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solo quarente cinco de almes con do gregas Cox Mobile Inculia quipo de wifi y guarantia deprecio de dos anos entu plan nues cambia te hoy a Cox Dre quiere Cox Mobile Gig Unlimited. The history of American slavery is not buried in the past. It is written into the nation's landscape. It stands in brick and stone, in ports and fields, in the architecture of power itself. Slavery shaped where America built, how it expanded, and who profited it. At Monticello and Mount Vernon, enslaved people built and sustained the homes of presidents. In Charleston and New Orleans, auction blocks once stood near busy docks where human lives were bought and sold alongside cotton and Sugar. In Washington, D.C. enslaved labor helped construct the White House and the Capitol, enduring symbols of liberty and freedom constructed amid bondage. Follow the geography and the system comes into wider focus. Tobacco in Virginia, rice in the Carolinas, sugar along the Mississippi. Cotton spreading across the Deep South. These landscapes generated immense wealth that flowed north into banks, insurance companies, factories, railroads, universities, institutions and infrastructure that benefited from slavery, even as many denied responsibility for it. Slavery built one America while another claimed distance, the nation divided not only by belief but by geography between those who depended openly on enslavement and those who profited while looking away. To understand the United States, we must read the land itself, because slavery was not a side story. It was a national system embedded in the ground beneath our feet. It is American history Hit welcome. I'm Don Wildman. One of the things we try to do on this series is find a clear path into history that can otherwise feel dense and overwhelming. Not to simplify it, but open it up. This episode is especially important in this regard because our story is so often relegated to the past when it has so much to do with our shared present. We'll discuss today the earlier years of American slavery, where this system came from, how it took shape on this continent, and why decisions made at the beginning of this nation mattered so long afterwards. For this, we're fortunate to have the guidance of historian Justine Hill Edwards, author of a number of award winning books and publications including Savings and Trust, the Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's bank, which won the 2025 Frederick Douglass book Prize, as well as Unfree Markets, the Slave's Economy, and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina. She is an associate professor at the great and good University of Virginia. Professor Hill Edwards. Justine, welcome to the podcast. Honored you could be here.
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B
Thank you for inviting me and thank you for having me.
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A
You teach what I understand is a very popular class covering origins of American slavery, and right there in Virginia. I'm curious, what are the ideas that most resonate with your students?
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B
Yeah, I mean, I'm teaching this class right now, and it's a lecture course on American slavery, and it's the course that I've taught the most here at uva. And the ideas that resonate with my students most are really connecting the history of slavery to kind of what they see all around them. We are at Thomas Jefferson's university, and so a lot of what I do is try to connect the history of the university, the history of the founding of the nation, the history of slavery in Virginia specifically, but the colonies and the country writ large to kind of everything that they see. And so it is such a fascinating place to do this history and to teach it, because everything that they kind of we talk about and they look at around them in some ways relates interestingly to the history of American slavery.
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A
Knowledge is power. It frees us up. And it's actually. It ends up having a positive impact, which is such a welcome thing in this world today. Hopefully this episode does the same for listeners. The American system of slavery, the slave economy begins, of course, as a transatlantic practice. Where does it first begin? Who initiates it, and why do they conceive of doing it at that time?
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B
Yeah, well, the history of American slavery does not actually start in the colonies that would become the United States of America. We actually have to go across to Atlanta, Africa, to regions like modern day Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, to really understand the origins of American slavery and really the origins, the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade. And we're talking about not in 1619, but we're talking about really in the 1440s, with Portuguese explorers really making this. These kind of first economic and political contacts with Atlantic African nations in the 1440s.
- [05:37]
A
Why the Portuguese? I always wondered that. What was their culture that they began this practice?
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B
Sure. Well, they began to develop fairly sophisticated naval technologies in terms of understanding wind, understanding how to build and construct ships. And so we are seeing them kind of use this technological advantage to exploring regions of the South Atlantic, which kind of brings them into contact with these highly developed, highly kind of militarized and politicized Atlantic African elites and nations.
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A
Was the notion of, I'm looking for the chicken egg here. The notion of, oh, free labor or, oh, these people need to be dominated or what was the initial spark?
