Explaining slavery in the era of industrial capitalism
Robin Blackburn, the premier chronicler of capitalism and the slave trade, returns with third volume
(Wikimedia Commons)
Robin BlackburnPublished by Verso, £29.99
By Ken Olende
Thursday 17 October 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2927
Chattel slavery—the buying and selling of black people as property—was a key part of capitalism’s development in the first half of the 19th century. Historian Robin Blackburn argues in his new book, The Reckoning, that the rise of industrial capitalism did not end slavery.
In fact, he points out, it “generated a more thoroughgoing slavery in the New World.” Blackburn calls this period the Second Slavery, “a turbo-charged and financialised version of servitude.”
In the earlier phase of the Atlantic slave trade, slaveowners could work the enslaved to death and replace them with people captured in Africa. But, by the 19th century this was no longer practical, and slavers had to rely on “breeding” new generations. And this in turn forced plantation owners to become more efficient.
These shifts meant that in the Southern United States cotton output per slave increased fourfold in the first half of the 19th century. In the early decades of the 19th century international exports from the US slave states were $34 million, while those from non-slave states were $17 million.
Blackburn does not argue that capitalism rose out of the slave trade, as banking and mercantile trade were already in existence. Instead, he says that slavery was a key part of the system’s early development.
However, Blackburn does show that for the system as a whole, slavery was not the most efficient way of making money and exploiting labour. That meant that its dominance became a problem in the future—and that its spread was uneven.
He comments that in South America, “slaves numbered only around 3-6 percent of the population in most of Spanish America at any point in the eighteenth century. However, in Cuba, slaves were about a third of the total population in 1770, rising to a half over the next 50 years.”
But slave owners everywhere faced constant resistance. Slaves would push to gain more time to grow food and be with their families, they would escape and they would lead armed rebellions.
The whole period exists in the shadow of the successful slave revolt in Sant-Domingue, in what is today Haiti. Led by Toussaint Louverture and later Jean-Jacques Dessalines, slave armies defeated the major powers of the day—France, Spain and Britain—to win independence.
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 —though not in plantations across its empire. It then tried to suppress other traders, to stop them making profits that Britons could not.
Blackburn points out that despite this British companies continued to manufacture the shackles used in 19th century slave ships.
As well as describing these developments, Blackburn shows the people who fought slavery. He details those who led uprisings and the organisers of the Underground Railroad escape routes.
And he talks of the growing movement of “ultras”, militant abolitionists who believed in “uncompromising direct action” to end slavery. He adds that there is no hard and fast divide between “fugitive slave politics” and “revolutionary abolitionism” and the two strands often merged and radicalized one another.
The white revolutionary abolitionist John Brown led an assault on the military armoury at Harper’s Ferry hoping to inspire a slave insurrection. He and ten of his men were captured, put on trial and executed. The great black emancipator Frederick Douglass had warned him that “a slave insurrection could not be detonated by the exemplary actions of a small group of outsiders”.
Yet Brown became a hero to the radical wing of the anti-slavery movement and as the civil war broke out volunteer troops made John Brown’s Body their marching song.
After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, slave states left the Union, wrongly believing that his Republican party planned to free slaves. One slaver wailed, “If things go on as they are it is certain that slavery is to be abolished … we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything…”
Unfortunately, the Union generals’ plans were nowhere near so radical.
It was only as the Civil War that followed turned into a stalemate that the more radical leaders on the Union side came to the fore. They argued that the one section of society that would fight uncompromisingly for the Union were the enslaved—on condition that it promised an end to slavery.
Once the word got out that President Lincoln had said this in the Emancipation Proclamation, tens of thousands of enslaved people stopped working, ran away from the plantations and showed readiness to join the War.
The South collapsed.
In Charleston, victorious Union troops marched into town headed by two black regiments. One was “led by a soldier carrying a banner with the inscription ‘Liberty’, while Black infantrymen were singing John Brown’s Body to the enthusiastic cheers of the Black population, most of whom had been slaves the day before.”
This long, and sometimes academic book, is a vital to our understanding of how slavery and racism grew alongside capitalism, and the reasons why the system ended.
In fact, he points out, it “generated a more thoroughgoing slavery in the New World.” Blackburn calls this period the Second Slavery, “a turbo-charged and financialised version of servitude.”
In the earlier phase of the Atlantic slave trade, slaveowners could work the enslaved to death and replace them with people captured in Africa. But, by the 19th century this was no longer practical, and slavers had to rely on “breeding” new generations. And this in turn forced plantation owners to become more efficient.
These shifts meant that in the Southern United States cotton output per slave increased fourfold in the first half of the 19th century. In the early decades of the 19th century international exports from the US slave states were $34 million, while those from non-slave states were $17 million.
Blackburn does not argue that capitalism rose out of the slave trade, as banking and mercantile trade were already in existence. Instead, he says that slavery was a key part of the system’s early development.
However, Blackburn does show that for the system as a whole, slavery was not the most efficient way of making money and exploiting labour. That meant that its dominance became a problem in the future—and that its spread was uneven.
He comments that in South America, “slaves numbered only around 3-6 percent of the population in most of Spanish America at any point in the eighteenth century. However, in Cuba, slaves were about a third of the total population in 1770, rising to a half over the next 50 years.”
But slave owners everywhere faced constant resistance. Slaves would push to gain more time to grow food and be with their families, they would escape and they would lead armed rebellions.
The whole period exists in the shadow of the successful slave revolt in Sant-Domingue, in what is today Haiti. Led by Toussaint Louverture and later Jean-Jacques Dessalines, slave armies defeated the major powers of the day—France, Spain and Britain—to win independence.
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 —though not in plantations across its empire. It then tried to suppress other traders, to stop them making profits that Britons could not.
Blackburn points out that despite this British companies continued to manufacture the shackles used in 19th century slave ships.
As well as describing these developments, Blackburn shows the people who fought slavery. He details those who led uprisings and the organisers of the Underground Railroad escape routes.
And he talks of the growing movement of “ultras”, militant abolitionists who believed in “uncompromising direct action” to end slavery. He adds that there is no hard and fast divide between “fugitive slave politics” and “revolutionary abolitionism” and the two strands often merged and radicalized one another.
The white revolutionary abolitionist John Brown led an assault on the military armoury at Harper’s Ferry hoping to inspire a slave insurrection. He and ten of his men were captured, put on trial and executed. The great black emancipator Frederick Douglass had warned him that “a slave insurrection could not be detonated by the exemplary actions of a small group of outsiders”.
Yet Brown became a hero to the radical wing of the anti-slavery movement and as the civil war broke out volunteer troops made John Brown’s Body their marching song.
After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, slave states left the Union, wrongly believing that his Republican party planned to free slaves. One slaver wailed, “If things go on as they are it is certain that slavery is to be abolished … we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything…”
Unfortunately, the Union generals’ plans were nowhere near so radical.
It was only as the Civil War that followed turned into a stalemate that the more radical leaders on the Union side came to the fore. They argued that the one section of society that would fight uncompromisingly for the Union were the enslaved—on condition that it promised an end to slavery.
Once the word got out that President Lincoln had said this in the Emancipation Proclamation, tens of thousands of enslaved people stopped working, ran away from the plantations and showed readiness to join the War.
The South collapsed.
In Charleston, victorious Union troops marched into town headed by two black regiments. One was “led by a soldier carrying a banner with the inscription ‘Liberty’, while Black infantrymen were singing John Brown’s Body to the enthusiastic cheers of the Black population, most of whom had been slaves the day before.”
This long, and sometimes academic book, is a vital to our understanding of how slavery and racism grew alongside capitalism, and the reasons why the system ended.
No comments:
Post a Comment