Slavery and the American Economy

[Frodo]

Since Vice-President Biden brought up the subject, I have been wondering:

Just how central was the institution of slavery to the 19th century American economy?  And as a follow-up, would we have become the world's largest economy without African slaves ever coming to our shores when we were still England's (later Britain's) colonies?  

[Filuwaúrdjan]

'You' wouldn't exist without African slaves. It's one of the central parts of the American historical experience. If there's a single central one, it would be it, actually. So you can't even ask the question, really.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If the English had banned African slavery in the colonies from the start, then Britain would not have become the Britain we know today either.  African slavery was essential in the sugar colonies of the West Indies, which economically were far more important in the 17th and 18th centuries than the mainland colonies ever were.  Virginia might be the southernmost of the English colonies. (One of the primary reasons for founding Carolina was to be able to produce foodstuffs for the sugar islands so they could devote more of their land to producing high value sugar instead of low value food for slaves.)  At the very least Carolina likely would have had to wait a while before being founded.

A poorer Britain would never have been able to develop into the superpower that threw the French out of North America, and without that happening, the American Revolution could never have occurred.  It was the removal of the French threat that made American independence something that could even be considered.

Indeed, a possible settlement of the Franco-British dispute might well have seen the British taking India as they did in our history, but with North America coming under French rule.

[Frodo]

So by extension, we would not have become a superpower (or developed the potential to become one) without slavery.  Is that correct? 

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

So by extension, we would not have become a superpower (or developed the potential to become one) without slavery.  Is that correct? 

Non, les États-Unis d'Amérique ont un bel avenir une fois que la Nouvelle-France rompt avec l'Ancien Régime.  Bien sûr, la petite région de la Nouvelle-Angleterre pourrait garder ses coutumes et la langue particulière.

[opebo]

All privilege is built on slavery - this is the structure of human society.  The United States is a particularly glaring case with certain peculiarities - mainly the transportation of the slaves from Africa and Europe rather than the more typical case of using the 'native' working class both at home and in colonies.

So, while predictable in a political sense, the details of America the slave empire are based on a quite unusual demographic profile.

[Frodo]

So by extension, we would not have become a superpower (or developed the potential to become one) without slavery.  Is that correct? 

Non, les États-Unis d'Amérique ont un bel avenir une fois que la Nouvelle-France rompt avec l'Ancien Régime.  Bien sûr, la petite région de la Nouvelle-Angleterre pourrait garder ses coutumes et la langue particulière.

I don't understand French, but from what I am able to gather, you're basically stating that if neither Britain nor its American colonies adopted slavery, France would become the superpower, and we would be speaking French instead of English.

Feel free to translate what you just typed if I am off the mark. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If the English had banned African slavery in the colonies from the start, then Britain would not have become the Britain we know today either.

Of course; after all, that capital used to finance early industrial developments had to come from somewhere...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So by extension, we would not have become a superpower (or developed the potential to become one) without slavery.  Is that correct? 

It's impossible to imagine 'America' without slavery. Anything else is a fantasy country of your own creation.

[minionofmidas]

Of course, now we're all talking about the relevance of African slavery in the (English-controlled) Americas in the 18th century for 19th century America, not the relevance of African and Afro-American slavery in the 19th century for 19th century America, which I suppose is what the question was all about.
But it is difficult to imagine even so. For one thing, if those who wanted to ban slavery during the American Revolution had won the argument in 1776, the Southern planter class, divided as it was even in rl, would have been very solidly pro-British - and you might well end up with Ernest's earlier notion of Virginia as the US' southwestern corner yet again.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

So by extension, we would not have become a superpower (or developed the potential to become one) without slavery.  Is that correct? 

Non, les États-Unis d'Amérique ont un bel avenir une fois que la Nouvelle-France rompt avec l'Ancien Régime.  Bien sûr, la petite région de la Nouvelle-Angleterre pourrait garder ses coutumes et la langue particulière.

I don't understand French, but from what I am able to gather, you're basically stating that if neither Britain nor its American colonies adopted slavery, France would become the superpower, and we would be speaking French instead of English.

Feel free to translate what you just typed if I am off the mark. 

Close, but no cigar.  I'll leave it up to you to use an online translator if you want the exact wordage.  Basically we'd have ended up with a French speaking United States, since in the event that either mother country won control of the continent that would likely set in motion the forces that caused the colonies to seek independence since they no longer needed the mother country to protect them from the other set of colonies.  Also New England would end up like this alternate États-Unis's version of Quebec with the people there eventually asserting the need bilingualism and/or English-only laws.

[Gustaf]

If slavery was that important for economic development, wouldn't one expect a positive correlation between slavery and economic development in the Americas, rather than the negative one we actually see?

I'll grant that this isn't the whole story or anything, but still.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The point is more that it's literally impossible to imagine 'America' without a history of slavery, I think.

[minionofmidas]

If slavery was that important for economic development, wouldn't one expect a positive correlation between slavery and economic development in the Americas, rather than the negative one we actually see?

No. The fortunes made in Caribbean slavery were not invested in the Caribbean. The fortunes made in the lowlands parts of the American South were (in sizable part, in so far as they were invested at all) invested elsewhere as well.
This is very much part of the definition of Western Modern / Early Modern Slavery.

[Zagg]

The Southerners thought that "Cotton Is King" and that the northeastern industrial states and Great Britain could not live without it. They turned out to be wrong. The profits from slavery in the Caribbean played a significant part in the British Industrial Revolution and the early northeastern US textile industry was built on Southern cotton (hence, the Cotton vs. Conscience Whigs in Massachusetts). There's a school of thought that slavery inhibited economic growth in the South (for example, as depicted in Frederick Law Olmsted's "Cotton Kingdom").

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Southerners thought that "Cotton Is King" and that the northeastern industrial states and Great Britain could not live without it. They turned out to be wrong. The profits from slavery in the Caribbean played a significant part in the British Industrial Revolution and the early northeastern US textile industry was built on Southern cotton (hence, the Cotton vs. Conscience Whigs in Massachusetts). There's a school of thought that slavery inhibited economic growth in the South (for example, as depicted in Frederick Law Olmsted's "Cotton Kingdom").

Cotton inhibited industrial growth because the profits from cotton were greater than that of industry.  Whenever cotton had a bit of a slowdown, as it did around 1850, the South undertook some modest efforts at industrialization.

The main problem with King Cotton had been that he'd been too successful for his own good in 1858-9.  Bumper crops had led to European warehouses bulging with unprocessed cotton and unsold cloth.  The cotton shortage gave English mill owners an excuse for putting their employees on short hours that they would have wanted to even if there had been no interruption in the cotton trade.Also, the cotton embargo was never fully effective and with Southern cotton less available in the market, Egypt and India could increase production to meet the demand at the new higher prices.

[Zagg]

The Southerners thought that "Cotton Is King" and that the northeastern industrial states and Great Britain could not live without it. They turned out to be wrong. The profits from slavery in the Caribbean played a significant part in the British Industrial Revolution and the early northeastern US textile industry was built on Southern cotton (hence, the Cotton vs. Conscience Whigs in Massachusetts). There's a school of thought that slavery inhibited economic growth in the South (for example, as depicted in Frederick Law Olmsted's "Cotton Kingdom").

Cotton inhibited industrial growth because the profits from cotton were greater than that of industry.  Whenever cotton had a bit of a slowdown, as it did around 1850, the South undertook some modest efforts at industrialization.

The main problem with King Cotton had been that he'd been too successful for his own good in 1858-9.  Bumper crops had led to European warehouses bulging with unprocessed cotton and unsold cloth.  The cotton shortage gave English mill owners an excuse for putting their employees on short hours that they would have wanted to even if there had been no interruption in the cotton trade.Also, the cotton embargo was never fully effective and with Southern cotton less available in the market, Egypt and India could increase production to meet the demand at the new higher prices.

There's considerable debate about slavery and industrialization in the antebellum South. I don't claim to know the answer, but it seems to me that there's more to it than just cotton being more profitable than manufacturing. It does appear that there was ideological resistance to using slaves in manufacturing and allowing them to live in cities. Ashworth devotes some attention to the question in Slavery, Capitalism and Politics in the Antebellum Republic.