- [06:22]
B
Sure. Well, when we talk about kind of modern conceptions of the transatlantic slave trade, I think the popular idea is that we have kind of European traders and explorers and merchants going in and kind of ravaging region of Atlantic Africa. But that was not at all the case. We are talking about diplomatic relationships and connections between Atlantic African rulers and European traders and merchants. And so we're talking about unilateral political relationships that were developed. We're not talking about pillage and domination, especially in the first generations of contact and trade and political negotiations.
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A
Yeah, I asked that intentionally naive question to say, you know, there's a lot of thinking that goes into this. I mean, the understanding of. Of how these colonies, future colonies, are going to be developed and the agriculture that will be propagated there is going to require labor. That has always fascinated me, and I've not done enough study to understand the. The chain reaction of thinking that goes on with those European powers that say, we want to make a lot of money here. How are we going to do that? If we have to, you know, take laborers over there and pay them? That's not going. So I've always tried to sort of reverse engineer this and understand where that came from, but it's very complicated. And we're not, of course, talking only about the Portuguese. We're talking about the English and the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, all of those European economic powers who are now, you know, freed from their shores by the age of discovery. And suddenly they can sail all around this world, as they're finding out, and there is land and weather that's going to make things back in Europe, you know, prosper. Jamaica, Barbados, Brazil are a bigger part of this overall story than. Than Americans usually realize, right?
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B
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If we are looking at the Atlantic world, as historians and scholars call it, this kind of the clashing and colliding of empires, of labor, of explorers, of merchants, of diplomats, of politicians, and they are traveling back and forth from regions of Europe to, again, Atlantic Africa to South America, Brazil, in particular, to the Caribbean, the West Indies, to mainland North America. That is what we are talking about. And then if we are talking really about in terms of numbers, sheer numbers, we are really talking about Brazil with the Dutch and then the Portuguese. We're talking about places like Barbados, which was at one point the kind of crown jewel of the British Empire in this period of time. And we are talking about, later on, Jamaica, and for the French, really. We are talking about Saint Domingue, modern day Haiti. That comes later in the 18th century. But in terms of sheer numbers, the British colonies that would become the U.S. actually received a small percentage, about 5% of the total population of enslaved Africans that were sold throughout the Atlantic world.
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A
Yeah, exactly. This is something that begins in the 1400s, moves into the 1500s. This is long before the American colonies become anything as we know them. And this is all really planting this and creating this foundation for a whole economy and a whole marketplace that will then steer north towards the American colonies. The interesting thing is that we're talking about plantations. You know, when we hear the word plantation in the American mind, it is the Gone with the Wind thing. You know, it's that kind of place. But really, that word refers to these enormous industrial level enterprises that were really started on those islands and in Brazil, right?
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B
Yeah. I mean, we are talking about massive economic enterprises that had massive amounts of capital investment from merchants, from investors, from monarchs, and they were looking to both expand their political power, but expand their economic power as well in tandem. Those two things went hand in hand. And so they were seeing their investments in the expansion of plantations as an expansion of their kind of colonial holdings. And slavery was part and parcel of that colonial project. And so, again, we see the Dutch in Brazil, we see the Portuguese in Brazil as well. We see all of these kind of colonial enterprises crop up around the production and exportation of crops. But there were specific crops that were kind of honed on early on. Sugar becomes a massively important product that really fuels economic activity and travel and trade throughout the Atlantic world. And so, in many ways, sugar and slavery go hand in hand. One would not have burgeoned and grew without the other.
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A
This being an American history show, we will not spend as much time as I wish we could on the African story at that point. I desperately want to tell that story. What brings that free labor across the ocean, tragically, is what's called the Middle Passage, the forced transportation of enslaved people from western and central African coast, often working through intermediaries. These slave factors or traders they were called, of course, worked for companies, and they placed these folks captive onto these slave ships under the most horrific and lethal conditions. We should describe this experience. How long were they held before they were put to sea?
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B
Sure. Well, first, I mean, I do want to kind of reframe this. I tend to not call slave labor free labor because I think that terminology could be a bit fraught and a bit confusing.
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A
You're right. I'm being Glib. When I say that, I agree with you, and I mean that to put the onus on those who are using these people for their own good. Of course, free labor becomes another term later on.
