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Well, okay, but the narrative goes a little less polished than that. Life didn't get to be a bowl of cherries for the dozens of freed slaves in the post-bellum years. It took maybe 3 or 4 years for things to be hunky-dory for blacks in the US. After that, I'll grant you, it was all smooth sailing from 1870 to now.
Ha, good post. Yes, like Muhammed Ali said upon his first visit to Africa: "I'm just glad my Granddaddy got on that boat."
Well, okay, but the narrative goes a little less polished than that. Life didn't get to be a bowl of cherries for the dozens of freed slaves in the post-bellum years. It took maybe 3 or 4 years for things to be hunky-dory for blacks in the US. After that, I'll grant you, it was all smooth sailing from 1870 to now.
Nobody says it was a smooth sailing, but it was equally rough sailing (literally) for all the poor immigrants who sailed to the US from Europe - yet it was easier, for anyone including the former slaves, to build life from nothing in the US than anywhere else. Which is still true.
People who were slaves in the US were apparently slaves already in Africa as well (or so tell me two different friends from Ghana: per their opinion, white slavers wouldn't have known how to find slaves in Africa if tribal chiefs weren't willing to sell them to the white slavers) - do you think their offspring would have really had it easier if they never left Africa?
But the American financial and shipping industries were also dependent on slave-produced cotton. So was the British textile industry. Cotton was not shipped directly to Europe from the South. Rather, it was shipped to New York and then transshipped to England and other centers of cotton manufacturing in the United States and Europe.
As the cotton plantation economy expanded throughout the southern region, banks and financial houses in New York supplied the loan capital and/or investment capital to purchase land and slaves."
Meaning New York's banks certainly made money off cotton, and the textile industry in NYC made a lot of money off cotton too. As did the textile industries in Europe. Sugarcane was grown in the Caribbean and South America with slave labor, and sugar and rum were sent to Europe.
Lots of money was made of slavery, and this business extended well beyond the South to the North and to the rest of the world (including some Africans who sold people into slavery, and Arabs purchased slavery long before European involvement).
Cotton was never the main economy of the US (let alone Europe!), and it is idiotic to say that the US was built on cottonpicking.
Cotton was never the main economy of the US (let alone Europe!), and it is idiotic to say that the US was built on cottonpicking.
People in the US or Europe didn't walk around naked, did they? Cotton clothes were quite popular, and yes they used Southern cotton.
People across the US and Europe used sugar, and that was grown from slave labor.
Does this mean the entire economy in the US and Europe was based on products derived from slave plantations? No. But it was certainly a lucrative part of the economy in both the US and in Europe. People spent a lot of money on cotton based clothes, sugar, and rum.
They still spend a lot of money on these things today.
People in the US or Europe didn't walk around naked, did they? Cotton clothes were quite popular, and yes they used Southern cotton.
People across the US and Europe used sugar, and that was grown from slave labor.
Does this mean the entire economy in the US and Europe was based on products derived from slave plantations? No. But it was certainly a lucrative part of the economy in both the US and in Europe. People spent a lot of money on cotton based clothes, sugar, and rum.
They still spend a lot of money on these things today.
Don't forget tobacco
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
People are ready to believe any nonsense that suits them. The only free labor ever in this country was cotton-picking, farmwork and housework down South by slaves (okay, and some domestic work in higher up-north states, but the numbers of people involved in that were quite small) - which was an anomaly that was lucrative for a few planters/slaveowners for about 100 years, but it did not remotely "build this country". Southern planters lost the Civil War, plus the cotton business (which was never any kind of economic backbone of the country to start with) was about to falter and fold anyway, and the industrial North didn't even have to take over anything because it carried the main economy of the country in the first place. For the past 150+ years, the former slaves and their offspring were free to accept paid jobs, and a large number of them did (except for those who still expect the Massa to provide free food & NYCHA board, though there is no more cotton to pick and therefore apparently nothing left to do). Why do you think so many people wanted to immigrate into the US during its entire history, including the impossibility to fend off all the contemporary illegal immigration? Because so many people want to offer their labor for free? Sorry, your statement is not just factually incorrect, but outright bizarre.
