Source
r/AskHistorians•
allonymous

Did the end of slavery in the U.S. spur the development of mechanized farming equipment, or was it the other way around? Or both? Or neither?

I read an article recently where a woman claimed that we developed steam powered farming equipment only once slavery wasn't an option (necessity is the mother of invention). I always assumed that it was the other way around, that people gave up slavery once it was no longer a necessity for farming (at least in the north). Which is correct? Or are we both equally wrong?

Posted Oct 26, 2011, 6:23 AM UTC

1510
agentdcfModern Britain | Environment•

What article was this? Do you have a citation?

I don't have a specific answer for you, but I study something related, so allow me to ruminate on the topic for a moment. Plus, it's late and I've been drinking.

With regards to slavery and agriculture, it was never a necessity in the north. There, farmers practiced basically the same mixed agriculture practiced in England: grain crops were the bread and butter (haha), some legumes to help fertility, and animals for meat, dairy, wool, leather, work, and manure. If the land was especially distant from a town or water transport, or of poorer quality, more animals are likely; on fertile riverside loam, a farmer could crank out grain more successfully. Where there were slaves, they existed in small numbers. I have trouble imagining a steam-powered device productive enough to profitably replace the labor of a handful of slaves. The claim that abolition created the conditions for steam-powered farm machinery seems extremely dubious here.

In the south, slavery made some sense where there was intensive cultivation of high-value, labor-intensive crops like tobacco, cotton, and sugar. (Though I wouldn't say slavery was strictly necessary anywhere, since all of those crops were grown elsewhere in the world without slavery.)

Here, the answer to your question relies on how you define "farming equipment." If you're talking about strictly in-the-field, steam-powered equipment then you'd have to think of reapers, tractors, threshers, and the like. Those are either specific to grain or they do work that horses do, not people. I don't know of in-the-field machines for crops like sugar or cotton, though I guess they're not impossible.

On the other hand, what device made slavery significantly more profitable? The cotton gin, powered by water or steam. I'm not sure it makes sense to exclude that from "farming equipment," and if we accept that as such, then we have a total inversion of this person's claim.

Plus, although I'm not familiar with the specific literature, there is a sort of master narrative of southern under-development, on the grounds that either bonded or extremely low-wage labor discouraged capital investment. The argument goes that with slaves around, there was no need to invest in heavy equipment; I'm guessing this is the direction that the person you read was going. However, does this situation really change that much with abolition? African-Americans in the south remained a relatively low-wage labor force though systems like share-cropping.

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allonymousOP•

It wasn't a scholarly article or anything, just a blog post. here is the link. Hopefully I didn't misrepresent her claim.

Thanks for the explanation. That does make a lot of sense, especially the fact that certain crops (like cotton) wouldn't necessarily lend them selves to early farming machinery anyway.

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[deleted]•

The quick and dirty answer is that certain innovations in farming (such as the cotton gin) only increased slavery. More slaves to pick more cotton due to it being processed faster. I imagine the South embraced more mechanical methods of farming, but I don't off hand know of any correlation. But honestly that's a bit before the period of history I study.

And on second thought, if we are talking pre Civil War, northern states diversified their economy past agriculture. More manufacturing based. The reason slavery continued in the South and the reason the South depended on it much more than the North was because the South never diversified it's economy beyond farming. Plus the North's need for raw materials for their manufacturing (cotton for example to process and produce textile) only created the need for more farm foods from the South.

I know this is rambling but it should give you a base.

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lokithecomplex•

I was of the understanding that industrialization ended slavery. Slavery was the common all over the world throughout history. Machines arrive and slavery becomes uneconomic. Interesting to note that Britain the country that industrialized first, that has the machines, tells everyone else to end slavery.

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agentdcfModern Britain | Environment•

There are a variety of problems with the thesis that industrialization ended slavery.

  • The places that industrialized first (NW Europe, NE USA) did not have much slavery to begin with.
  • Slavery was present in some for or other in most places, but it was so different in different places that saying that it was "common all over the world throughout history" is just WAY too broad of a statement.
  • Industrialization was a complex cluster of innovations that varied from place to place; in my view, mechanization was not even the most important. More important was fossil fuels and the vast amount of energy they made available.
  • Ending slavery was not always, or even very often, an economic decision. Ask the French.

To consider Britain, some recent scholarly work on abolition argues that British abolitionists were much more concerned with their identities as Britons who occupied a privileged moral position as defenders of universal freedom; for them, economics were not particularly important (Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital).

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lokithecomplex•

The places that industrialized first (NW Europe, NE USA) did not have much slavery to begin with.

At that moment they may not have had much slavery. But they did have servants no? And mechinazation is gradual and the culmination of lots of things.

Slavery was present in some for or other in most places, but it was so different in different places that saying that it was "common all over the world throughout history" is just WAY too broad of a statement.

Well it was far more pervasive in history than it is now. Surely?

Industrialization was a complex cluster of innovations that varied from place to place; in my view, mechanization was not even the most important. More important was fossil fuels and the vast amount of energy they made available.

I would say the harnessing of better energy is intrinsic to industrialization.

Ending slavery was not always, or even very often, an economic decision. Ask the French.

Ah which bit of history is that? I could well be missing something obvious.

As a general pattern slavery is less common now. Did the change not happen roughly in the industrialization era?

To consider Britain, some recent scholarly work on abolition argues that British abolitionists were much more concerned with their identities as Britons who occupied a privileged moral position as defenders of universal freedom; for them, economics were not particularly important (Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital).

Economics may have worried an abolitions mind but if the economics had not been in place their well meaning ideas would not have been survived. I'm sure there were people complaining about slavery before the abolitionists.

How would you explain the global decline in slavery?

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agentdcfModern Britain | Environment•

At that moment they may not have had much slavery. But they did have servants no? And mechinazation is gradual and the culmination of lots of things.

Servants and slaves are very different. Servants are typically domestic workers, while slaves can work in a variety of areas. Servants are paid, slaves are bonded labor; as such, servants could at least theoretically respond to changes in the labor market. Slaves cannot.

Well it was far more pervasive in history than it is now. Surely? ... Ah which bit of history is that? I could well be missing something obvious. As a general pattern slavery is less common now. Did the change not happen roughly in the industrialization era?

The bit I refer to is the Haitain Revolution. In a nutshell, Saint Domigne was France's most profitable colony, a sugar-producing powerhouse. Slaves there got wind of what was happening in the French revolution, and said "Hey, this universal rights of man stuff applies to us as well! Screw slavery!" The revolutionary government was okay with it for awhile, but eventually decided that free Africans were bad, and tried to reimpose slavery. The Haitians fought back and won, becoming the first free state in the Americas. Like bosses. So here, ending slavery was a great economic decision for the Haitians, but a poor one for their erstwhile masters. And yes, there is less slavery proportionally now than in the past, though I would not bet that the absolute number of people enslaved around the world is any less than it now than in, say, 1860. And yes, industrialization did occur around the same time, but that does not establish a causal relationship between those phenomena.

Economics may have worried an abolitions mind but if the economics had not been in place their well meaning ideas would not have been survived. I'm sure there were people complaining about slavery before the abolitionists.

Yes, people did complain about slavery before the abolitionist movement; but by the late 18th century it had become a social movement with enough political power to counter the west Indian plantocracy's influence in Parliament. Why do you assume that economics trumps everything else? People and groups do things that are not in their best economic interests all the time. The British Parliament banned the slave trade in 1807 when British merchants absolutely could have continued making money. They banned slavery in the empire in 1833 when Jamaican and other West Indian planters could have continued making money. Hell, from a strictly economic point of view, it's not even clear to me that ending slavery in the American South was a "good" decision; even more so when you consider the enormous costs involved in ending it.

I don't see any reason to attribute the global decline of slavery primarily to economics; in the places with the most slaves, industrialization as a set of labor-saving devices that increased worker productivity came well after abolition. Nor is it at all clear that some kind of bonded labor was UNeconomical after industrialization; coolie labor--that is, workers imported from distant places and generally kept in a kind of debt peonage--continued right through the 19th century around the world, and well into the 20th century in some places. So although, say, Chinese mineworkers and railway workers in the western US were not technically "slaves," they remained a kind of coerced labor force.

I would speculate that the global decline of slavery had more to do with democracy and ideas of liberty. This sounds hokey but I'm serious. Southern slavery was obviously a huge contradiction in the heart of the US, a country that constantly proclaimed its special place in the world as a home of freedom. It cheapened Americans' ideas of themselves to be in such a situation. I don't know the history of Latin America, but I would imagine the same thing was true of the new Latin American republics after they became independent in the early 19th century. Obviously not all; I think Brazil and Cuba were the two that had slavery longer than America, but we should not discount the power of enlightenment ideas of equality and their ability to shape peoples' self-perceptions and therefore their politics.

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lokithecomplex•

Servants and slaves are very different. Servants are typically domestic workers, while slaves can work in a variety of areas. Servants are paid, slaves are bonded labor; as such, servants could at least theoretically respond to changes in the labor market. Slaves cannot.

Economics may have worried an abolitions mind but if the economics had not been in place their well meaning ideas would not have been survived. I'm sure there were people complaining about slavery before the abolitionists.

Yes, people did complain about slavery before the abolitionist movement; but by the late 18th century it had become a social movement with enough political power to counter the west Indian plantocracy's influence in Parliament.

But why did it become a social movement then and not before? I just don't believe people across the globe suddenly became nicer. Or that slaves suddenly realised they didn't like being slaves.

Why do you assume that economics trumps everything else?

Because if something is uneconomic it tends not to last.

People and groups do things that are not in their best economic interests all the time. The British Parliament banned the slave trade in 1807 when British merchants absolutely could have continued making money. They banned slavery in the empire in 1833 when Jamaican and other West Indian planters could have continued making money. Hell, from a strictly economic point of view, it's not even clear to me that ending slavery in the American South was a "good" decision; even more so when you consider the enormous costs involved in ending it.

I think Adam Smith around the same time was writing about how uneconomical slave labour was. And I should say I'm not coming at this from a right wing perspective.

I don't see any reason to attribute the global decline of slavery primarily to economics; in the places with the most slaves, industrialization as a set of labor-saving devices that increased worker productivity came well after abolition. Nor is it at all clear that some kind of bonded labor was UNeconomical after industrialization; coolie labor--that is, workers imported from distant places and generally kept in a kind of debt peonage--continued right through the 19th century around the world, and well into the 20th century in some places. So although, say, Chinese mineworkers and railway workers in the western US were not technically "slaves," they remained a kind of coerced labor force.

Doesn't this contradict your assertion at the top that servants are not slaves?

I would speculate that the global decline of slavery had more to do with democracy and ideas of liberty. This sounds hokey but I'm serious. Southern slavery was obviously a huge contradiction in the heart of the US, a country that constantly proclaimed its special place in the world as a home of freedom. It cheapened Americans' ideas of themselves to be in such a situation. I don't know the history of Latin America, but I would imagine the same thing was true of the new Latin American republics after they became independent in the early 19th century. Obviously not all; I think Brazil and Cuba were the two that had slavery longer than America, but we should not discount the power of enlightenment ideas of equality and their ability to shape peoples' self-perceptions and therefore their politics.

This is the thing. I just doubt the power of culture over other things. Culture is important but economics, technology and geography seem to matter more. Culture was even less unified than it is today yet slavery disappeared from societies of different political and cultural spheres.

I just doubt suddenly across the globe masters became "good people" and slaves realised slavery was wrong.

If we did hit a proper crunch and lost our machinery, our oil, our coal. Would we really avoid the institution of slavery because we'd signed documents? Because we were better people?

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