After having read about the terrible conditions slaves had to endure in Haiti, you will next be reading about the experience of slaves in the south of the United States, in an article by Edward Baptist:
Edward E. Baptist, “Towards a Political Economy of Slave Labor: Hands, Whipping-Machines, and Modern Power,” in Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, eds., Slavery’s Capitalism. A New History of American Economic Development. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016, pp. 31-61.
The Baptist article looks at conditions in areas that became sites of intense cotton cultivation in western parts of states along the Atlantic seaboard and, further west, beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The rich soil, warm climate, and plentiful rainfall of this broad region directly north of the Gulf of Mexico made it perfect for growing cotton.
Slaves in the eastern parts of the original southern colonies had mostly been used to grow tobacco, rice, and indigo (a source of blue fabric dye). As the Industrial Revolution took off in England at the end of the eighteenth century and as that Revolution spread in the early nineteenth century to other places, like Belgium and the Northeast of the United States, more and more slaves got caught up in producing cotton. As the demand for more and more cotton rose, slaves were sold from eastern areas to work on new cotton plantations further west.
In a book review by David Reynolds, you will be reading about slave owners’ self-perceptions, their views about slavery and the goals they had for its expansion:
David S. Reynolds, “The Slave Owners’ Foreign Policy.” Review of Matthew Karp’s This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, New York Review of Books, June 23, 2017, pp. 51-2.
Your paper on the Baptist and Reynolds readings, which is due by 11:59 PM on Monday, April 24, should examine a number of issues. It should get close to the bottom of page three and may continue onto page four if you wish.
In your paper, you are to discuss the difference in labor regimes between the eastern regions of the old slaveholding states and the new areas opened up for cotton cultivation further west. How was life for slaves different in one region compared to the other? Through what measures was production increased in cotton-growing areas? How do we know that a particular labor regime, and not improvements in seed varieties, was responsible for increases in cotton production? (See especially pages 42 and 43 of the Baptist reading in order to formulate your answer to this question). Why can we be confident that the stories are reliable that formerly enslaved Black people told about how production was increased in Southern cotton fields? (See especially the arguments in Baptist that begin on the bottom of page 43 and continue onto page 49 to answer this question). How compatible with modernity was Southern slavery? How did the increase in production and the riches it brought forth affect Southerners’ conceptions of themselves and their political ambitions? (Include, in this context, a discussion of the “Sir Walter Scott disease”). How strong was the grasp of Southern slaveholders on the politics of the United States as a whole, during roughly the first century of the country’s existence?
You should not submit a list of separate answers to these questions, but should rather write one, well-organized essay that explores them all. Use a few well-chosen, short quotes from both readings to illustrate and emphasize your points. Please do a careful reading of both of the materials assigned. Papers not based on the assigned readings will earn a low grade.
This is a horrific story, that I hope you will tell well. The assignment is worth 8 points.
After having read about the terrible conditions slaves had to endure in Haiti, you will next be reading about the experience of slaves in the south of the United States, in an article by Edward Baptist:
