The Planter-Capitalism

American society before the Revolution was in many ways dependent on slavery. This institution would seem to contrast sharply with the aura of enlightenment and “unalienable rights” that surrounds our nation’s founding. However, slavery had an economic role that is impossible to ignore. The story of Venture Smith’s life, a man who was born free, then enslaved, and finally earned his freedom, reveals the financial opportunities behind slavery’s that encouraged white members of society to prolong its existence despite the rallying cries of freedom and independence that were the basis of the American Revolution. Venture, originally named Broteer, was the eldest child born to Saungm Furro, a “Prince of the Tribe of Dukandarra” in Guinea (para.

The nineteenth century was one the most remarkable period in American history. For it was the century of the Market Revolution as well as the Civil War. The war took millions of lives of innocent people, who either tried to eliminate or defend slavery. The Civil War seemed to be revolved around slavery. However, slavery was not the only causation.

Slaves’ value was both as labour force in the profitable cotton industry but also as tradable property and the loss of slavery would mean a massive

In 1870, the United States was in the midst of drastic changes as technology advancements and new laws led to rapid industrialization. While the North had seen much of this progress take effect, the impacts on the South and the West were just beginning to take shape. Numerous aspects of the American economy, such as plantation systems, the Clipper Ships, the emergence of trade unions, and the invention of the McCormick Reaper, had become integral parts of the economic landscape. Immigration and tenant farmers, abolitionists, and nativists were at the forefront of cultural and economic changes that were occurring across the country. This essay will explore the various technologies, economies, and people of 1870 in the North, South, and West

In the first half of the nineteenth century, economic differences increased. When the cotton gin was invented, it had caused the south to have a totally different economic path than the north. (246). Eventually, the

This story is about a journalist, Fredrick Law Olmsted, describing how inefficient the South’s economic system, during pre-civil war, is at developing its communities. The passage starts off with Frederick pointing out an error that led to the rebellion of the Southern States. The error was the idea that in order to gain wealth and power within a community, there must be a slaveholding community that can generate the necessary labor. Furthermore, he points out that making more money and creating surplus aren’t the only steps involved when it comes to developing a country. On the contrary, one must reinvest in the communities and decide how to distribute the surplus.

No matter your stance at the time, one thing became clear: socially, politically and economically, slavery was the fabric of American success and gave birth to the Old South as we know it today. At the center of the entire institution of slavery, and central to its defense, was the economic domination it provided a young country in international markets. In the early 19th century, cotton was a popular commodity and overtook sugar as the main crop produced by slave labor. The production of cotton became the nation’s top priority; America supplied ¾ of the cotton supply to the entire world.

In the Gilded Age from 1865 to 1900, farmers and industrial workers responded significantly to industrialization by forming alliances and movements. From 1865 to 1900, the farmers responded to industrialization significantly by forming alliances and movements. The farmers responded by creating the Farmer’s Alliance. The Farmer’s

Senator James Henry Hammond delivered a speech to reflect on the hard work slaves and slaveholders they have done which was beneficial to countries in Europe. Their increasingly amount of cotton was very serviceable and that it should be credited to all the slaves and to the slaveholder who helped other country save a lot of money on cotton and giving the last of the money to charity. “That cotton, but for the bursting of your speculative bubbles in the North, which produced the whole of this convulsion, would have brought us $100,000,000. We have sold it for $65,000,000 and saved you. Thirty-five million dollars we, the slaveholders of the South, have put into the charity box for your magnificent financiers, your "cotton lords," your "merchant princes."

Imagine if the cotton businesses had no slaves the Southerners would have to create their own factories, for example, if they did have to create their own industry, they would have to sell all their slaves and that’s one of the last things that they wanted to do. If the South had no slaves, they would have to do everything all by themselves. According to page 242 it says " planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories, most wealthy southerners had their wealth invested in land and slaves. Planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories. Most wealthy southerners were unwilling to do this.

Evaluating Cruelty: Sharecropping and Slavery “After the Civil War, former slaves sought jobs, and planters sought laborers. The absence of cash or an independent credit system led to the creation of sharecropping” (Pollard para. 1). Sharecropping is the action of allowing workers, called sharecroppers, to work on someone else’s farm. This let former slaves find jobs; however, farmers found loopholes to exploit the former slaves. Because of this, the workers were rarely paid the amount they needed for their needs.

In George Reid Andrew’s journal entry entitled “Black Workers in the Export Years: Latin America,” Andrews poses the challenging question, “What were the impacts of the export years on racial dynamics and “racial orders” in Latin America?” Andrew replies with a complex answer: why owning land, racializing labor migrations, and unionizing ethnics groups produced a vast amount of racial conflict and provided space for negotiation in the workforce of multiracial Latin American regions. Andrews starts his claim stating the crucial relevance of owning an efficient amount of land to grow crops during the time period of the late 1800’s in Latin America. Andrews confesses, “Rural workers who hold sufficient amount land to feed themselves and their

By establishing the institution of chattel slavery, in which a black person became not just a temporary servant but the lifetime property of his or her white master, the tobacco, cotton and rice planters of British North America ensured their rise to economic and political preeminence over the southern half of what would become the United

“The South grew, but it did not develop,” is the way one historian described the South during the beginning of the nineteenth century because it failed to move from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This was primarily due to the fact that the South’s agricultural economy was skyrocketing, which caused little incentive for ambitious capitalists to look elsewhere for profit. Slavery played a major role in the prosperity of the South’s economy, as well as impacting it politically and socially. However, despite the common assumption that the majority of whites in the South were slave owners, in actuality only a small minority of southern whites did in fact own slaves. With a population of just above 8 million, the number of slaveholders was only 383,637.

In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.