Slave importation in 1860

[johan_steele]

I came across an interesting article while reading one of my fathers CWT issues from the 1960's. After doing a little more confirmation research I found that The Wanderer, imported 750 slaves per run and accomplished three such runs in 1860... while slavery was quite illegal. It would appear that there was quite the market for slaves in the South, the returns to the owners was in the neihborhood of half a million dollars in profit per run. This was not the only ship doing such smuggling.

The ship was owned by speculators in NYC... who turned a further profit when they sold the ship to the CSA as a blocade runner. It was later captured by the USN and used as a fast courier boat.

At least five other ships were doing similar runs w/ cargoes of as few as 100 slaves to the large number on board the Wanderer.

A British Naval officer in Cuba estimated an annual importation of between 15,000-50,000 slaves per annum. A far cry from a dying industry.

W/ these kind of enormous profits in the slave trade, was slavery really on the way out in the South? There was certainly no shortage of buyers...

In 1860 the slave trade was still going strong. Even though there were those in the south, that were beginning to look down on slavery, they were still very small in number. As to slavery becoming a thing of the past, I still believe that it would have just like it did in the north. As the industrial revolution would have progressed with farm machinery, it would become more profitable for plantation owners to go to machines, and do away with slaves.

Charlie

[johan_steele]

Charlie, what industrial, economic, cultural or political force would have made slavery obsolete? The value of slaves was going up, those who owned them were the wealthy and the elite... the monied class. All but two of the Representatives to Congress from slave states were slave holders, all of the slave state senators were as well. In the South it was the monied class, slave owners, that had all of the political and economic power.

Who would run the new machines, who would muck out the stables, mow hay and do all of the rest of the manual labor, who would clean the plantation houses and cook the food? Slaves had been doing it for more than a century... I don't think it was likely to change.

They were managing to circumvent the law in 1860 by illegaly importing large numbers of slaves from africa... in what other ways would they circumvent the law? They apparently felt themselves above the rule of Law... They were willing to start a war to get what they wanted, they did.

[eopfrank]

Shane,
I know what you mean, and it's safe to say that slavery in the South wouldn't have ended any time soon- but there is no doubt that it would have one day ended- I mean there would have been international pressure-eventually- and also Federal pressure in the way of withholding federal funding to the states and so on. Eventually, Blacks wold ave gotten their freedom- it's in this Nation's nature to do so. Sure, we make mistakes as a nation, but wrongs eventually get righted-by ourselves(which is important to note).

But it would have taken a lot Longer- into the twentieth century-if slavery would have expanded more west than it did. And that was, in essence, what the War was about- halting the spread of the institution.

-Frank

[cash]

The "Wanderer," perhaps the most notorious slave ship in the nineteenth century, was not owned by Northerners. It was owned by Charles Lamar, a planter from Savannah, Georgia. In November of 1858, they brought 400-500 Africans to a plantation on Jeckyll Island, off the Georgia coast. Lamar and his two partners, John Johnson, a Louisiana sugar planter, and William Corrie of Charleston, South Carolina, owned the "Wanderer" and sailed her from Charleston to Africa, then deposited the slaves on one of Georgia's sea islands, Jeckyll Island. She had been built in Long Island, New York as a racing schooner, but it was southerner Lamar who converted her to a slave ship.

Regards,
Cash

Shane, Frank covered some of what my answer would have been. Also helping to end slavery is the fact that in 1860, southern cotton fields grew almost all the cotton that was furnished to the world. But somewhere around mid century there were variety's of cotton that were engineered that would grow in environments that didn't require the sunny south to grow well. Eventually these cotton variety's found their way to other countries, to where the south wasn't the only source for world cotton. This in itself would have eventually reduced the need for slavery. Adding to that world opinion on slavery would have in my opinion ended slavery. History has chosen a road that only leaves this subject to our opinions, as it has decided the subject for us.

[mobile_96]

IIRC, the southern cotton was a longer fiber and much prized by everyone. The other countries that grew cotton had a shorter fiber, a bit harder to work. The onset of the CW, forced the cotton processors to used the less desirable cotton, and in the mean time for the foreign growers to try and develope a longer fiber cotton.

The long fiber cotton was much easier to clean by hand. With the invention of the cotton gin, cleaning of the shorter fiber cotton ceased to be a problem.

[mobile_96]

That may be true. but, the longer fiber cotton of the south was much more in demand than the shorter kinds.
Some parts of the south also produced a premium cotton that brought up to $1.00/lb, sought after by all the major cotton processors.
Chuck in Il.