Economic impact of Slavery and Emancipation in America

Gradual Emancipation Alternatives

In Clauadia Dale Goldin’s article “The Economics of Emancipation,” she argues the different gradual emancipation processes that were put into effect for many of the northern states. The article argues the idea that because slaves were considered property, that a complete emancipation without compensation was considered illegal. One of the gradual emancipation ideas was the thought that because slavery was believed to only last one more generation that male slaves would be considered free when they turn 28 and females would be considered free at 25. The idea that the females would be emancipated earlier than males was that the females were more productive than their male counterparts during their teenage years. This form of gradual emancipation also made the demand for female slaves decrease because their value from breeding capabilities has become zero because the next generation of children are considered free. Another form of gradual emancipation was that along with the gradual freeing of slaves the slave owners would pay the children of slaves $3.50 per month for public care of children that would otherwise be orphaned. These form of gradual emancipation had both positive and negative effects. One of the positive factors of gradual emancipation is that it was not only helping free the slaves, but it was not too costly to the slave owners. This lack of cost would make these ideas of gradual emancipation more enticing to slave owners. One of the main problems with this gradual emancipation is that if it was expected that gradual emancipating was happening, slave owners would attempt to sell their slaves while they still had them. This happened many times in New York for example. In 1799 when the slave owners expected the gradual emancipation to happen 12,000 slaves were freed by emancipation, but some 24,000 were sold to the south. The slave owners were not willing to just free their slaves, they needed to be compensated in some fashion so they sold their slaves to the south.(Goldin, 70) In addition to the problem of smuggling, if these gradual abolition laws were passed this would encourage more rigorous use of the slaves while they were still available. For example if they would require one more generation to work, then that generation would be worked harder than before. Now the question begs why didn’t the south want to attempt to input a gradual emancipation? One reason is that the south could not sell their slaves if they were expecting the emancipation of the slaves to happen Some would argue that the use of slavery was “an important duty for the south, part of their ‘unending task of race discipline.” Many economists like Lewis Gray and Kenneth Stampp have contested this view saying that the southern plantation argriculture was just as much a economic active product of the United States as any other business.

Problems with Slave Labor

The south made statements that slavery would end in the next generation because of the lack of production coming from the slaves. Another reason that slavery would be ending in the next generation heading into the civil war is that they were not reproducing parallel to the growth of the surrounding America. It was stated by Robert William Fogel and Stanley Engerman that the material living conditions of the slaves were better than those of the free man.(David,739) This was contested by the writings of David and Temin stating that very few of the slaves that came to America were put in great working conditions, and their poor working conditions reflected in their drop in population. The south knew that the slave population was not growing as highly as anticipated, and therefore would die out on its own without the purchase of more slaves. Because of the poor treatment of the slaves, African Americans had an alternative approach to a traditional revolt against the slave owners. Instead of revolting against the slave owners directly the slaves would attack them in other ways. The slaves would show their discontent by “shirking their duties, injuring the crops, feigning illness, and disrupting the routine.”(David, 741) This disruptive work environment definitely showed that slave labor had many negative effects to go with it obvious efficient profits. With the working conditions being as poor as they were the slaves would be less productive and more destructive.