greater tolerance for working in heat…”9 Due to the harsh conditions of plantation labor and heat, it was viewed that blacks physicality and sturdiness made it a perfect fit for some of the extreme climates of the industrial factories of the South. For this reasoning, slaves were put to work in factories that were often torturous and backbreaking heat.
Slave labor also gave factory owners a chance to have an abundance of labor. Tredegar
Iron Works is a good example of this. “Thus it was that in 1847, as the contract expired,
Anderson began moving slaves into skilled positions at his furnaces. His plan had the desired effect of reducing costs: a reduction of twelve cents per ton of rolled iron for one example. Being really the only industrialized city that utilized slaves in factories to a large and successful extent, Richmond had no set guidelines as to how to treat employed
8 Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery:1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003. Pg. 177. 9
Whitman,
Stephen. The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997. Pg. 38.
slaves. Tredegar Iron Works, with Joseph Anderson at its head, set this precedent.”10
White laborers working in the factories or in the cities where the factories were located though did not always welcome having an abundance of slaves in the factories. One such example is where one man explains, “If we are to have negro labor in abundance, where will my support come from? If my labor is to be supplanted by that of negroes, how can I live?”11 Strikes as well as protests from the workers ultimately ensued with the victor being that of the owner. Even though Anderson’s intent was not to replace his workers with black slaves, he felt precedent to not let his workers tell him what to do with his slaves (property) and that is he did follow the wishes of the protests of the workers, it would mean the downfall of all slavery.12
Tredegar Iron Works and Mr. Anderson set an example that if workers protested about the use of slavery in the factories and property right’s, it would be in Mr. Anderson’s right to sue the workers for “forming an illegal combination to exclude slaves from his factory.”13 The principle of the case was that if it were to be approved would make the slave property useless and that the owner’s would be at the will of the worker. The positioning of slavery in industry would also be affected by how the workers felt whom and what should be employed.
Transforming from agriculture to industry was no quick matter in southern society. The south’s primary economy was based on agriculture and a change from rural to urban industrialization would not be possible without the use of slavery. Robert Starobin explains how “In this early stage, southern industries emerged from agriculture and were often so closely linked to it that certain enterprises remained in rural or small-town settings.”14 Most of the goods and production of goods were still focused in rural communities were farmers grew cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice.
The characterization of slavery in the industrial slave population changed as well in the south over time where slavery became more popular as Southern industry arose. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, 5 percent of slaves work in industry while women and children besides men where made to work in industrial work as well.15The slaves that worked the factories were “owned outright” by the masters in the factories such as Mr.
Anderson and were neither rented out nor borrowed to perform industrial labor. Masters though who did not own factories could rent or hire out their own slaves to collect on profits from the labor of their slave. Due to this rise in slave labor in the industrial work
10 Bumgardner, Sarah. “Tredegar Iron Works: A Synecdoche for Industrialized
Antebellum Richmond”http://srnels.people.wm.edu/antrichf95/bumgard.html. (Accessed
13 March 2012. 11 Potter, David. The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Pg. 400.
12 Ibid., Bumgardner. 13 Ibid., Bumgardner.
14 Starobin, Robert. “Industrial Slavery in the Old South.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, 10.
15 Starobin, 11.
force, this also fueled the inventions to process agricultural crops and new ideas on how to manufacture goods. This in turn led to widespread urbanization and trade.
One main point though is that urban and rural slavery was a point of debate for many slave owners. Slave owners felt that rural slavery was a means of race control and labor exploitation. Slaves that were in rural settings were confined primarily to agricultural labor and control was easily monitored by either the master or whom the master hired to watch over them. In an urban setting, slaves were not as easily monitored and supervision of slaves was harder to do. Another key difference is that many slaves who were not owned by a factory were hired by their masters to a factory where they would work for their master. This is turn would give slave owners a chance to keep the slaves who were in excess during a slow time in farming, rather than selling them to the deep South.16 This helped as well in the profits that slave owners would receive off their slaves and for slaves; it gave a sense of independence living in a city.
Proponents to this idea felt that by employing slaves in factories in cities would give them an exposure to freedom. In many ports of the south were trade occurred, much trade was done with other countries that either outlawed the slave trade or banned slavery all together. It would not be all too uncommon for slaves to seek freedom through free black sailors or an abolitionist white captain looking to help fellow slaves seek freedom. There were many rebellions of slaves and free black men, which had occurred in urban areas
(Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, Denmark Vesey in 1821).
Because of this, and white workers who felt that slaves performing the same labor as them was demeaning kept black industrial workers at a minimum.
Slaves, no matter where they worked, were always given the minimal amount of food, clothing, and shelter to live on. Slaves in urban settings though were more likely to have a better diet because they were in the areas of commerce and trade.17 Slaves in urban settings not only could have the chance of a better diet, but also live close or among free blacks and whites who opposed slavery, attend black churches, and have the chance to educate themselves. Rebellions too, were common amongst city dwelling slaves. Nat
Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 for example, was one of those rebellions. Slaves that were involved were from urban, rural, and coastal areas: some of the slaves involved were former slaves or slave artisans-slaves who had been hired out for work.18Slaves intermingled with the white working population and just like their white working counterparts, also came into contact with exiles from various parts of the world such as
England, France, Ireland, and the West Indies – people who had left their home …show more content…
countries because of politics or other upheavals.19 If a rebellion occurred amongst slaves, slaves would be killed and fear set into the hearts of the white population.
16 Engs, Robert F. “Slavery In The Civil War Era”. http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm (accessed 13 March 2012). 17 Starobin, 51.
18 Waldstreicher, David, 110.
19 Ibid., 110.
Virginians, after Nat Turner’s Rebellion, felt that slaves should be rid of all together, by sending them back to Africa, or by sending them to western territories. When the economy worsened, slaves were shipped south-to places such as Arkansas, Alabama,
Tennessee, and Mississippi to work on cotton plantations and to cover losses by the owners. Free blacks were viewed as threats to both the safety of the institution of slavery and the slaves themselves due to ideas of freedom.20
Industrial slavery during the Civil War era boomed. As male soldiers were needed to keep the war front, slaves were used to keep the factories that were still working going.
“In the Tredegar Iron Works of Richmond alone, thousands of slaves were employed.
The Augusta munitions plants of Georgia likewise were primarily staffed by bondsmen.
Thousands of others labored in the ultimately futile effort to keep Southern rail lines operating. As with service on the front lines, this labor--especially in extractive industries like the coal mines and salt factories--was harsher than life on the plantation…”21Slaves were employed in many diverse employments and the need for slaves in factories increased ever rapidly during the Civil War.
Urban slavery not only effected the population of cities, but also its economy and social norms. Slaves made up 55 percent in some states such as South Carolina and Mississippi and in some places even more.22 Throughout the South, slaves made up a greater part of society. In cities such as Richmond, Savannah, St. Louis, New Orleans, Charleston, the industrial economy was growing along with the need for workers. For example, in
Charleston, South Carolina, slave populations were about 50 percent of the total cities population.23 In these cities, the South’s most viable industries were located there and much of the goods from the plantation’s in the vicinity shipped their good such as cotton in Georgia, iron in Maryland, and tobacco in South Carolina and Virginia were slaves and workers alike would produce and process these cash crops for market.
Tobacco factories, for example, were where slavery was used almost exclusively. Two areas of the South dominated tobacco markets- eastern portions of Virginia and North
Carolina, and the western portions of Kentucky.24 Hemp production was also a leading industry in southern industries. Hemp from Virginia was manufactured to make goods such as linsey-woolsey, linen, rope, and sail.25Slaves were needed to spin and wove the finished products for sale. James Hopkins explains how “Without help, slavery might not have flourished in Kentucky, since other agricultural products of the state were not conducive to the extensive use of bondsmen.”26So much was hemp an industry dominated
20 Ibid., 111. 21 Ibid, Engs. 22 Waldstreicher, David. The Struggle Against Slavery: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 105.
23 Ibid. 105. 24 Lewis, 4.
25 Lewis, 4. 26 Lewis 4-‐5.
by slave labor that white Kentuckians gave hemp the name a “nigger crop.”27Hemp factories later grew to nearly two hundred by the turn of the Civil War and had spread as far as Missouri.28
Slaves in the south not only practiced their craft, but many learned new ones for labor in factories as well. Bondsmen became machinists or “engineers,” cobblers were grouped together into shoe factories, and many slaves worked in the innumerable tanneries, bakeries, and printing presses.29 Many also worked in brickyards, and in the gristmill were thousands of slaves ground flour.30 One such example is the Gallegos and Haxall
Mills in Richmond, Virginia, which was totally operational on slave labor.31 Rice mills in
South Carolina and Georgia relied on slave labor and sugar mills in Texas and Louisiana used slaves exclusively.32Slave labor was a key driving for in the industrialization of many regions of the South and without this labor force, industrialization might not have taken place.
J.H. Ingraham found in 1835 that, in the South, “slaves are trained to every kind of manual labor. The blacks, cabinet-maker, carpenter, builder, wheelwright [sic]- all have one or more, slaves laboring at their trades. The negro is a third arm to every working man, who can possibly save money to purchase one.”33 Slaves not only toiled in factories to help in the industrialization of the south, but also built many of the roads, canals, and railroads used to ship goods from factories to other parts of the region and to ports for trade. A total of about twenty thousands slaves alone worked on southern railroads during the antebellum period.34Many others, such as Frederick Douglas, worked in shipyards helping to bring in goods for import or for export to other countries. Some also worked
as deckhands on steamboats, porters, firemen, and engineers; all helping in the industrialization of the south.35None of these jobs though, required the use of picking cotton or agricultural labor.
Since the need for slave labor for factories have been mentioned, the confrontation now is to find representative indications that factory slave labor was used in the South. In John
O’Brien’s article, “Factory, Church, and Community: Blacks in Antebellum Richmond” gives one interesting find. In 40 years from 1820 to 1860, the slave population of
Richmond, Virginia grew to 28 percent due to the ever-rising factories that were coming to the city. O’Brien explains that “The tobacco in industry relied exclusively on black workers. Its rise was intimately linked to the growth of the cities slave
27 Lewis 5.
28 Lewis 5.
29 Lewis, 5. 30 Lewis, 5. 31 Lewis, 5. 32 Lewis, 5. 33 Lewis, 5.
34 Lewis, 6.
35 Lewis, 6.
population.”36Slave labor was the driving force, but not the only force that helped to increase both the urbanization and industrialization of cities throughout the southern part of America. The Civil War is what changes this though, later.
Stephen Whitman in his article, “Industrial Slavery at the Margin: The Maryland
Chemical Works” explains three interesting points on industrial slavery. The first is that both the North and the South were undeveloped when it came to chemical industry.
Second, slave labor was not anymore productive with the advantage in technology than it had been before. Third, that industries could profit from having a labor force made up of both free and slave.37 Even though slavery as industrial slavery had its faults and quirks, it served as a profitable and equitable business for both a capitalist and entrepreneur and valuable for the slow industrialization of the South.
Industrial slavery though was considered by far to be worse than plantation slavery.
Slaves did not have their owner’s protection and many times slaves were unprotected from harm from many practices of industrialists whose main goal was to extract labor at all costs from slaves. “With this assumption in mind, it is easy to gather examples of harsh treatment and then to conclude that industrial slavery brutalized blacks. Industrial slaves received harsh treatment, but so did plantation slaves.”38 Slaves treatment was not considered when profit was concerned. Even though slave codes and court proceedings helped to protect the humanity of slaves, slaves in industries were always treated with the lowest respect and given the brutal labor.
Slavery is an institution that was used for both the agriculture of the South and its industrialization and urbanization. Even though industrialization took a slow process to mold itself into the southern economy, slavery was undoubtly the highest and profitable form of labor for southerners. With the rise in industrial factories, it would only seem common to employ slave labor in these factories in both rural and urban settings with many diverse functions based on the regions of the southern agricultural good. This
“peculiar institution” would be the only system of labor that could not only help in the viewpoint of the status of blacks in society, but also that of the fears of white unemployment as well.39 That being said, slaves were a precious resource and a driving force in the industrialization of not only the South, but also the United States.
36 O’Brien, John T. “Factory, Church, and Community: Blacks in Antebellum Richmond,” Journal of Southern History 44, no. 4 (1978): 511.
37 Whitman, Stephen T. “Industrial Slavery at the Margin: The Maryland Chemical Works,” Journal of Southern History 59, no. 1 (1993), 37.
38 Lewis, 8. 39 Lewis, 9.
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