Title:
Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of Economic Development
Author:
Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, eds.
Year of Publication:
2016
Thesis:
Generally, that Capitalism and slavery developed hand-in-hand in the Americas, countering two long-held beliefs: that capitalism was impeded by slavery and that the North in the U.S. was not deeply invested in slavery. The authors in the essays that follow explore how this relationship played out regionally and thematically.
Time:
1776-1865
Geography:
Primarily Americas / U.S.
Organization:
Introduction. Slavery's Capitalism
- Products of enslaved people and evidence of their work is everywhere (3)
- Persistent perception that slavery was anathema to capitalism and impeded its development (3)
- Baptist - slavery fuels the Great Divergence. (15)
- See: Rosenthal - slavery, not the railroads, developed modern systems of management (15)
- Chambers on U.S. investments in Cuba - see how John Q. Adams was part of ensuring exports went to St. Petersburg (21)
PART I. PLANTATION TECHNOLOGIES
Chapter I. Toward a Political Economy of Slave Labor: Hands, Whipping-Mahcines, and Modern Power - Edward E. Baptist
Chapter 2. Slavery's Scientific Management: Masters and Managers - Caitlin Rosenthal
Chapter 3. An International Harvest: The Second SLavery, the Virginia-Brazil Connection, and the Development of the McCormick Reaper - Daniel B. Rood
- Grain harvesting developed in VA under slavery, not the Midwest. - purpose of grain reapers to save time, not labor (desire for enslaved laborers increases) (16)
PART II. SLAVERY AND FINANCE
Chapter 4. Neighbor-to-Neighbor Capitalism: Local Credit Networks and the Mortgaging of Slaves - Bonnie Martin
- Important to note that mortgages of enslaved people were handled locally.
Chapter 5. The Contours of Cotton Capitalism: Speculation, Slavery, and Economic Panic in Mississippi, 1832-1841 - Joshua D. Rothman
Chapter 6. "Broad is de Road dat Leads ter Death": Human Capital and Enslaved Mortality - Daina Ramey Berry
- Important work on ways enslavers and others reaped benefits from enslaved people who died. (18)
Chapter 7. August Belmont and the World the Slaves Made - Kathryn Boodry
- Works on largest banking houses supporting cotton - key to understand how this formed the bedrock of modern banking (19)
PART III. NETWORKS OF INTEREST AND THE NORTH
Chapter 8. "What have we to do with slavery?" New Englanders and the Slave Economies of the West Indies - Eric Kimball
- Develops these connections - benefitting from both goods and developments made from enslaved labor. Ultimately, NE is dependent on enslaved labor for its financial viability (21-22)
Chapter 9. "No country but their counting-houses": The U.S.-Cuba-Baltic Circuit, 1891-1812
Chapter 10. The Coastwise Slave Trade and a Mercantile Community of Interest - Calvin Schermerhorn
- Demonstrates how coastal trade moved people, bank notes, products, etc.
PART IV. NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND NATURAL BOUNDARIES
Chapter 11. War and Priests: Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution - Craig Steven Wilder
Chapter 12. Capitalism, Slavery, and the New Epoch: Mathew Cary's 1819 - Andrew Shankman
Chapter 13. The Market, Utility, and Slavery in Southern Legal Thought - Alfred L. Brophy
Chapter 14. Why Did Northerners Oppose the Expansion of Slavery? Economic Development and Education in the Limestone South - John Majewski
Notes
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Type:
Methods:
Sources:
Historiography:
- Eric Williams - demonstrates British capitalist development to its role in enslaving Africans in the Caribbean. (4)
- Cites a number of scholars who followed Williams (Mintz, etc.)
Historiography on U.S. is rather minimal in comparison, but
- Gandin - Empire of Necessity, Beckert - Empire of Cotton,
- Baptist - The Half Has Never Been Told. And a conference entitled "Slavery's Capitalism" in 2011. (5)
- Emphasis on this end led to looking into businesses and Universities' histories of enslaving. (6)
- Turn toward new scholarship on U.S. slavery & global capitalism already has a foundation in Stuart Hall, Eric Wolf, Cedric Robinson, Robin Blackburn. (8)
- Pomeranz on sugar as form of calories (also Mintz covered this, no?) (9)
- Marxist interpretations often involve slavery vs. Capitalism dynamic, so new histories of Capitalism are divorced from this idea (9)
- Tutino (9)
- Capitalism & Abolitionism used to be seen as hand-in-hand; now that is being questioned (10)
- See: Stephen Berhrendt on British fine-tuning seasons of trade to create a more efficient/risk-averse & profitable trade (10-11)
- Smallwood credited with use of ledgers as sources (11)
- Rediker credited with vessels as race-making (11)
Keywords:
"Second Slavery" - post 1808 where modernity and slavery are conjoined (12)
Themes:
Critiques:
Questions:
Quotes:
Notes:
Rood's work makes me wonder how many other technologies began strictly as time-saving (not labor-saving) devices in order to maximize the use of enslaved people.