what where the cause of slavery essay

what where the cause of slavery essay

Causes of Slavery

1. Introduction

The thirst for knowledge and the pursuit of a career led to Bailey R. Hathaway’s life path of academia and ultimately the completion and publication of his book, Causes of Slavery. Bailey R. Hathaway possesses a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Swarthmore College in 1950, a Bachelor of Divinity with honors from Union Theological Seminary in 1953, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University in 1962. Hathaway has taught at several universities, including the position of Associate Professor of History at Chicago State College from 1965-67 and his most recent position as Visiting Professor of History at Northern Illinois University in 1970. Hathaway’s book has achieved publication and has been made available to readers in 1978. This book was first written as a dissertation for the degree of PhD at Harvard University. Hathaway’s hard work and dedication throughout his life have enabled him to pursue the career of a historian/educator with vigor. Hathaway’s 16-year journey of researching, writing, editing, and finally seeing his work in print gives testimony to a life committed to knowledge and learning. This desire for knowledge is what has enabled Hathaway to follow through with the lengthy process of getting his work published and why he has done so.

2. Economic Factors

This would all be in question if the South had been left to maintain the principles of “King Cotton” because the method of production had been too entrenched to enable effective capitalistic development. The evolution from slave labor to an effective and competitive free labor system would have been too great a social change and Blacks would have developed been too great a competitor. This economic position in the larger world context was also to be seen as a defense to the encroaching threat from the British that had desired a free trade agreement and an end to the confederate tariff with the South in the bid for cheap raw goods. In the end, it was both domestic and international economic interests that would provide an impetus for trying to establish an independent confederate nation.

At the time, the southern economy was at its most vulnerable point due to the cessation of trade interchange with the North as a result of Lincoln’s Presidential victory. Also in question was the status of states and whether they had the right to secede from the Union. The secession of the southern states had removed vital sources of revenue collection. This was due to the fact that in war, the first to be taxed are the losers of war and the South could expect taxes from the North. A nation divided is also subject to higher costs of doing business. The South was the exporter of raw goods and importer of manufactured goods. The costs of tariffs for foreign goods and higher pricing of the North’s goods would put a strain on the economy. The South needed a strong and equitable trading position with the North for economic survival. All told, a quick analysis of the economic viability of the south showed an immediate need for imported capital, a stable trading environment, employment for the masses and unhampered economic development. With the loss of its free labor, Lincoln and the North saw an opportunity for the South to become an economic colony for the North, and an outlet for Europe. Europe had become an increasingly less challenging role to the North and Lincoln. It was felt that blacks could be an effective tool to check Europe’s westward economic expansion. A victory for the South would undermine what Lincoln had seen as a threat to American commercial dominance in the West. This was to secure an “America’s free land, free labor, free men.”

At the center of the tension between the North and the South was slavery’s positive good thesis. The South was fighting to take slavery into the western territories, while the North was fighting to prevent the spread of slavery into the territories. Slavery was a social and economic system, but it was also a state of mind. The Southerners felt that they could not live without slaves. A strong proslavery argument was that the success of the nation depended on the use of slave labor. At the time the country was founded, it was agreed that slaves were to be considered three-fifths of a human being for tax purposes. If the South were to lose the slaves, they would also lose the three-fifths clause and would have to pay higher taxes. They used the comparison of wage northern labor to the expense of feeding and housing a slave. The South also argued that the loss of slave labor would force mass unemployment on whites. This would also put a great burden on the country because the now former slaveholders would require financial assistance. They also felt that the black race was benefited because they were savages in Africa when they were taken.

3. Racial Prejudice

A reason for the adoption of Africans as chattel and the use of Negro slaves in the English colonies is that Africans were available and the English were able to use their skin colors as a reason for using them as slaves. At the time of the colonization of the New World, there were great disputes over the morality of using natives as slaves. The Spanish and Portuguese were using Christian theology to conclude that the color black was another reason for heathens to be placed in bondage. Africans were heathens and Muslims, and a common consensus was developed which concluded that all non-whites should be heathen. White-skinned English Christians were of the notion that all dark-skinned people, because of their color, were inferior and were damned by the Lord. The transgressions of Ham provided a religious justification. It was concluded that because Canaan, the son of Ham, was cursed to be a servant of servants unto his brethren, that all people of African descent were meant to be servants for all eternity. Paragraph three provided an ideological underpinning of the new race-based perpetual slavery. These ideologies provided a means of identification for distinguishing slaves from any free person. This ideology was the main reason that the Portuguese and Spanish nations, and a few years later Anglo-America, would adopt Negro slavery. The stigmatization of blackness inevitably affected generations of Afro-Americans and is still manifested today in the form of subtle racism.

4. Political Influences

Slavery was an illegal way of acquiring agricultural labor at as lower cost as possible. It was logical that the more an elite planter could increase profit, the more slaves he would want to acquire. A group of elite English planters in Barbados led the way by using their knowledge of law to promote a better business climate for themselves at the expense of slaves. This group devised a plan where slaves and only slaves would provide the labor for this crop by passing a heavy tax upon the importation of white indentured servants and passing a law that required sugar to be shipped from English colonies to England be transported on English ships, thus increasing the rate of sugar and the need for slave labor in the English West Indies.

This was slavery’s fountain of life through the years, increasing the stream that was to deluge a nation with blood and well nigh extinguish the last hope of the friends of liberty throughout the world. The quotation describes the role of the political forces in the continuation of the slave trade and slavery. At the early stages, the government played an essential role in promoting slavery through the use of charters and grants to plantations. Royal monopolies and exclusive trading rights were given in the interest of raising revenue without regard to the suffering put upon the laboring poor at home. The slave trade and the laws governing it cost the English an estimated 1,350,000 pounds.

5. Conclusion

Economic factors are perhaps the main driving force behind the continuation of slavery. Its profitability is the measure of success when evaluating slaves vis-à-vis indentured labor or mere peasants. If it were unprofitable, there would be little incentive for entrepreneurs to invest in slaves. Globalization of industry has brought with it many wonderful things but has also fostered an unacceptable, hidden culture of exploitation of the world’s most vulnerable peoples. For the modern-day slave and his ‘owner’, it is often a relationship based on debt bondage where an initial agreement is never fully repaid due to extra ‘expenses’ incurred by the living costs of the slave. In the most extreme and repugnant form of the practice, humans are simply trafficked like any other commodity and traded into slavery.

Gone are the days when slavery was practiced openly without any fear of reprisal. Slavery, a practice that should have long been abandoned in all corners of the world, is still being practiced in some form or other in almost every society on the globe. The signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a grave reminder that despite its prohibition in international law, slavery is not a practice of the past. It begs the question, ‘why is this so?’