Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Pardon my ignorance, but is it not the case that the fact that the South was so interested in expanding slavery into the Territories was based on (1) the need balance political representation with the non-slaveholding states and (2) to increase the market for negro slaves?
As Unionblue's quotes point out, the "older" slave-holding areas could generate a profit on the slaves themselves by encouraging propogation, thus increasing their holdings which could be sold off to the new slave territories. It seems so logical to me that one could encourage procreation among one's slaves and thus increase one's wealth. The only problem, as I see it, is that in areas where there are already an abundance of slaves, it is hard to find something for which to hire out the slaves in order to generate enough income to support the slave until he can be sold. I guess if you made enough profit from the sale of slaves, you could use the profits for "next year's crops."
If slavery was not allowed in the territories, then it would, over time, kill off any profit from the sale of slaves bred for this purpose. Eventually, the "market becomes saturated" and those areas needing slaves already have enough and might actually have to discourage slave propogation, else one ends up with too many mouths to feed. Such a situation leads to a continual decrease in the value of slaves and the basis of wealth of the old-line slaveholders deteriorates into nothing. Thus the conviction among abolitionists that if slavery did not expand it would die out of its own accord.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Pardon my ignorance, but is it not the case that the fact that the South was so interested in expanding slavery into the Territories was based on (1) the need balance political representation with the non-slaveholding states and (2) to increase the market for negro slaves?
Ignorance? That would be the last thing I'd expect from you, timewalker. But to your question: I've seen nothing that hints on expansion as being driven by an intent to increase the market for slaves.
On the contrary, there were those who favored reopening importation to reduce the prices so that the less fortunate could enjoy the benefits. (Yeah. Right.)
I figure slavery was dying anyway. The territories were important only for the two senators generated from each. I've always wondered where the hoo-hah about "the nasty government will not let us move with our slaves into the territories" came from. Slavery could only thrive if were expanded into the Caribbean and Central America. Confined to where it existed, it was dead.
We put too much emphasis on slave-breeding. There were some who made their living in the practice. Most everyone else just found it a sound business practice to keep slaves alive and reproductive and, incidentally, profitable. (There were a few that felt it was cheaper to buy than breed. They usually had high death rates.)
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Ignorance? That would be the last thing I'd expect from you, timewalker.
ole
Oh, I think you'll find me ignorant on a VAST number of subjects.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Very simply put almost every slaveowner participated in slave breeding. It's simple, his slave has a child he owns that child and was free to trade, sell or free that child as his fancy went. The owner had the say on if the woman was married or not and was in no way bound to respect a slaves marriage. A preganant woman who consistantly gives live birth w/ the children surviving infancy was an ASSET as are all children born. If she caught his fancy enough for him to take interest all that much more of an asset. We know it happened, how often? Often enough that Union soldiers were disgusted how often they came across slaves as light as they and obviously a white mans child. Hence the terms, quadroon and even octroon (sp?)
As to the Census... every how many years? How accurately were slaves counted, who reported the numbers? Would an owner selling slaves have any incentive to mention that some of his female slaves had issues w/ miscarriages or still births? Was there incentive for a female slave to bring up the fact that she was even pregnant? We know Robert Smalls wife certainly did not... how many more?
So to me Slave breeding was a hard and cold fact, every slave born that survived long enough to be sold made the owner money.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
As to the Census... every how many years? How accurately were slaves counted, who reported the numbers? Would an owner selling slaves have any incentive to mention that some of his female slaves had issues w/ miscarriages or still births? Was there incentive for a female slave to bring up the fact that she was even pregnant? We know Robert Smalls wife certainly did not... how many more?
You bring up and interesting point quite germain to the issue. It seems to me that we cannot simply look at the number of children born to a black woman as opposed to the number of children born to a white woman. We would also have to factor in rates of stillbirth and miscarriage for black women as opposed to white women. After all, one would expect that pre-natal care (such as it was) and general health of the white population would be better than that of the black population. When we say that the slave woman only had x number of children we would have to factor in all pregnancies which did not lead to a live birth as well as the infant mortality rate.
The infant mortality rate would also be a factor. After all, if the infant mortality rate is high, you have more children to make up for the fact that a certain percentage are not going to survive to reach a saleable age.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
The infant mortality rate would also be a factor. After all, if the infant mortality rate is high, you have more children to make up for the fact that a certain percentage are not going to survive to reach a saleable age.
The infant mortality rate was sometimes abysmal. Read recently that James Chesnut inherited a rice plantation where the rate was something like 72 percent. He immediately went to work to try to reduce that. And he did. Forget what he got it down to, but whatever it was, was still abysmal.
Guess I oughtn't pontificate on the subject. (I am not Cash, who knows somehow exactly where to find it.) But "Time on the Cross," Fogel and Engerman and "Days of Defiance," Maury Klein, figure in there somewhere. If I'm recalling correctly, the odds of a slave reaching 25 was something like 29:100. Now don't take this number to the bank.
I'm assuming that the white baby had a bad deal, as well. Almost every family lost one or two somewhere in there.
But it is interesting to incorporate death rates into the discussion of breeding for profit. If a plantation owner were consciously engaged in the practice, he would have to bear the expense of improving survival rates.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Continued from the book, Slave Trading in the Old South, by Frederic Bancroft, Chapter IV, The Importance Of Slave-Rearing, p. 76.
"Other Southerners went much further, saying that in several States slaves were reared for sale rather than for their labor. Moncure D. Conway, whose father was a slaveholder near Fredericksburg, Virginia, wrote: "As a general thing, the chief pecuniary resource in the border States is the breeding of slaves; and I grieve to say that there is too much ground for the charges that general licentiousness among the slaves, for the purpose of a large increase, is compelled by some masters and encouraged by many. The period of maternity is hastened, the average age youth of negro mothers being nearly three year earlier than that of any free race, and an old maid is utterly unknown among the women."
The stock-farmer indifferent to enlarging his herd would be no more of an anomaly than was the planter that did not keep close count of his pickaninnies and rejoice in the profit that grew with them. They were his pride and appealed to his imagination. "All the little darkies by natural increase were net profit!" exclaimed an old lawyer in Natchez, the son of a rich ante-bellum planter. This was because on a farm or plantation the neccessary outlay for their support (from birth until they reached 6 or 8 years of age, when hey began to work and were readily salable or hired out) was hardly appreciable. Their food and scant clothing were the simplest and cheapest possible, and an ample average allowance was one-third as much as was given to a fieldhand, whose entire maintenance, according to liberal estimates, cost not more than $30 per year."
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Inhumanity among humans. What a sorry lot were our ancestors, or at least some of them.
From many years of genealogy I can report that white folks stretched the repoductive years to the limits. I suspect 6-10 offspring from a healthy lady was the norm after the civil war. Labor had to be obtained from somewhere once the Forrests went out of business. A returning soldier rapidly went about the challenge of re-populating the South. I suspect the yanks weren't far behind.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
I don't think we're talking about anything so advanced as genetic selection. It's more like mating your biggest, strongest field-hand with the sturdiest fertile females. Odds are you will end up with a crop of babies who will mostly resemble their parents.
ole
6 or 7 generations is the max number we are concerned with, there is zero gentic drift in such a timescale.
the only people talking about gentic breeding are those who dont understand what it entails, in the 1700s using peas scientist worked out how many generations you need to get genetic drift, now they use house flys.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
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