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Slavery's Capitalism: a New History of American Economic Development

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Slavery's Capitalism: a New History of American Economic Development Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. Providence, Rhode Island / Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sven Beckert, Harvard University; Seth Rockman, Brown University, 07.04.2011-09.04.2011. Reviewed by Shaun Nichols Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (May, 2011) For generations, historians have struggled to upon the sweltering sin of its peculiar institution: excavate the roots of what Kenneth Pomeranz has slavery. Only the cataclysm of Civil War could called the “Great Divergence”: namely, how and have possibly brought the simmering conflict be‐ why did the nineteenth century see northwestern tween these two oppositional systems to a head, Europe—and later, the United States—so abruptly and thus pave the way towards the ascendance of burst forth in an unprecedented explosion of in‐ liberal capitalism. dustrial growth while so much of the world Yet in the last two decades, popular con‐ lagged behind in a preindustrial past. Pomeranz sciousness has increasingly diverged from the dis‐ himself pointed to two key dissimilarities: access course of many American historians. Indeed, just to coal, and access to the vast resources of the as many Americans before the Civil War candidly American continent cultivated largely through co‐ acknowledged the ways in which slave-grown cot‐ erced and slave labor. Yet despite Pomeranz’s ton was at the foundation of America’s growing provocative insight, historians have been ulti‐ industrial ascendance—it was, after all, the Unit‐ mately reticent to chart a common history of ed States’ most valuable export, as well as the es‐ these two institutions that so indelibly marked the sential resource bringing specie into the nation’s global history of the nineteenth century: capital‐ fledgling banks—popular discourse has once ism and slavery. more returned to seeing the reverberations of Moreover, since the end of the American Civil slavery’s past all around us. Activists from the War, American historians have been only too ea‐ reparations movement have exposed the ways in ger to make slavery out to be merely a “southern which Northern companies directly benefited problem,” thereby conveniently exculpating the from it; American universities have dug into their north from its role in the development and pro‐ archives, consciously striving to disentangle their mulgation of this abhorrent institution. Indeed, own links to it; and economists have produced a the northern United States, it is so often claimed, veritable corpus of econometric research com‐ represented the modernizing impulse of industri‐ pellingly demonstrating how slave labor under‐ alization itself: the infinite productive capacity of girded America’s industrial revolution. American free laborers and yeoman farmers in an open historians, however, have remained strangely market. The south, on the other hand, was locked aloof from these developments. in hopeless stagnation—inextricably wedded to its Curiously, the connections between modern endless wealth of homegrown cotton founded institutions and slavery’s past had become so H-Net Reviews patently self-evident that it seemed to warrant lit‐ The frst panel, “Finance,” explored the intri‐ tle further research. Yet nothing could be less cacies of how slavery was capitalized and funded. true. Indeed, highly charged statements of north‐ First, JOSHUA D. ROTHMAN (Tuscaloosa) traced ern “complicity” in southern slaving—whether the ways in which speculation in slave labor fur‐ true or not—mask a far more complicated, contra‐ ther inflated the fnancial “bubble” of the 1830s dictory, and often disconcerting historical reality. that culminated in the Panic of 1837. Indeed, And although much is already known about the Rothman detailed the ways in which northern f‐ abstract linkages between northern industry and nancial markets supplied the loans (based on the southern slavery, there still exists little scholarly potential return, in labor, of plantation slaves) research on the precise connections between which effectively made this speculative economic these two key enterprises once central to Ameri‐ boom—and subsequent bust—possible. BONNIE can economic development. With these questions MARTIN (University Park) then interrogated the in mind, Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of His‐ ways in which the mortgaging (often repeated tory at Harvard University, and Seth Rockman, mortgaging) of slaves brought in much-needed Professor of History at Brown University, brought cash and capital to the south. Yet Martin ultimate‐ together seventeen scholars for a conference ly emphasized that northern banks and mer‐ aimed at painting a very different picture of chants were actually much less involved in this American economic development. Indeed, how process than the complex neighbor-to-neighbor might American history look different once we in‐ networks which permeated local southern com‐ vite the possibility that perhaps the industrializa‐ munities. Finally, KATHRYN BOODRY (Cambridge) tion of the north and the proliferation of slavery compellingly detailed the ways in which slavery in the south were not rival developments, but was just one part of a larger, integrated Atlantic rather, transformations deeply embedded within economy of cotton, capital, and textile manufac‐ one another? What were the precise connections turing. between the burgeoning economic institutions of The second panel, “Development,” explored the north—banks, merchant establishments, trad‐ the institutional force and coherence of slavery. ing frms, commercial shippers, and industrial First, JOHN MAJEWSKI (Santa Barbara) presented manufacturers—and the slave plantations of the a paper that sought, if not for just a moment, to south? And ultimately, how might an understand‐ take Abraham Lincoln seriously in his fears that ing of slavery’s capitalism alter our understand‐ slavery might have spread north. Indeed, Majews‐ ings of the development of the American economy ki showed how in the so-called “limestone and its particular place in world history? south”—northern Virginia, the Kentucky Blue‐ The conference opened at Brown University grass region, and the Tennessee Nashville Basin— in Providence, Rhode Island on April 7 to a won‐ the natural, built, and cultural environment did derfully provocative keynote address by Brown not look all too different from the north. Thus, he University President RUTH SIMMONS (Provi‐ concluded that slavery perhaps did have the po‐ dence) on how the university itself can play a key tential to be a national institution, arguing that role in fostering open, public dialogue—even on the defining factor that inhibited its growth in any contentious issues like the history of slavery. After given area was not climate or economics, but con‐ three days and six panels, the conference ended scious political decision-making. STANLEY EN‐ at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachu‐ GERMAN (Rochester) then presented, arguing that setts on April 9, 2011. although it was undoubtedly true that northern merchants were involved in the fnancing of slav‐ ery, whether or not the slave trade was necessary 2 H-Net Reviews to northern economic development is a very dif‐ The last day of the conference, held at Har‐ ferent and far more complicated question. Indeed, vard University, opened with a morning panel Engerman pointed out that many other national dedicated to “Plantation Practices.” First, ED‐ economies thrived in this period without slavery. WARD BAPTIST (Ithaca) delivered a gripping ac‐ Thus, he ultimately asked whether slavery under‐ count of slaves’ daily experiences in the “push girded New England’s industrial ascendance, or system” of the Deep South: Alabama, Georgia, whether it was the very success of New England’s Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. In economy that made slavery such a thriving insti‐ Baptist’s telling, it was a world in which the ever- tution. increasing demand for profit was satiated by Before the next panel started, conference co- pushing slaves harder and harder and by whatev‐ convener Seth Rockman reminded the audience er means necessary. In a chilling conclusion, Bap‐ that we should be hesitant to rush into abstruse tist recalled a former slave’s reminiscences about theoretical debates about questions of “what ex‐ his master’s “whipping machine”: a hand-operat‐ actly is capitalism?” and to what degree it is mere‐ ed spinning wheel of four to fve whips. Thus, ly synonymous with “economic development.” He Baptist ultimately showed how the ever-looming argued that although, historically, there may have threat of violence formed an oft-overlooked foun‐ been other nations exhibiting capitalism without dation of the explosion of productivity the United slavery, this does not preclude the simple fact that States experienced during the nineteenth century. nineteenth-century America did indeed witness IAN BEAMISH (Baltimore) then showed how the institutional development of both slavery and “agricultural improvement” groups in the nine‐ capitalism. Thus, Rockman argued that we should teenth-century south were in constant dialogue continue to keep our sights set on telling a better with industrialists in the north, mutually partici‐ American economic history, not on redefining the pating in movements to modernize, rationalize, very theoretical foundations of capitalism itself. and enumerate agricultural production. Finally, CAITLIN ROSENTHAL (Cambridge) presented her In the last panel of the day, “Commerce,” ERIC challenge to the all-too-common assumption that KIMBALL (Greensburg) asked how we
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