The Crony Capitalist Ideals of Slavery
In episode two of the podcast series, 1619, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Jesmyn Ward, and Matthew Desmond inform the listeners about the impact of the slavery on the American economy. During the podcast, a lot is said about the importance of slavery in the creation of our economy and the methods used by slave masters and slaves during the time. I learned a lot from this podcast and thought that it was generally a neutral leaning opinion. I enjoyed the informative structure and found myself thinking deeply about many of the subjects.
The tragedy of slavery in the United States is most commonly linked to cotton; a fibrous susbstance that surrounds the seeds of the cotton plant. During the time of slavery, cotton was in very high demand. Its strong durability and tendency to keep warm were significant even before the United States colonies. In fact, cotton had been a widely sought out cash crop globally. Cotton’s demand was very similar to that of oil today in our fuel consuming society. However, for decades, one problem remained with cotton. In order to pick the seeds out of one pound of cotton, a slave would need to be working for ten hours straight. The slave masters saw this as inefficient and many stuck to crops such as tobacco and sugar.
In 1794, Eli Whitney, a US born inventor, invented the cotton gin which was a tool that allowed cotton to be separated from the seeds just as fast as anyone could grow the crop. This uncharted gold mine of an expensive and luxurious crop now became a free for all for plantation owners all across the world. Suddenly, there was a boom in the cotton industry and with it came more demand for slavery.
With the increased output of cotton, land availability became an issue. The cotton plant was unique such that after a couple of years growing in a certain area, that land/soil becomes useless. This meant that the combination of increased cotton production and increased plantation owners increased the demand for land. Because there was a limited supply of land, governmental powers who had horses in the cotton race were looking to use their powers to find any land they could. The entirety of what we know as the South East of the United States today was forcefully taken from its original Native American inhabitants in order to be resold to farmers for cotton production. With all of its satisfactions met, the cotton industry took off, reaching more than quadruple its value before the cotton gin.
This massive scaling of the industry caused large, corporation-like plantations to emerge. More slaves were taken into custody and their treatment was changed drastically. Since there were now so many cotton plantations, manuals started to emerge as to what to do with slaves for the best profitability. The manuals were extremely harsh and oftentimes, slaves would pass out from the living conditions and work loads they were given. They were also expected to record a certain amount of work per day and if they did not meet their quota, they would be viciously beaten or tortured. Higher prices in the market meant more work and more vicious beating while lower prices meant the opposite. Also, some plantation owners would announce to their slaves that they would be gone for the day only to watch and creep up on them if they were slacking off. This made it so that slaves were always alert and frightened of a beating no matter if the slave master was around or not.
Since larger and larger plantations were emerging, the demand for slaves increased. Auctions would often shock buyers by the high prices. Some “hard working” slaves were worth tens of thousands of dollars in today’s money each. So, the plantation owners would then take out mortgages on the slaves as they could not afford them upfront. This allowed global investors to participate in the profits of slavery without owning any. Many of these investors came from London and often, these same investors were the ones who scoffed upon the United States for their slavery as a publicity stunt. However, as the supply outmatched the demand, the bubble eventually popped and the cotton industry began to tank. This was the first major economic crisis in the United States and it was deemed the Panic of 1837. Since prices plummeted, plantation owners could not keep up with their mortgage payments on their slaves while investors frantically tried to cash out. Many government officials were highly invested in the cotton industry and made many attempts to revive it. They proposed higher taxes but non slaveholders shot the idea down. Eventually, the government paid millions of dollars to bail out the plantations.
The the forty years that cotton was a big industry, slavery was the backbone of the profits. However, at the time a “cotton rush” or any other product doing well meant that slaves were treated worse and worse and seen more like assets than people. One big problem was the constant encouragement from the United States government for this industry to succeed. They went out of their way to set up connections with investors, take land, and even fund some plantations. This involvement combined with poor morals set up a crony-capitalist system similar to what we have today in the United States. Last time, it was clear cut exploitation of human beings but now, it’s the “little guys” who are getting the short end of the stick in our current economy with quantitative easing and government bailouts of failing corporations that are “too big to fail”. Without the government’s help, the cotton industry would likely have failed and the intensity of treatment towards slaves may not have been what it was.
