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Event Recap

On October 4, Cornell University professor Edward E. Baptist spoke about his book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (Basic Books, 2014) at an event co-sponsored by the Institute for the Liberal Arts, the African and African Diaspora Studies Program, and the Boisi Center. Baptist鈥檚 work emphasizes the connection between slavery and America鈥檚 economic success throughout the nation鈥檚 early history.

Baptist began his lecture by highlighting the varying factors that shaped the growth of industrial capitalism in the U.S. Baptist explained how autobiographies by slaves and former slaves provide firsthand accounts from the historically neglected perspective of the black slave. Thousands of slaves recounted their experiences; more than two-thousand interviews with enslaved and formerly enslaved individuals uncover where 鈥淎merican capitalism gets some of its dis- tinctive force and character.鈥澨�

In the early-nineteenth century, new technology and machinery in Britain unleashed an era of industrialization听that transformed the economy of slavery and the United States. The emergence听of a new factory system that made cotton the most sought after commodity in the world market. Enslavers seized control of the market, going from minor players to the dominant supplier of cotton globally.听

Baptist noted that if cotton entrepreneurs could not supply the ever-growing demand of that cotton, prices would rise. Therefore enslavers relied on slaves to pick cotton at increasingly high quotas, which literate slaves recorded in ledgers. Enslavers used torture and coercion to increase their slaves鈥� productivity. With each passing year, the average enslaved cotton-picker picked 2% more cotton per work day鈥攁 400% overall productivity growth over the course of the nineteenth century. At the height of the cotton industry, slaves were required to pick anywhere between 100 to 160 pounds of cotton a day.听

Against historical treatments of the American South that emphasize the managerial and technical ingenuity of the white enslavers, Baptist maintains that it would be erroneous to ignore the role of enslaved people in the economic growth of the U.S. In short, Baptist emphasized that 鈥渢he whip, not seeds, helped the cotton industry grow鈥� and that freedom and capitalism often do not go hand in hand.听

Professor of history and director of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program at Boston College, Martin Summers, provided a compelling response pointing out that Baptist does not attempt to paint a unified or monolithic image of slavery. Instead, he describes the individual stories and childhoods of former slaves in order to humanize their role and overall contribution to the formation of American capitalism. Summers suggested that Baptist鈥檚 book could be renamed to 鈥淪lavery and the Making of American Culture,鈥� as the institution of enslavement and exploitation left a powerful imprint on the church and society as a whole.