uaskme
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2016
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Free-soil congressmen were aware of southern schemes to capture western mines for slavery. "As to California, I am equally clear," responded Oregon's well-traveled congressional delegate to a query by Horace Mann of Massachusetts, "California will always be a mining country, and wages will rage high. At present slave labor if California would be . . .profitable. . .And I have always been of the opinion, that wherever there is a mining country, if not in a climate uncongenial to slave labor, that species of labor would be profitable. That it would be in California mines, is evident. That these whole regions are filled with rich mines, is little less than certain, and that they can be run with slave labor is sure. Hence, were I a southern man and my property invested in slaves," he concluded, "I should consider the markets of New Mexico, Utah, and California, for slave labor, worthy of an honorable contest to secure." Mann himself surmised that "mines are the favorite sphere for slavery, as the ocean is for commerce."
The loss of the gold mines when California became a free state severely shocked many Southerners. At the Nashville disunion convention of 1850, for example, it was resolved that "California is peculiarly adapted for slave labor." Mississippi's Governor John A. Quitman, the slaveowning woodyard operator, cried to a special legislative session in 1850:
. . .The value of slaves depends upon the demand for their labor. The history of the cultivation of our great staples shows that this value is permanently enhanced by the opening of new fields of labor. The immense profits which have and still continue to reward well directed industry in the gold mines of California, exceed those which have ever flowed from mere labor, inexhaustible in extent and indefinite in duration. Had this wide field for investment been open to the slave labor of the Southern States, wages would have risen, and consequently the value of slaves at home would have been greatly enhanced. Many hundreds of millions of dollars would have been added to the capital of the Southern States. . .These estimates of pecuniary interest. . .are founded upon the fixed opinion of almost every well informed person among us.
If free-soil agitators had not interfered, complained a North Carolina congressman in 1850, Southerners would have been able to work the gold mines of California with their slaves and they would soon have secured it as a slave state.
Throughout the antebellum decade, Southerners mourned the loss of western mines. "We said, three years ago, in a public journal," wailed the Richmond Dispatch in 1852, "that California would be sure to remove every restriction that could be placed upon her by the general government; and that she would be the largest slaveholder of all the States.The thing seemed to us so palpable that we could not see how any man could doubt it. What makes Louisiana and Texas such large slaveholders?" asked the Dispatch. "Why, the remuneration received for slave labor. What makes any country a slaveholding country? The prospect of gain. And where can slave labor be so profitably employed as in the gold mines of California?. . The only way to develop the resources of a piece of gold property belonging to an individual," concluded the editor, "is to employ slaves." I want Cuba, I want TAMAULIPAS, POTOSI, and ONE of TWO OTHER MEXICAN [MINING] STATES,"raged Mississippi's Albert Gallatin Brown in 1858. "and I want them all for the same reason-for the planting or spreading of slavery." If slaves were excluded from territorial mines, moaned a Mobile citizen, as late as 1860, "it would present a case of monstrous injustice." Pointing to the mineral wealth in New Mexico, Arizona,and even, potentially, Kansas, the Charleston Mercury concluded: "The right to have property protected in the territory is not a mere abstraction without application or practical value. . When gold mines were discovered, slaveholders at the South saw that, with their command of labor, it would be easy at a moderate outlay to make fortunes digging gold. . . There is no vacation in the would in which slavery can be more useful and profitable than in mining," pp218-220 Industrial Slavery by Starobin
Starobin tells us the push during the 50s for Industrial Slavery. By 1860, about 5% of Slaves are used in Industrial Slavery. So, there was a lot of growth left on the table. Slaves were used in mining in the East. Calhoun owned a Gold mine in Dahlonega GA. Also push during the 50s using Slaves in building RRs and using them in steel production.
Studying this portion of the Gadsden Purchase, and reading Starobin's book have enlightened me. Helps to put the Story of the West together. Thanks to the OP for focusing on these, hardly ever discussed subjects.
The loss of the gold mines when California became a free state severely shocked many Southerners. At the Nashville disunion convention of 1850, for example, it was resolved that "California is peculiarly adapted for slave labor." Mississippi's Governor John A. Quitman, the slaveowning woodyard operator, cried to a special legislative session in 1850:
. . .The value of slaves depends upon the demand for their labor. The history of the cultivation of our great staples shows that this value is permanently enhanced by the opening of new fields of labor. The immense profits which have and still continue to reward well directed industry in the gold mines of California, exceed those which have ever flowed from mere labor, inexhaustible in extent and indefinite in duration. Had this wide field for investment been open to the slave labor of the Southern States, wages would have risen, and consequently the value of slaves at home would have been greatly enhanced. Many hundreds of millions of dollars would have been added to the capital of the Southern States. . .These estimates of pecuniary interest. . .are founded upon the fixed opinion of almost every well informed person among us.
If free-soil agitators had not interfered, complained a North Carolina congressman in 1850, Southerners would have been able to work the gold mines of California with their slaves and they would soon have secured it as a slave state.
Throughout the antebellum decade, Southerners mourned the loss of western mines. "We said, three years ago, in a public journal," wailed the Richmond Dispatch in 1852, "that California would be sure to remove every restriction that could be placed upon her by the general government; and that she would be the largest slaveholder of all the States.The thing seemed to us so palpable that we could not see how any man could doubt it. What makes Louisiana and Texas such large slaveholders?" asked the Dispatch. "Why, the remuneration received for slave labor. What makes any country a slaveholding country? The prospect of gain. And where can slave labor be so profitably employed as in the gold mines of California?. . The only way to develop the resources of a piece of gold property belonging to an individual," concluded the editor, "is to employ slaves." I want Cuba, I want TAMAULIPAS, POTOSI, and ONE of TWO OTHER MEXICAN [MINING] STATES,"raged Mississippi's Albert Gallatin Brown in 1858. "and I want them all for the same reason-for the planting or spreading of slavery." If slaves were excluded from territorial mines, moaned a Mobile citizen, as late as 1860, "it would present a case of monstrous injustice." Pointing to the mineral wealth in New Mexico, Arizona,and even, potentially, Kansas, the Charleston Mercury concluded: "The right to have property protected in the territory is not a mere abstraction without application or practical value. . When gold mines were discovered, slaveholders at the South saw that, with their command of labor, it would be easy at a moderate outlay to make fortunes digging gold. . . There is no vacation in the would in which slavery can be more useful and profitable than in mining," pp218-220 Industrial Slavery by Starobin
Starobin tells us the push during the 50s for Industrial Slavery. By 1860, about 5% of Slaves are used in Industrial Slavery. So, there was a lot of growth left on the table. Slaves were used in mining in the East. Calhoun owned a Gold mine in Dahlonega GA. Also push during the 50s using Slaves in building RRs and using them in steel production.
Studying this portion of the Gadsden Purchase, and reading Starobin's book have enlightened me. Helps to put the Story of the West together. Thanks to the OP for focusing on these, hardly ever discussed subjects.
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