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B
Yeah. But the transition of slave traders Kind of taking a person and take. Taking a person and making them into a commodity, into a slave Is such an important part of. Of this conversation. In that, in many ways, kind of the violence of slavery. And the violence of the slave trade. Was kind of the catalyst. That kind of turned a person into a commodity to a slave. And that process was through the middle passage, Kind of taking a person, either captured in war or kidnapped, holding them in a slave port, In a slave pen, In a port along the Atlantic African coast. And a European trader would then buy them and warehouse them or imprison them on slave ships. And this. This is where the kind of technology comes in. Increasingly, again, beginning in the 15th century, but kind of going on to even the 16th and 17th, we see Europeans start to invest in kind of figuring out how to make slave trading vessels More, quote, unquote, efficient. And so they were kind of strategizing about how they could manufacture Slave trading ships and boats. To warehouse as many enslaved Africans as possible, to hopefully, for their part, ensure that the fewest amount died on the transatlantic passage. And so you have these. These ideas Kind of colliding with the real experiences of the enslaved. And when. When I say imprisoned, these were called kind of floating slave prisons. That they were incredibly violent, they were incredibly unhealthy. The transatlantic voyage Was incredibly physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually traumatic for the enslaved. And so, in many ways, it was that trauma of being warehoused and imprisoned, Being shipped across the Atlantic, that in enslavers, Enslaved traders, mind, Kind of transitioned them from being a person on the Atlantic African side. To being a slave on the new world side.
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Yes, it was a dehumanization, A conscious dehumanization of these individuals. The voyage would take up to two
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B
months, at times more. It would be a lesser amount of time. From places like Angola to Brazil. It could be from places on the gold coast To Jamaica or Barbados, Four or five months. And then getting up to the English colonies Of mainland north America, that could add an additional month or two. And so we are talking about months long process.
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A
And by middle passage, we're talking about a triangle, basically, that there's a. This is the second leg, Right. Of what essentially is this whole economic diagram. How so?
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B
Well, historians call this the triangular trade. And this is a trade of goods From Atlantic Africa. To perhaps regions of South America or the Caribbean, up to regions of mainland North America and then perhaps to Western Europe. And so this is a triangular trade of goods and commodities, from slaves to gold, to guns, to gunpowder to sugar, to the byproducts of sugar we're talking about rum, was incredibly popular. And so this triangular trade really defined Atlantic commerce in this period of time.
- [16:01]
A
Where is a good part to place the story of American slavery in this. In this paradigm?
- [16:08]
B
Well, historians will often say 1619 is this. This pivotal moment in terms of examining this history for the colonies that would become the United States. 1619 was the first recorded instance in August of that year of enslaved Africans being purchased or traded in Virginia. And so this is within the kind of British colonial context. And so we have about 20 enslaved Africans being traded in Virginia at this period of time. Interestingly enough, if you read the historical record, it's kind of not this dramatic event as it's written. John Rolfe is kind of talking about, like, politics and everything, and then he says that, yes, 20 and odd enslaved Africans are kind of brought here. And so within the primary source, within the historical record, it's not written as being this extraordinary event. But we know as historians that this is a remarkable moment, dramatic moment that kind of catapults Virginia, in particular, into this broader trade of African slavery in mainland North America.
- [17:27]
A
I'll be back with more American history after this short break, which is the cash crop of. Of Jamestown at that time. That, of course, will spread far and wide in different kinds of efforts, like in rice and, of course, in cotton later on. This begins what becomes the plantation system of production through the 1600s, spreading upwards to the Chesapeake. The rise of rice, as I say, down in South Carolina, depends on, you know, the landscape and the geography. Very specifically, slave labor really helps build South Carolina, right?
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B
Yeah. I mean, slave labor came to completely define life for colonists in South Carolina in particular. South Carolina was the colony founded for the growth and expansion of slavery. And it was established at a period of time after Barbados had really kind of grown to be this major point in terms of slavery and kind of the exportation of sugar in the British Empire. But it's really in the early 17th century when Barbados, of course, is an island colony. There's only so much land there. And so South Carolina is kind of founded as an extension, a satellite in, if you will, of Barbados and the form of slavery that is developed there. And so South Carolina is interesting for that reason, in that it is the colony founded for the growth and expansion of slavery and Slave labor really helps to catapult South Carolina's economy into prominence because of this relationship between slavery and the major export at this time, which was. Right.
