Slavery in the US in 1861 - question

[Grey Fox]

This feels like an ACW hijack in a ACW thread.

[grumbler]

Looking around it was going on in 1861 and I have no reference to the voluntary abolition of the practice.   In fact, it was apparently quite profitable.

Tredegar Iron abandoned the idea of having skilled slaves work the plant pre-war, especially when the white workers refused to go along with it.  Tredegar Iron re-introduced the idea of skilled slave labor during the war (due to the loss of so many skilled workers to the armies), but all that accomplished was to make quality fall off the cliff.  Tredegar was always on the edge of insolvency until the South started arming itself for the war (Tredegar got the contract to build the Richmond Arsenal, and that saved it) due to its lower efficiency compared to its Northern counterparts (which was in part due to the lack of quality raw materials, mind; the South imported a lot of its pig iron from the North, because Southern pig iron was seldom produced via blast furnace and so was of inferior quality).

Cases of industrial slavery have been documented in the modern day in East Asia.  Sweatshops and a brick manufacturer in China.

We are talking chattel slavery here, not mere involuntary servitude.

[alfred russel]

Slavery was dead because it was inefficient in the machine age.  One of the reasons the South seceded when it did was because its leaders recognized they were failing to keep the industrial revolution out of the South, and the industrial revolution spelled the doom of the planter aristocracy's monopoly on political power.

Slavery was doomed because the machine age was coming, but it wasn't dead in 1860. In 1900, 41% of the employment in the country was agricultural, and "Early 20th century agriculture was labor intensive, and it took place on a large number of small, diversified farms in rural areas where more than half of the U.S. population lived. These farms employed close to half of the U.S. workforce, along with 22 million work animals, and produced an average of five different commodities."

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib3/eib3.htm

I would expect the south was disproportionately agricultural and non mechanized in 1900, but even with 41% of your employment in agriculture, that leaves ample opportunity for use of chattel slavery.

The economy began to move rapidly from farming after 1900 (and it became more industrialized), so the demand for slaves would fall despite the probable growth in their population, which would collapse prices and make emancipation much easier. But the south was militantly pro slavery in 1860 even though it wasn't in the region's overall interest, and strongly pro segregation through to the 1960s despite it being harmful to their interests.

[Razgovory]

Looking around it was going on in 1861 and I have no reference to the voluntary abolition of the practice.   In fact, it was apparently quite profitable.

Tredegar Iron abandoned the idea of having skilled slaves work the plant pre-war, especially when the white workers refused to go along with it.  Tredegar Iron re-introduced the idea of skilled slave labor during the war (due to the loss of so many skilled workers to the armies), but all that accomplished was to make quality fall off the cliff.  Tredegar was always on the edge of insolvency until the South started arming itself for the war (Tredegar got the contract to build the Richmond Arsenal, and that saved it) due to its lower efficiency compared to its Northern counterparts (which was in part due to the lack of quality raw materials, mind; the South imported a lot of its pig iron from the North, because Southern pig iron was seldom produced via blast furnace and so was of inferior quality).

Care to source that?

[grumbler]

Care to source that?

It's covered at the Tredegar Museum.  I'm sure there's stuff online as well.  As I said, the Tredegar Iron Works was probably the signature facility for trying to make industrial slavery work, and they only tried it out of desperation, because they were going out of business if they didn't cut costs.  It failed, but Tredegar survived because John Brown's Raid caused the Virginia legislature to move their arsenal to Richmond.

[Razgovory]

So, that's a no. 

Thank you, come again.

[11B4V]

You guys are too much.

Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.

[grumbler]

You guys are too much.

Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.

You guys are too much!

I cannot provide evidence in a controversy when there is no controversy.  I have clearly stated my position.  Raz has taken no clear position.  What is there to Google?

[garbon]

You guys are too much.

Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.

You guys are too much!

I cannot provide evidence in a controversy when there is no controversy.  I have clearly stated my position.  Raz has taken no clear position.  What is there to Google?

Raz wanted confirmation of what you wrote.

[Valmy]

It did grow after 1800, but it had already hit its peak by 1861 and was destined to become extinct on its own. I'm one who thought 30 years would probably be all it had left, but if it were still in place by the time we got the turn of the century peaks in immigration from Europe that would have been the final nail. Look what happened in Brazil.

Well the social and racial aspects were what would have sustained it long after it ceased to be as super profitable.  Heck even in the event that slavery ended the South still clung to agriculture with ridiculous tenacity well into the 20th century.

[grumbler]

Raz wanted confirmation of what you wrote.

And when he got it, he rejected it.  That's fine with me; I suspect he was just being contrarian, so I don't actually care what he believes or doesn't believe.

Debate that consists purely of challenging arguments without counter-arguments isn't interesting to me, even when Raz is pulling that shit on Viking.

[grumbler]

Well the social and racial aspects were what would have sustained it long after it ceased to be as super profitable.  Heck even in the event that slavery ended the South still clung to agriculture with ridiculous tenacity well into the 20th century.

You have to look at the political structure of the South as well as economics to understand the entrenchment of slavery.  The Southern aristocracy was slave-rich but cash-poor, so they clung to slavery because wealth was the basis for their superior status.  One of the reasons southern states had poor public educational systems for so long (with effects seen today) was because the elites wanted it that way; they could afford private education, and their power derived partly from their superior education, which meant domination of the professional classes by people of "their type."

[viper37]

Agricultural chattel slavery is possible because of the remoteness of the location and the lack of access to transport.

Totalitarian slave industry is possible in guarded camps in remote locations making special goods with three distinct disadvantages
1) The necessity of having armed guards to keep the prisoners from revolting
2) The quick wastage (death) of craftsmen
3) The extra cost of transport for being in remote locations
Totalitarian slave industry is only possible when the state is willing to bear the extra costs for political or war reasons. Note, slaves did not make T-34s, slaves worked the mines supplying the steel smelters supplying the tractor factories making T-34s. The V-2 Concentration Camp inmates were being quickly worked to death.

didn't they have all that already for agricultural chattel slavery?

To have competitive industry you need
1) motivated and trained workers
2) good communications to suppliers and markets

comparing 18th-19th century industrial worker plants in the North with an equivalent in the South, but operated by slaves, I can't see how the northerners felt really motivated.  Sure they were free, but they were barely paid, often lived in worker camps or other miserable conditions...  Not the most motivating factor.

[11B4V]

You guys are too much.

Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.

You guys are too much!

I cannot provide evidence in a controversy when there is no controversy.  I have clearly stated my position.  Raz has taken no clear position.  What is there to Google?

I am tracking with what you said Grumbler. Rather interesting thread. That post was for the benefit of Raz.

Ive always heard that the brass frame revolvers were more numerious in the Confederate army than the Union.  Tredegar plant seems to kind of confirm that. I dont know.