Submitted 5 days ago by Godric@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b7f45667-fd3e-4444-859b-19ae54e98f67.jpeg
It may be costly. It may be ineffective. And maybe I built my plantation in the least fertile place possible. And maybe I don’t know shit about farming. And maybe, possible, having slaves is a constant loss to me and my civilization.
But damnit if I can’t use slavery to justify my racism, how will I feel like a big important man?!
I know this is the shitposting Lemmy and historical accuracy isn’t the goal here … But you don’t honestly think they put plantations in infertile places and used slaves for no reason right? They made a shit ton of money
I know this is the shitposting Lemmy and historical accuracy isn’t the goal here … But you don’t honestly think they put plantations in infertile places and used slaves for no reason right? They made a shit ton of money
Overall, you’re right, but I’d like to point out two caveats here:
Southern plantation farming was incredibly inefficient and utterly ruined the land it was practiced on - something that was recognized (and criticized) as early as George Washington. So they did build their plantations in fertile areas, but exhausted the soil and did very little to let it recover until George Washington Carver (unrelated) started spreading crop rotations around ~1900.
The aristocrats made a shitton of money relative to the average person, but they were much, much poorer - both individually and as a society - than the industrialized North. Northern farming, even, was much more efficient - but the Southern aristocracy perpetuated their system because control was more important than money. In the slavery (and sharecropping) system, the plantation class effectively ruled little fiefs of dependent ‘free’ farmers and unfree (legally or practically) Black labor, able to exercise wide-reaching control not just economically, but also socially, culturally, and politically. Given the choice between more luxury or more power, they chose more power, and used that power to perpetuate their sickened systems.
Before the war there were more Millionaires in Natchez Ms than in the entire state of New York. WTF are you on about?
Their plan was literally ‘Britain needs our cotton’.
Problem:
India exists.
Second problem:
The US… had a navy. The Confederacy… basically did not.
Anyway, all ports blockaded, never seriously challenged.
… Just real 12D chess goin on, even a fucking HOI4 player would laugh at how stupid their plan was.
yup, an agrarian monoculture swinging against the industrial powerhouse of the north… not very smart.
“One of the most destructive wars in human history”
“One of” is doing some heavy lifting there.
It definitely was one of the wars!
I mean, it’s currently at number 50 on Wikipedia’s list of wars by death toll (out of 130 listed conflicts). I feel like that might qualify as one of the most destructive, but it’s obviously a subjective description.
It really doesn’t. Destructive is a much broader term than casualties, especially military.
Among the local wars between northern american people at the time, it was one of the most destructive!
One of the most destructive wars in history?
To be fair Americans don’t really know history, being the most propagandized people on the planet.
Lol in the Wikipedia list for wars by death toll its at place 50. A few beneath Cesar’s conquest of Gaul 2000 years earlier that was fought with swords…
Yeah, but as a percentage of total people population, Cesar killed/murdered a lot more.
If you think THAT’S stupid, wait until you see what they start THIS one over.
And then calling it the “war of northern aggression”
We should just stop pretending to be neutral and call it ‘the war of southern treason’.
Welcome to industrialization
Industrialization in the form of the cotton gin was one of the main reasons slavery was so profitable in the South. What are you talking about?
Slavery was even dying before the cotton gin was invented. It’s inventor even thought it would end slavery; but ironically for him, it did the opposite.
Turns out if you can use less slaves to make the same amount of cotton, demand goes up and thus supply must too.
Whoa. When you put of that way, it’s the Jevons Paradox again.
I’m talking about basing an economy off of one export and then starting a war with the dudes who have all the boats an the manufacturing
A southerner would think they would lose the export anyway due to abolition. So gambling on the union not being that keen on fighting may be sensible.
They weren’t fighting over some mode of production.
The enslavers were killing people in order to maintain their extreme privilege based on violent control.
Nothing much has changed since then.
The same states spent another 100 years successfully fighting against equal treatment. The war wasn’t about modes of production; it was about the definition of personhood.
(I’m from Arkansas. We’ve got some crazy Christian Identitarian sects that still openly racist, and don’t believe Jesus saved non-whites.)
Monoculture is an antiquated form of agriculture.
Slavery is a barbarously cruel crime against humanity.
Perhaps people will say similar things about industrial meat production and billionaires in a few hundred years.
Would any one believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not — I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct. - John Patrick Henry US Founding father
It was about states rights /s.
In part, it was about states’ rights. Except, the South was opposed. It forced northern States to enforce its laws with the Fugitive Slave Act. The northern states’ insistence on their right to abolish slavery within their own borders was one of the big factors in the South seceding.
States rights to…(fill in the blank here) 😉
Just for reference the /s is an internet wide symbol for sarcasm aka I’m joking. Near its peak (1860) about 1.4% of Americans owned slaves. In the states where slavery was legal, approximately 25% of all white households owned at least one enslaved person, and in the Deep South, this figure approached 50%. So yeah states rights to own slaves.
While the rest of the world perfects wind and solar, the United States is fighting a bloody, expensive war for oil.
Same or different?
Nowadays, you just give an unemployed person the ability to be a “free entrepreneur” while using an app and boom, labor cheaper than slaves - no need to worry about silly things like keeping them (barely) fed and clothed when you can convince them it’s their own damn fault for not working hard enough to feed themselves! Sure, you no longer “own” slaves and you can’t actually whip them for silly things like wanting to be treated like a human, but hey, it’s cheap!
Sarcasm aside, it does make me wonder if slaves in the 16th-19th centuries were anything like today’s delivery workforce, where some have a modicum of knowledge about the shit situation they’re in and want better wages and living/working conditions, while others in the same shit situation insist it’s just because “you’re not working hard enough bro!”
its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
Before the war it was becoming popular to rent or sell slaves to corporations. They built the railroads and mined coal to their deaths. Slavery wasn’t going to die on its own.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Slavery is literally “any job that can be done can be forced to be done”
Quality doesn’t matter, only ends justifying means
Eheran@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Sure it was, what makes you think otherwise? Slaves are inefficient. Actual workers generate more money for their boss. There is a reason slavery is so small today compared to 200 years ago despite the much higher wages.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 5 days ago
Modern slavery still exists…
I think you’d have to be specific about the type of slavery and the type of work they are doing.
Chattel slavery of the American South was inefficient because they didn’t modernize their agricultural process, and the Trans Atlantic slave routes were not functioning as they used too. Making it so that plantation owners had to set a new infrastructure to support and maintain their slave population.
However other forms of slavery have been and currently are still highly profitable.
An estimated 50 million people are currently enslaved, in 1820 there was an estimated 40 million people enslaved.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 5 days ago
Yea, the reason slavery is lesser now is because we fucking fought a war over making it overtly illegal… You’d have to be a moron to think it wouldn’t be around today in the US without the civil war.
ilillilillilillililli@lemmy.world 4 days ago
You’re goddamn right your boss would pay you less, if they could get away with it. Free labor is highly efficient for the capital class. There are more slaves today than there were 200 years ago. Literally everything you said is false.