- [19:09]
A
Sullivan's island in particular, was interesting as a tiny quarantine station in the Charleston harbor, which is a, you know, huge harbor and ideal for so much. This was a point of entry for 40 to 50% of enslaved Africans brought to North America during that period. I suppose it was likened to an Ellis island of sorts on a typical plantation in this early period. Can you describe these enslaved folks, how they would be experiencing this? How did they. They live? What was, what was the experience like?
- [19:36]
B
Well, I mean, I think it is important to note that when we talk about the history of slavery, especially if we talk about the experiences of the enslaved. The experience of an enslaved person in colonial South Carolina, let's say Charleston, or the outskirts of Charleston, was actually slightly different than the experience of an enslaved person in Virginia. For, for example. And so the experience of an enslaved person working on a tobacco plantation was actually not done the same as an enslaved person on a rice plantation. And so in South Carolina, the enslaved work by what was called the task system. And this was a system by which enslaved communities would work and do a specific amount of work each day based on the time of year. The structure of rice cultivation was pretty systemic in that certain times of year require certain types of. Of labor in terms of irrigation, in terms of harvesting. And so once an enslaved person or community finished a particular work task during the day, they would essentially have the. The rest of the day on their own. And in South Carolina and in the low country, the enslaved really didn't work side by side with whites for an overseer or an enslaver. They were really working independently on their own. And so what this meant is that some historians might say that they had more quote, unquote, autonomy, freedom, for lack of a better word. I tend to not use that. That word, but it meant that all of the. These other aspects of slave life could develop and evolve. This is what I talk about in my first book, Free Market. And so there was a robust and a vibrant slaves economy that developed in tandem with the tasks set system. And so it meant that travelers who would go to Charleston, for example, would be surprised that the enslaved would be in marketplaces selling goods. They. They'd have to haggle with enslaved women to buy goods. And so this be became part and parcel of life in the low country, and it evolved around rice production. If we go north to Virginia, the enslaved worked by what, what was called gang labor. They would work in groups, side by side, often guided by an overseer. And that was the kind of day in, day out experience of slave life in places like Virginia.
- [22:05]
A
And at the same time, of course, we can't forget that this was happening up north as well, in a whole different kind of way. Not on the industrial level, I suppose, but more on a family farm kind of basis. Is that fair to say?
- [22:18]
B
Yeah, I mean, it kind of gets back to this idea that slavery evolved in a variety of ways based on time and place. And so slavery in Charleston in, let's say, 1720 was not the same as the experience of an enslaved person in Massachusetts, for example, in the same period of time, there weren't really plantations in New England. There were kind of smaller slave holdings. And so the entire slave pop. A population was actually a bit smaller. And the enslaved were kind of clustered in cities. And so we, we have slaves in Boston, in Newport, as opposed to kind of outside of those specific regions.
- [22:57]
A
One needs to build this, the, the enslavement story in America. You can't just accept it wrote, certainly from the movies. You can't take that sort of naive view of this, and I'm sure this is what you're teaching in your class, that there was a very progressive, systemic path that this took over these periods of time that, that built with the size of the agriculture that was being cultivated, the industry that was being built. And so this enslavement happens very systemically and it creates a marketplace which is where it gets so ugly and so, you know, vile really. So we'll take a short break and when we come back, we'll talk about the legal development surrounding slavery in this period. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. Are you looking for the perfect podcast to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights?
- [23:53]
B
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- [24:01]
A
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- [24:16]
A
And guess what? We're Also now on YouTube After Dark, a podcast from history hit. Welcome back. We're speaking with Professor Justine Hill Edwards. Justine, before the break, we looked at how the Atlantic slave trade began and, and then landed in America. But I'm wondering about the legal and political aspect of this trade. How did this Industry break down on political lines. I mean, I'm imagining these companies are. It's horrible to say these, but purveying these commodities as they see them. You know, this is the property that they're. That they're using. And so how was this codified into laws and. And break down in these different colonies?
- [25:03]
B
Sure. Well, understanding the laws of slavery is really fundamental to understanding how slavery evolves and expands here. And so if we think about kind of the popular narrative of American slavery, I think, is focused on the south, in places like South Carolina and Georgia. But if we're to understand the kind of legal foundations of slavery, especially in colonial America, we actually have to go first to Massachusetts. And Massachusetts was actually the first colony to legally recognize slavery. And that happened in 1641, the Massachusetts body of liberties. And it is a law that essentially says, and I'll get the actual language wrong, but slavery is essentially legal if slaves are sold to colonists in just wars. And so what it kind of means is that this. This idea that. That colonists were recognizing the presence of enslaved Africans, even slave Native Americans, but they were kind of taking a backseat to being active participants in the. The slave trade. Like slavery is fine if we're fighting wars or if slaves are sold to us, we are not going out and pursuing slaves, which was not true. But it is in 1641, again in Massachusetts, not in a place like South Carolina or Virginia, that slavery is recognized within its laws. Now, this shifts to 1662 in Virginia. We often think about slavery being inheritable. This idea that an enslaved child status is based on the status of the father. Well, this shifts fairly early on in American history. Again in 16, 1662 in Virginia, there is an important law that essentially says that the status of the child follows the status not of the father, but of the mother. And so if a child's mother was enslaved, then that child would be enslaved. And if a child's father was not enslaved or free, then that child would be free. And so what this means is that this makes slavery an inheritable status. And increasingly, this recognizes the racialized status of the enslaved. And so it means then too, that slavery and the status of the enslaved is kind of made into an economic unit. Slaves are made into a commodity. And so it is really early on, again, in this process that we have these laws, both in Massachusetts and Virginia, that fundamentally structure how slavery evolves.
- [27:45]
A
People who want to minimize this historically in American story, often and compared, oh, there were slaves in Rome and all that sort of thing. And the difference is that this Is a racialized slavery. This is a very specifically racialized slavery legally, as you're saying. And these slave codes, which is, you know, chilling how it then resonates through to black codes later on in the. In the, you know, after the Civil War, really do make it official that this is everything to do with the color of one's skin. This is again, not only an American phenomenon. This was done through the Spanish colonies as well. And this was codified all over the place in different. It really breaks down to absurd fractions is what ends up happening where someone is quarter this or an eighth this. And it's really amazing how specific and legal it tries to be. Again, also to distinguish it from an indentured labor, which was a whole other kind of thing that someone could move through and essentially an apprentice kind of thing. But this is very specifically, and so and hatefully so, a system about people who look a certain way and therefore we. We project upon them a status.
- [28:53]
B
Exactly.
- [28:54]
A
Yeah, it's. It's really important to distinguish that.
- [28:57]
B
Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, this, this is a period of time. And the. The question often comes up. Well, there's Roman slavery, there was slavery. In the ancient world, Most of civilizations had forms of. Of slavery or kind of bonded labor. But the kind of American, or if we can call it Atlantic story has two main features that are really important. One, the racialized aspect of slavery. Slave status becomes affiliated with black skin or dark skin. And two, the inheritability of slave status in other civilizations. And an enslaved person could buy themselves out of slavery, could marry out of slavery slavery, or could convert to a different religion to not be enslaved. And those three factors were very early on eliminated within the. The Atlantic world. And that is why this is so important.
- [29:53]
A
Well, and, and you know, as generations go on, soon we have African Americans. You know, we have whole generations who have born and raised here and then many others after that. It happens fairly soon because Americans, I mean, because human beings, things procreate that. That we have an entire population who has, you know, only been living as an enslaved population, as their fathers and. And forefathers were before them. It's incredible. But when do we become aware of that identity among that population? When do they start thinking that way?
- [30:25]
B
Sure. Well, this really happens in the late 17th and early 18th centuries as we have increasing populations of individual enslaved Africans as the status of slave B becomes wholly affiliated with kind of black skin. And so it is in this. This period, especially by the early 18th century, when we get this idea, this identity of kind of African Americans being affiliated and associated with. With enslaved status. It happens fairly early.
- [30:57]
A
There's a merging that goes on with West African traditions. It's fascinating, especially when you go to New Orleans and talk about it there. The West African religions marrying up with Christianity and all the music and religious practices. It's amazing how this culture, despite the oppression and cruelty, still sort of flowers underneath of that and then rises up later on, for sure. When does the notion of white supremacy first begin to emerge, and how does that even stick? Because that's absolutely necessary in this equation.
- [31:33]
B
Sure. Oh, well, I mean, this idea of white supremacy is so important to understanding not just how slavery kind of developed and evolved and grew, but the kind of racialized aspect of slavery as well. And it happens fairly early. I mean, Even in the 17th century, you have colonists kind of pushing back on the enslaved, attempting to buy themselves out of slavery, of white colonists having a child with, or even attempting to marry a black person or slave person. And so the idea that kind of slavery and race and these ideas of white supremacy really happens in this early colonial period to further separate kind of races in terms of status. It happens from the founding of the colony, one could say in Virginia. It really starts with this 1662 law and accelerates with Bacon's Rebellion in the 1670s. We have this idea of kind of the separation of races based on status. And kind of bound up in that idea is the. The idea of whites being supreme or better than those of African descent. And so in many ways, you can't separate understanding the origins of American slavery without understanding the kind of parallel track of the expansion and kind of entrenchment of ideas of white supremacy there as well.
- [33:04]
A
Yeah, I mean, it becomes a religion unto itself, really. It becomes a way of instilling in children and generations to come this idea that we are better than them, and therefore we have a system that makes perfect sense to us. You know, of course we're going to be like this. And. And that sort of the. The given aspect of that, the. The assumption of that ends up. It becomes a perpetual motion machine. It never ends. After you've kind of accepted that, that basic idea, let's digest this again, take a short break, and when we come back, we'll. We'll discuss how slavery changed after the Revolutionary War and the growing resistance against the practice. It's tax season and at lifelock. We know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one.
- [33:55]
B
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- [34:38]
A
So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from history. Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back folks. I'm Justine. By the time we get to the American Revolution, mid-1770s, there are so many new ideas that have permeated human society. New ideas of science and religion, individual rights of life and property, all that must have had an effect, a dramatic effect on the slave economy. Is this the beginning of northern attitudes versus Southern? Because of course they end up being diametrically opposed.
- [35:25]
B
Sure, sure. Well, I mean, kind of. To take a step back, I think it is important to remember that we have kind of, we have historians who say that the revolution is really the kind of beginning of anti slavery and abolitionist politics. But if we look at this from the lives and experiences of the enslaved, there's always been abolitionism, right? They were the first abolitionists, as the historian Manisha Sinha has said. But the Revolutionary War and the revolution really accelerated these kind of diverging and converging conversations about the founding of a new nation, the very kind of human access to freedom and emancipation. The idea of political inclusion all collides in this, this period around the kind of politics of the revolution when meanwhile
- [36:19]
A
our founding fathers are all enslaving people. So it's a, it's a bizarre time when you have these ideas of liberty and freedom being, you know, written about quite eloquently while at the same time those people writing it are committing this act. And it's amazing. Freedom was offered as an incentive by both American and British during the war. A hundred thousand patriot owned black enslaved escaped and fled to British lines later to be organized into military units.
- [36:47]
B
If we look at the revolutionary period through the experiences of the the enslaved, ideas of patriotism be become even more complex because above all the enslaved wanted freedom for themselves and their families and they would fight on the side of those who would give it to them. And so There were enslaved men and women who fought and defended the Patriot side, who fought and defended the Loyalist side based on who they thought would give them freedom and emancipate them. And there were some who didn't believe that their side would give them freedom, would recognize their emancipated status. And so they then fled west or they fled to places like Canada. Nova Scotia was a major goal point for many enslaved men and women who wanted to really claim their freedom for themselves.
- [37:42]
A
At this time, I mean, we're talking about the revolution having happened. So this is a country, a new country now. We're going to set up our new constitution and so forth. But during this period, there's a rapid expansion of plantation economies in places like Virginia and South Carolina. They are moving into this new age, this new freedom, using slavery.
- [38:02]
B
Sure, we have places like Virginia, we have the Carolinas, we have Georgia, who are making massive investments in the expansion of the plantation economy. At the same time, though, because of the language of revolution, we have colonies in states like Pennsylvania, Rhode island, island, who are going down the path of gradually emancipating the enslaved populations of their colonies and then states. And so Pennsylvania, for example, was the first state to abolish slavery or gradually abolished slavery with gradual emancipation in 1780. Vermont comes into the Union as a free State in 1777. And so we have really kind of stick colonies and states north of Pennsylv who are making strategic choices to gradually end slavery at the same time as places like Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia are starting to kind of see how to invest more and more in the kind of benefits and profits of slavery.
- [39:09]
A
Virginia has everything to do with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. So there must have been conversation in that house of Burgesses and so forth, talking about the fact that this is all about white men. Don't worry, we're not talking about those other people. Was that ever, you know, is that in the record, those specific distinctions?
- [39:26]
B
Sure, There were conversations among politicians and delegates in Virginia about the future of slavery. Would there be manumission laws? What were the mechanisms by which an enslaver could emancipate an enslaved person? But there was always the. The ever present threat of what would happen if we had a free population alongside. Alongside a slave population in a slave state. Jefferson talked quite a bit about that. Madison talked about that, as in enslavers. And so they decided to go the route of kind of being more entrenched in slavery because they saw it as being so economically profitable. And honestly, men like Jefferson were kind of struggling with how to disentangle themselves from their real investments, both economic and personal, in slavery as an, as an institution.
- [40:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. But they were also working on the, the economic, the economy writ large of how do you, you know, secure this country's place in the world? I suppose I'm not forgiving them. I'm just thinking, oh my God, you know, how are they, how they are these minds at work at this time when it's right in their own front yard. But all of what we're talking about basically sets up this future free north versus slave south and the beginnings of all of what we end up in later on. What were the ways of enslaved people resisting this status? How did they go about inflicting their own agency on this system?
- [41:00]
B
Well, I think the revolutionary period is kind of the perfect example of the strategies that the enslaved use. Right. They would fight for either side. And if we're talking about fighting, we are talking about kind of armed rebellions and insurrections. And so there are kind of various moments in the colonial period, even through the revolution, where we, we have the enslaved kind of take taking up arms and fighting for their own emancipation. We see this in South Carolina in 1739. We see this in New York in 1741. And so there are these, these moments the enslaved also fled. I mean, choosing to escape and take your own freedom in your own hands was a massive force, form of rebellion. And these two, two forms kind of fleeing and fighting scared enslavers. They were afraid of armed slaves. They were afraid of lose, losing their investments when slaves fled. And so these were two kind of major aspects in which the enslaved fought back and fought for their own freedom and emancipation.
- [42:08]
A
And as, you know, we move into the 19th century, there was an enormous disparity in terms of population. There's so many more slave than white people in, in the South. Of course they're worried about that and, and they should be side by side with the reality north of a growing abolition movement, which in itself was triggered by, ironically, England, you know, which has, you know, finally gotten on the right side of this after having started so much of it. It's just such an interesting irony, I guess. How did the explosion of the cotton economy impact slavery? Many people do not recognize what a juiced up situation happened because of cotton as we come into the 19th century.
- [42:46]
B
Sure. Well, again, I'm going to just take a brief step back. If, if we kind of track the evolution of American cotton, there are a few important particular moments. So we are in the end of the revolutionary period, let's say we're in the 1780s, 1790s, one of the major catalyst was actually the slavery revolt in Saint Domingue, modern day Haiti. And so the Haitian Revolution had an indelible, a tremendous effect on slavery in the Atlantic world and slavery in the US and so it is because of the effects of the Haitian Revolution that Thomas Jefferson negotiates with France to buy the Louisiana Territory in 1803. And so when that happens with the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. immediately doubles in size and it makes all of this land immediately available for the federal government to start to invest in. And what do they invest in? They start to sell land to land speculators, enslavers start to buy land, seeing this land available for kind of agricultural production and investment. And at the same time we have innovations made to cotton gin technology by Whitney. And so when he gets a patent for this new cotton gin, all of these things are converging at the same time, the expansion of the US investments in kind of land development, the cotton gin. We also have, Interestingly enough, in 1808, Congress decides to close American participation in the Atlantic slave trade, which means that no new enslaved slave for kins are being brought in from foreign sources. And so we have this massive domestic slave trade as well. And so it is this convergence of factors that makes cotton, this very important product that kind of helps the American economy boom, but makes American slavery more entrenched and in more ways more violent for the enslaved.
- [44:53]
A
One of the most fascinating things I've learned about on this doing this podcast series is about how it becomes its own financial tool. Enslavement is so important to people's wealth in the south, inheritance wise. And even women, you know, who are able to, white women who, you know, this is their one form of inherent wealth that they can trade and build on. It's an incredibly weird part of this that nobody ever thinks about it because it's all about, you know, working in the fields. That is the popular notion of this. But there's a very deep financially systemic factor here.
- [45:28]
B
Absolutely. I mean, if we talk about the creation of modern day insurance, actually have to look at this, this period of slavery's expansion. There were entire financial products that were kind of based and grounded on the value of slave property. There were hundreds of banks that were created in places like Louisiana and Miss Mississippi just to serve the increasing numbers of enslavers who were trying to kind of make money and profit off of the perceived value of their enslaved populations. And so there Is an entire side of this, the financial history side, incredibly important to understand.
- [46:06]
A
And you do see then this. Now we're hundreds of years down the road here. And so there's a whole society and sociological aspect of this kind of paternalistic thing is. Is theme to this, that we are, you know, not only are. They are, you know, enslaved people, but they. We are taking care of them. You know, it becomes a family oriented thing. You see that in Gone the Wind and, and that's, you know, fueled by the Lost Cause as aspect of this later on. It's amazing story. You could spend your life doing this kind of thing. My goodness.
- [46:36]
B
And some of us do.
- [46:39]
A
Exactly. You know, I want to ask you, Justine, we just had the sad passing of Jesse Jackson, a man who was by Dr. King's side to the end, who did so much to keep hope alive through the years when the civil rights story was really sidelined in the 70s and 80s. How do you think this story is most relevantly received by young people today? You know, you see these folks in your classrooms all the time. How are they adhering to these ideas and applying them in their own lives?
- [47:08]
B
Sure. Well, what I try to do is connect a lot of what we talk about to what we see and talk about today, whether it's like policy or economic justice or conversations about labor incarceration. I mean, I really do try to frame what we talk about in terms of the history of American slavery, in terms of kind of everyday topics that we continue to grapple with. And so I hope that what they learn about the history of American slavery kind of resonates with them. So perhaps they may not be able to walk by the White House and not think. Think about certain things or drive by a field and not wonder if that was a tobacco plantation. I hope that they are kind of thinking along those lines.
- [47:52]
A
Perspective. Yeah. Understanding their wider perspective of this whole subject matter. Matter. Enslaved individuals are the largest asset in the United states by the 1800s. That's insane. Yeah. That's amazing.
- [48:04]
B
Yeah.
- [48:06]
A
And. And disregarded by most people who, who want to move on from the subject to understand how important it really was. The groundwork had been set for a future conflict that would finally end slavery. But until then, the violence and trauma would continue. It was. It is a legacy we live with today. And one would think that a nation would fight a war over this and then dispose of the system altogether. But of course that didn't happen so, so easily. And we end up in Reconstruction and all that's afterwards. It's an enormous subject. I hope this has been a helpful conversation for the audience to understand how complex this subject matter is. And it you have to start at the beginning. And I thank you, Justine, for doing this with us and giving us that kind of foundation. I envy those students of you who of yours who sit in that classroom listening to you. Professor Justine Hill Edwards teaches and works at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She has authored several works, but be sure to order her most recent the award winning Savings and Trust the Rise and Betrayal of the Freedmen's Bank. Also Unfree Markets, the Slaves Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina. Thank you. It has been a great privilege. I really appreciate it.
- [49:13]
B
Thank you for me having thanks for having me.
- [49:20]
A
Thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes, dropping Mondays and Thursdays from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History hit with me, Don Wildman, so grateful for your support. Thanks so much.