Attitude of the South Towards the Slave-Trade

Attitude of the South Towards the Slave-Trade in the United States

The Attitude of the South and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom (1820–1851)

In the book “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1), W. E. B. Du Bois explained the following: The attitude of the South toward the slave-trade changed pari passu with this development of the cotton trade. From 1808 to 1820 the South half wished to get rid of a troublesome and abnormal institution, 155and yet saw no way to do so. The fear of insurrection and of the further spread of the disagreeable system led her to consent to the partial prohibition of the trade by severe national enactments. Nevertheless, she had in the matter no settled policy: she refused to support vigorously the execution of the laws she had helped to make, and at the same time she acknowledged the theoretical necessity of these laws. After 1820, however, there came a gradual change. The South found herself supplied with a body of slave laborers, whose number had been augmented by large illicit importations, with an abundance of rich land, and with all other natural facilities for raising a crop which was in large demand and peculiarly adapted to slave labor. The increasing crop caused a new demand for slaves, and an interstate slave-traffic arose between the Border and the Gulf States, which turned the former into slave-breeding districts, and bound them to the slave States by ties of strong economic interest.

As the cotton crop continued to increase, this source of supply became inadequate, especially as the theory of land and slave consumption broke down former ethical and prudential bounds. It was, for example, found cheaper to work a slave to death in a few years, and buy a new one, than to care for him in sickness and old age; so, too, it was easier to despoil rich, new land in a few years of intensive culture, and move on to the Southwest, than to fertilize and conserve the soil.7 Consequently, there early came a demand for land and slaves greater than the country could supply. The demand for land showed itself in the annexation of Texas, the conquest of Mexico, and the movement toward the acquisition of Cuba. The demand for slaves was manifested in the illicit traffic that noticeably increased about 1835, and reached large proportions by 1860. It was also seen in a disposition to attack the government for stigmatizing the trade as criminal,8 then in a disinclination to take any measures which would have rendered our repressive laws effective; and finally in such articulate declarations by prominent men as this: “Experience having 156settled the point, that this Trade cannot be abolished by the use of force, and that blockading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable and more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is persisted in, unless as it serves as a cloak to some other purposes. It would be far better than it now is, for the African, if the trade was free from all restrictions, and left to the mitigation and decay which time and competition would surely bring about.”9

Resources

Notes and References

  1. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1893), Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Bombay and Calcuta.

See Also

Further Reading

  • British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Annual and Special Reports.
  • Letter from … in London, to his Friend in America, on the … Slave Trade, etc. New York, 1784.
  • Benjamin Franklin. An Essay on the African Slave Trade. Philadelphia, 1790.
  • Joseph Sidney. An Oration commemorative of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the United States…. Jan. 2. 1809. New York, 1809.
  • Correspondence with British Ministers and Agents in Foreign Countries, and with Foreign Ministers in England, relative to the Slave Trade, 1859–60. London, 1860.
  • New England Anti-Slavery Convention. Proceedings at Boston, May 27, 1834. Boston, 1834.
  • Great Britain. Sessional Papers. (For notices of slave-trade in British Sessional Papers, see Bates Hall Catalogue, Boston Public Library, pp. 347 et seq.)
  • William H. Whitmore. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1772. Containing also the Body of Liberties of 1641. Boston, 1889.

Posted

in

,

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *