The Political Economy Of Slavery: Studies In The Economy And Society Of The Slave South

The Political r*r- ^ Economy of Slavery ALSO BY EUGENE D. GENOVESE The World the Slaveholders Made In Red and Black Roll, Jordan, Roll From Rebellion to Revolution Fruits of Merchant Capital (with Elizabeth Fox-Genovese) The Southern Front The Southern Tradition A Consuming Fire Eugene D. Genovese ■ The Political Economy o f Slavery ■ Studies in the Economy & Society o f the Slave South SECOND EDI TI ON With a New Introduction Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, c t 06459 Copyright © 1989,1965,1964,1961 by Eugene D. Genovese Introduction to the Wesleyan Edition copyright © 1989 by Eugene D. Genovese Ail rights reserved Wesleyan Paperback 1989 Printed in the United States of America 5 The following chapters were originally published in somewhat different form as noted: 3. Phylon, The Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture. Copyright © i960 by Phylon, the Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture. Reprinted by permission. 4. Textile History Review (Cotton History Review). 5. Agricultural History, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 143-149. Copyright © 1962 by the Agricultural History Society. Re­ printed by permission. 7. The Journal of Southern History. Copyright © 1962 by The Southern Historical Association. Reprinted by permission. “The Slave Economies in Political Perspective” originally appeared in Fruits of Merchant Capital, Copyright © 1983 by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, and is reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Excerpt from “The Hollow Men” in Collected Poems 1909-196* by T . S. Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., copy­ right © 1963,1964 by T . S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. and Faber and Faber, Ltd. Quotations from The Prince by Machiavelli (Vincent-Ricci translation) are reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Published by arrangement with Pantheon Books, a division of Random House. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Genovese, Eugene D., 1930The political economy of slavery : studies in the economy & society of the slave South / Eugene D. Genovese, with a new introduction.— 2nd ed., 1st Wesleyan ed. p. cm.—(Wesleyan paperback) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-8195-6208-4 1. Slavery—Economic aspects—United States. 2. Slavery—Economic aspects—Southern States. 3. United States—Economic conditions. 4. Southern States—Economic conditions. I. Tide. E441.G42 1989 3o6'.362'o975-dc 19 89-5607 FOR M Y P A R E N T S , , Dominick and Lena Genovese WHO M A D E IT P O S S I B L E Preface These studies have had a long history, longer than I some­ times care to recall, having begun as art undergraduate honors paper at Brooklyn College almost fifteen years ago. Arthur C. Cole, whose kindness and wise counsel I still vividly recall, suggested that I investigate the agricultural reform movement in the Old South. The suggestion appalled me—with typical undergraduate modesty I had proposed to do a paper on “Southern Thought from Late Colonial Times to the Civil W ar”—but embarrassment and confidence in the old pro­ fessor’s judgment caused me to yield. When I moved on to Columbia University, I carried a growing interest in the sub­ ject with me. Eventually, although the story had some strange turnings, a doctoral dissertation on the same subject emerged. Some of these studies grew out of that dissertation; others sprung from allied projects. It was clear from the beginning that Southern agriculture could not be studied apart from politics and social structure. Fortunately, neither Prof