"Slave Traffick": The Informal Economy, the Law, and the Social Order of South Carolina Cotton Country, 1793-1860 Público

Abstract

How could a slave who was property own property? This dissertation answers this question by examining the growth and operation of the informal economy of slavery in South Carolina cotton country from the advent of large-scale commercial cotton production to the Civil War. It explores the extent of slave economic independence and the changing relationship between masters, slaves, and the market. During the early nineteenth century, South Carolina cotton planters faced economic, political, and demographic crises. To overcome these challenges, they adopted new paternalistic management strategies that stressed order and control over slaves' domestic lives. The late-antebellum informal economy was a direct outgrowth of this emerging paternalistic ideology. By extending carefully managed economic privileges to slaves, cotton planters reformed a loosely organized system of domestic production and exchange into a tightly controlled planter-managed informal economy. Placing property in the hands of slaves, however, proved risky. While a properly organized informal economy reinforced the social order, uncontrolled economic independence had the opposite effect. The formation of an underground economy, fueled by theft and illicit trade between slaves and poor whites, threatened to undermine planters' paternalistic ideal. As a result, slaveholders responded in force, policing slave movements and disciplining white "negro traders."

Table of Contents

List of Maps, Tables, Graphs, and Figures

Introduction………………………………………………………………….……1

Chapter 1. Mastery, Management, and "Negro Grounds":

Informal Economic Production and Planter Paternalism on

South Carolina Cotton Plantations……………………………………….…23

Chapter 2. "Some Sort of Wages": Self-hired Slaves, Overtime

Labor, and the Informal Economy…………………………………………...62

Chapter 3. "Negroes Indebtedness": Masters, Merchants, and

Slave Marketing in Cotton Country…………………………………………102

Chapter 4. Slaves, Masters, and the Creation

of an Underground Economy……….…….…….…….…….…….…….…..141

Chapter 5. "Uncultivated of Mind, Devoid of Principle, a

Sabbath-Breaker and a Blasphemer": The Negro

Trader and the Underground Exchange…………………………………....176

Coda……….…….…….…….…….…….…….………..……….…….……......209

Bibliography……….…….…….…….………….…….………….…….……....212

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	History
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	African American Studies History, United States History, Black
Palavra-chave	South Carolina slavery Slaves' Economy Plantation Management Informal Economy
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Roark, James, Emory University
Committee Members	Ashmore, Susan, Emory University Prude, Jonathan, Emory University

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