Compromise, fugitive slave laws, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, are all political victories pushed by the He did not seek to disguise to himself the evils which were inseparably connected with their condition, or that man too oft abused the power he owned; but in view of all this, in view of the great, commanding truth, that wherever civilized man exists, there is the dividing line of the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the thinking and the labouring, in view of the God-proclaimed fact that “all Creation toileth and groaneth together,” and that labour and suffering are the solemn sacraments of life, he believed that the slaves of the South were blest beyond the pallid slaves of Europe, or the anxious, care-worn labourers of the North. Lincoln, slavery’s most persuasive and wily opponent, honed his arguments against slavery in the Lincoln-Douglas debates which preceded Illinois’ senatorial election in 1858. The cotton economy suffered very few if any setbacks in Washington. It starts with cotton seed itself and the constant quest for better varieties and new and better land to grow it, another way of showing slaveryâs expansionist nature. This chapter tells how the Mississippi Valley opened to the unlimited expansion of slavery. Invariably, this freedom was greeted with jubilation. An important and eye-opening book. Slaves and cotton mortgages were bundled and caused a crisis in the mid 1830's much like the housing crisis in 2007. I would summarize the Afterword as commentary on W.E.B. Groundbreaking, thoroughly researched, expansive, and provocative it will force scholars of slavery and its aftermath to reconsider long held assumptions about the 'peculiar institution's' relationship to American capitalism and contemporary issues of race and democracy." The cotton industry was capitalist in every respect. …Without Lincoln and a bloody civil war, slavery would have engulfed North America and lasted for decades beyond the 1860âs. Throughout the 19th century, the wholesale theft of human lives, the separation of children from parents, the use of torture to extract unrelenting toil from human bodies met very little moral hesitation. “The idea that the commodification and suffering and forced labor of African Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich is not an idea that people necessarily are happy to hear. Having read the book, this feels very obvious to me now, but as I was reading it I could feel my own resistance to Baptist's thesis, because I have been taught well over many years to believe otherwise--that the plantation economy of South as well as slavery itself were backward economic institutions that were destined to be overwhelmed by the capital-intense North. I teach about "othering" and the Noble Savage in my AP class. Edward E. Baptistâs The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism is a profoundly revisionist history of American slavery and its place in national history from 1783 to 1865. It was increasingly efficient and adaptive. From the war’s end until about 1870 there was exhilarating progress for many of the 4 million who had been trapped in the vast southern labor camp. Confession No. But these books were also one of THE HALF HAS NOT BEEN TOLD âThe Cradleâ I Kings 10:1-10. And here is another irony. Caroline Lee Hentz’s 1854 novel, The Planter’s Northern Bride is typical of the effort to sanitize slavery.  Hentz was a New England-born school head mistress writing just before the Civil War. Heâs making the economic argument that American slavery was not only big, but that it was essentially capitalist. the American South, with tacit permission from the rest of the country, put people to finance a college education or a trip to Europe. Accordingly, the Three-fifths Compromise, establishment of the Senate, If you know me, or have followed my reviews for a while, you'll know that I grew up and went to school in the south, specifically northern Florida (aka southern Georgia), and by now you should already have guessed that this meant that our State Sponsored Education regarding slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement (plus all other subjects) left a bit to be desired. It was, in the 1850’s a megalith of economic power that produced 4 million cotton bales in 1860 and claimed constitutional protections that nearly put it beyond Washington’s ability to rein in. I saw The Color Purple. surprised how much I learned from this book. I couldn't recommend this book more strongly -- a deftly documented and well-told story about how America's economy supremacy and Western industry was built on the backs of millions of African Americans. The writing is mostly readable though there are times where the writing becomes inexplicably lyrical. Jan 28, 2021 at 10:43 PM #1  Britainâs spinning and weaving factories had an insatiable demand for that most basic raw material in the textile industry: cotton.Â. Being no expert on the history of the American slave trade, I have no pretensions towards being able to second-guess the scholarship here but it seems sound, it just doesn't seem as surprising as Baptist suggests it should be. Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? Having read the book, this feels very obvious to me now. Intro: This queen of Sheba, or as our Lord called her in Matthew the Queen of the South, who we see called Balkis by the Arabians, heard of the fame of Solomon and journeyed to Jerusalem to see for herself whether the tales she had been told of him were true. It doesn't rely on the racist shibboleth of many historians that the Civil War was about "states' rights"; in fact, repudiating that ugly fiction is perhaps the book's central goal. In other words, it carried the same DNA that made the Industrial Revolution great and brought the Internet to life. Wiley statesman like John C. Calhoun and Stephen Douglas hatched brilliant strategies that out-maneuvered Free State politicians. My family was military, so we were first generation Floridians with no southern heritage, and thankfully my mom has alw. Just because enslaved persons harvested a crop was no guarantee that that product would remain profitable. There comes a point in every historical field when you can start to talk about over-saturation. Let us know whatâs wrong with this preview of, Published of the Southern literary output in the 19th century was laced with The most striking and controversial of those named in Baptist’s book was David Walker, who wrote An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.  This book, which called for a violent slave uprising, activated the paranoia of enslavers across the South. Additionally, some chapters, like the "Right Hand," belabored the metaphor while others, like "Backs" seemed to abandon it altogether. 1/28/2021 ADOS Book Club: The Half Has Never Been Told Discussion in ' Black America Forum ' started by BC Chica , Jan 28, 2021 at 10:43 PM . Andrew Jackson was of modest birth but he was relentlessly combative because of this he was admired by the mass of non-elite constituents, who celebrated his inauguration with a brawling bash that upended furniture and laid waste to parts of the White House.Â, One of Jacksonâs exploits illustrates the bravado he embodied. He ended the charter of the United States Bank, headed by blue-blood director Nicholas Biddle. Biddle’s bank did not cease operations immediately. But Jacksonâs actions created a credit void that a group of start-up banks filled. The most notable of these was the CAPL or Consolidated Association of Planters of Louisiana. This bank was the work of planters themselves who put their heads together to invent credit generators that the staid USB wouldnât provide.Â, Local and state banks invented slick banking tools to steer money into the cotton economy. Mortgages, for example, were taken out on slaves and that money was used to buy land and pay other debts. Cotton buying countries in Europe invested in Americaâs cotton business, making cash available to planters to buy even more land and slaves. Planter debt was securitized by being pooled and divvied up into salable chunks. Slave buying, selling, and transporting became a business in its own right, replacing planters at the slave auctions with professional traders.Â. As with the commodification of men, women also were marketed and purchased on the basis of their desirability as sex partners. took its place among economic powerhouses like Britain and France because it However, it is important to be critical of these claims because each historian has an incentive to claim their stuff is new and innovative. Trump uses very similar wording (drug dealers, criminals, rapists, animals) to describe Mexican people and demonize refugees and asylum seekers, Supreme Court Judge was confirmed after being accused of sexual assaults, United Nations International Decade of People of African Descent. First, cotton enjoyed unlimited demand as the prime raw material needed to feed Europeâs steam powered spinning and weaving machines. Thank you Doug for your very informative summary. It's like he had heard thirdhand a description of new historicism and decided to write that way. Slavery in the United States is described with an emphasis on its effects on the economy. American slave holders were adept at the classic capitalistic skill of moving beyond the unprofitable confines of one business for greater profit in another. Following the war, the interviewee, Lorenzo Ivy, trained to be a school teacher. I saw The Color Purple. Period. The third chapter looks at slaveryâs business aspects, focusing mostly on the boom years between 1815 and 1819 in New Orleans. The chapter revolves around three focuses: First, Mississippi Valley cottonâs role in the Industrial Revolution; second, the role that finance and banking played as an accelerant to slaveryâs growth; and finally, the degrading effect that re-auctioning captives had for individuals who had probably already been slaves for their entire lives. Vikas Bajaj, New York Times "New books like Empire of Cotton and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist offer gripping and more nuanced stories of economic history." I am about the business of educating myself more fully about slavery and race in America, from the antebellum period through Jim Crow and up to modern racial theory. A final factor in the expansion of slavery was an idea which circulated among Whites held that too great a concentration of Blacks, captive or free was a threat and dispersing African descent people throughout the country would keep their numbers from becoming too numerous. From the enslaved Blackâs point of view, the prospect of being set free disappeared over the horizon. Third, the 1811 slave rebellion in the lower Mississippi sugar plantations prompted the twin actions of U.S. government troop intervention and the stiffening of control of slaves by their owners. The perfect rebuttal to the often promoted Conservative/Republican myth that the United States was founded on 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Additionally, some chapters, like the "Right Hand," belabored the metaphor while others, like "Backs" seemed to abandon it altogether. These digressions reveal more about slavery, but they donât really advance the theme. propaganda designed to romanticize Southern culture and the practice of Baptist seems to have a few different goals in mind with this history of slavery. Amazing book, especially because I read it just after finishing the also brilliant Hemingses of Monticello. They did this by changing crops, transferring captives, reselling slaves, and reviving forced labor for even greater profit elsewhere. THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD: Summary and Notes Introduction The Half Has Never Been Toldâs introduction is organized around a WPA interview of a former slave in 1938 in Danville, Virginia. With Robert Potter’s serving as an example, Baptist introduces Andrew Jackson as an example of southern masculinity and frontier values. It often surprises people to learn that most It's a powerful combination. Enslavers might sell a few enslaved To see what your friends thought of this book, Just looked at the Columbia Law article. The book also tells the personal stories of several slaves throughout the years. If you haven't read many books about slavery or 19th century America this is a good one to turn to. The other fault of this book is that there are digressions to the theme with is economics and capital. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism Introduction-Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis Introduction Summary: âThe Heart, 1937â In 1861, shortly after Virginia secedes from the United States in order to âprotect slaveryâ (xvi), three enslaved men flee to Fortress Monroe, a Union fort in eastern Virginia. The first historical reality Baptist deals with is Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, whose immediate impact was to grant explicit official permission for enslaved people to leave their toil. book. Baptist brings to light the hopelessness of the captives themselves who had their own range of feelings and aspirations. We didnât hear this in Assumption #2: The worst thing about slavery, one is told, was that it denied African Americans the liberal rights and liberal subjectivity of modern citizens 1 Weâd love your help. as a black lie. Good enough to read once. I think I've always known what most people know. Until the Civil War, our chief form of innovation was slavery. Baptist is the author of many articles and books including The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism and the award-winning Creating an Old South. This clear win for the slavery interests placed a deadening hand on Northerner’s designs on Cuba. I think I've always known what most people know. Assumption #3: Cotton Gin, 1793 By 1800, the Cotton Gin revolutionizes the way cotton is grown, consumed, and marketed. There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Four conflicts created conditions for a modernized slavery to take root in the sugarcane plantations of the lower Mississippi Valley. THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD. With The Half Has Never Been Told, Edward E. Baptist, who teaches at Cornell University and is the author of the award-winning Creating an Old South, continues his valuable series of eleâ gantly crafted studies of slaveryâs impact on the United States and its economic development and prosperity. We're still living with the great sin of slavery so we might as well lear all we can. In âThe Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism,â Cornell professor Edward E. Baptist makes a persuasive case that slavery wasnât like that at all. national achievement. It is one of the best books I have ever read and in my top three historical texts. Interesting to learn about the economics of American slavery. But the texts I've been reading are revelatory, beginning with James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. Baptist's strongly supported thesis is that the economic growth of the 18th and 19th centuries was fueled neither by entrepreneurial drive, nor by technical innovation, but instead by the toil of enslaved people. Slavery was a big deal. tactics. Baptist's strongly supported thesis is that the economic growth of the 18th and 19th centuries was fueled neither by entrepreneurial drive, nor by technical innovation, but instead by the toil of enslaved people. The fifth chapter is about how hard-pressed field workers responded to their condition, which grew especially harsh after 1820. New York: Basic Books, 2014. First, pugnacious White masculinity emerged from the cotton frontier. My family was military, so we were first generation Floridians with no southern heritage, and thankfully my mom has always been a very open-minded, intelligent, and fair person who, I like to think, passed on those traits to me. enslaved labor. tales. Many in the North and even worldwide were able to invest in slavery among them were the Rothschilds and the Principality of Monaco which was still trying to recover some of its losses as late as the 1940's. Haitians had opened 1804 by announcing their grand experiment of a society whose basis for citizenship was literally the renunciation of white privilege, but their revolutionâs success had at the same time delivered the Mississippi Valley to a new empire of slavery. And it is difficult to justify a rating of less than five stars, even though I have some issues with the book. This book outlines the reasons why it is bullshit, and does it brilliantly. The Abolitionists in the North had influence that exceeded their numbers, but their moral suasion never tipped the opinion scales against King Cotton. Planters were perpetually yearning to expand onto new land further and further to the west during the King Cotton era. A social and economic history of the rise of slavery and cotton growing in the South. This is not a question. Authors put forth dramatic claims to new conclusions, topics, and evidence. I struggled getting through this one. Following these interlocking events, America enjoyed an open door for the expansion of slavery into the foreseeable future. Though hopelessness engulfed slavesâ lives, their humanity, found in their Iâm not sure who would argue otherwise, but itâs certainly important that every American understands this. Not surprisingly, the toll that this torture-based economy took from the enslaved workers was enormous. If you know me, or have followed my reviews for a while, you'll know that I grew up and went to school in the south, specifically northern Florida (aka southern Georgia), and by now you should already have guessed that this meant that our State Sponsored Education regarding slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement (plus all other subjects) left a bit to be desired. These were the years when cotton boom slavery was gathering strength.  This was a time when America was expanding into Western territories, which held the promise to bring more cheap land under cotton cultivation.Â. The value of the 4 million captives themselves was the was the largest single category of capital in the country. Critics called it inefficient and destined for history’s dustbin. But the book disappointed me on a couple of fronts. Slavery in the 1850’s, the years leading to Lincoln’s election and the outbreak of the Civil War, had fully recovered from the twin crashes of 1837 and 1839. As slavery grew in scope and depravity it effectively reduced its victims to the status of material possessions.  One rich data trove, which quantifies this dehumanization is the Notarial Archives in New Orleans. Here are housed the extensive slave sale transaction records required by old Napoleonic Laws. These reveal ups and downs of slave prices, which, like commodities, tracked with other economic variables. Slave prices tended to rise and fall with cottonâs sale prices.Â, Another sign of commodification was certificates of good behavior and skills that were frequently attached to enslaved persons moving from the old Eastern slavery to the new slavery in cotton country. Additionally, slave brokers came to be a lucrative profession in its own right and in some declining tobacco areas slave sales outstripped crops as the main economic activity. Even on a personal level, families would sell slaves in order to generate cash for retirement and other life cycle purchases. Captives themselves described slaveryâs dehumanizing character as stealing. Their lives, families, and dignity had been stolen.Â. Chapter 7 is entitled âSeedâ, again with multiple meanings. protected and expanded their slave-based economies with brilliant and aggressive It was increasingly efficient and adaptive. The first chapter, titled, âFeetâ shows how slavery allowed the newly established United States solve several of its initial challenges. The Atlantic slave trade deposited the great majority of captive Africans at ports in the Caribbean and Brazil. Nevertheless, the smaller numbers of captives, totaling about 20% of the population, brought to what became the United States played a decisive role in enabling the country prosper economically and remain united politically. The simple fact that slaves were a moveable form of capital allowed their owners to transport them to Western territories where they could labor in new crops, notably cotton. Cotton production benefited from several seemingly limitless resources, which converged to create a super-powered industry and export. Start by marking âThe Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalismâ as Want to Read: Error rating book. It doesn't rely on the racist shibboleth of many historians that the Civil War was about "states' rights"; in fact, repudiating that ugly fiction is perhaps the book's central goal. The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and permitted enslavers to move into any area in the former Louisiana Purchase territory with their human property. school. I think it should be read in tandem with Empire of Cotton to understand how the roots of democracy, capitalism, and slavery were intertwined in uncomfortable and long-lasting ways. I was I read Beloved. For example, bluegrass, usually credited to First, it's not really about "American Capitalism" at all, but more generally about the role slavery made in the American economy (which wasn't capitalist for much of. Neither did our kids. This is the review I'd like to have read before buying this book. The author appeared to want to write with nuance and style but instead ended up with something difficult to fol. a Congressman from Montana who won his election after bodyslamming a reporter, and the president praising him for it. These musical forms include cabins, fields, and later in slums and night clubs. The Second Great Awakening gave birth to an Evangelical Protestantism that âgrew up in tandemâ with the second slavery.  The 19th centuryâs emotional revivals appealed to Whites and Blacks alike who were caught up in the romanticism of the time and welcomed fiery preaching and bizarre manifestations of Holy Spirit indwelling. The revivalâs emotional atmosphere and ecstatic behavior had a deep West African pedigree and White preachers were happy to ride along on its power. Not surprisingly, there was enough biblical Christianity in the revivals to put the basic principles of human dignity, liberation, and justice in front of all participants.   And sparked the launch in the middle of the 19th century several  social movements that combated womenâs subjugation and alcohol abuse.    This new moral vision in turn raised afresh the question of slaveryâs morality. Unfortunately, what began as spiritual common ground between the races, ended as a new American religious apartheid.   The enslaving regions, anxious about any incentive for their enslaved populations to rebel, decided that the justice and kingdom elements of Christianity needed to be suppressed, at least for Black Christians. The slavery interests enacted a series of comically unjust laws forbidding Black religious gatherings,  de-emphasizing the use of âbrotherâ and âsister,â which were social levelers in congregations, and distributing censored slave Bibles, which suppressed aspects of Christian faith that strayed too far from the individualistic sin-redemption duality.Â, The Half Has Never Been Toldâs seventh chapter, âSeed,â brings into focus two large systems that swirled out of the Southwestâs slave economy. First, pugnacious White masculinity emerged from the cotton frontier. White men of the South have long been sensitive to slights and put-downs.  Even today, men in the former slave states exhibit heightened sensitivity to their social position and the respect accorded to them.   Second, the Southwestâs slave-based business climate, propelled by the energy of free labor, free money, and free land blew westward with tornado-like energy, sucking in more and more people and resources.Â, Baptist begins the chapter with Robert Potter’s life story. A scrappy non-aristocratic North Carolinian, Potter made his way from this home state in the Southeast to New Orleans. Over his lifespan, he left a trail of exploits including arrests, honor-violence, election to political office, and founding of a “political university” designed to help non-elite men rise above dominance by the rich.Â, Potter illustrates the masculinity that the slave frontier fostered. Through his life, Potter struggled to steer between the planters and financiers above his social position and the enslaved Blacks beneath him. Potter needed to be vigilant to prevent being bullied by elites who seemingly might reduce him to the plight of the enslaved who were powerless to fend off being bullied and humiliated. Potterâs story makes clear why murder and violence in the South were sharply higher than anywhere else in the Western world.Â.