Yeah you're right
Why did America even have slaves to begin with then
Because Europe was in shambles, the major cities were full of disease and pollution
They needed new resources, so the most powerful nations of Europe set out to take over the lands of the Americas, fast forward the Berlin Conference for Africa
If you don't believe that this country was built off of free labor, then why the need for slaves?
And everybody brings up slaves in Africa, yes there was slaves in Africa, but that's because they were prisoners of war, or paying off debts, not because of the color of their skin. Tribes in Africa were not looking at each other comparing who was darker or lighter to determine if they should be enslaved.
This is why this country will never get past race, there must always be somebody exploited for the labor
Technology is making progress on this.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
People in the US or Europe didn't walk around naked, did they? Cotton clothes were quite popular, and yes they used Southern cotton.
People across the US and Europe used sugar, and that was grown from slave labor.
Does this mean the entire economy in the US and Europe was based on products derived from slave plantations? No. But it was certainly a lucrative part of the economy in both the US and in Europe. People spent a lot of money on cotton based clothes, sugar, and rum.
They still spend a lot of money on these things today.
People in Europe did not walk around naked prior to 1700 either. People in Europe wore clothes long before anyone in Europe knew North America existed. Ever heard of linen and wool? That is what was worn prior to mass INDUSTRIAL production of cotton clothes. Again, cotton plantations - even when they were at their most lucrative (which was not for very long, definitely less than 100 years) - were just providing rough material for manufacturing. Even within the realm of cotton industry, the main element of it were textile factories (which did not employ slaves buf factory workers). Try to stretch your argument any way you want, cottonpicking was a minor component in building the US economy. I am not arguing that it didn't exist - I am arguing the statement of Seventh Floor that the US was built on free labor. It wasn't. It would mean that only the slaves (who even at their peak numbers were well below 20% of the US population) did any work, while everyone else was loafing and living off of slaves, and that is how the US was built... what a bunch of pathetic fabrications :-).
Cotton was never the main economy of the US (let alone Europe!), and it is idiotic to say that the US was built on cottonpicking.
Well, as NYWriterdude says, the cotton industry profited the North as well, in fact maybe more since a lot of the transformation was done in New England mill towns, and disseminated to Europe and North America.
Nobody says it was a smooth sailing, but it was equally rough sailing (literally) for all the poor immigrants who sailed to the US from Europe - yet it was easier, for anyone including the former slaves, to build life from nothing in the US than anywhere else. Which is still true.
People who were slaves in the US were apparently slaves already in Africa as well (or so tell me two different friends from Ghana: per their opinion, white slavers wouldn't have known how to find slaves in Africa if tribal chiefs weren't willing to sell them to the white slavers) - do you think their offspring would have really had it easier if they never left Africa?
Methinks thou hath inelegantly expunged redlining, segregation, voter suppression and other inconvenient historical gems to fit thy narrative.
Well, as NYWriterdude says, the cotton industry profited the North as well, in fact maybe more since a lot of the transformation was done in New England mill towns, and disseminated to Europe and North America.
"A successful shipping merchant who became Grand Sachem of the political machine known as Tammany Hall, Wood first served in Congress in 1841. In 1854 he was elected Mayor of New York City. Reelected in 1860 after an electoral loss in 1857 by a narrow majority of 3,000 votes, Wood evinced support for the Confederate States during the American Civil War, suggesting to the New York City Council that New York City secede from the U.S. and declare itself a free city in order to continue its profitable cotton trade with the Confederacy. Wood's Democratic machine was concerned with maintaining the revenues (which depended on Southern cotton) that fed the system of patronage.
Following his service as mayor, Wood returned to the United States Congress. He was one of the main opponents of the Thirteenth Amendment."
"Moreover, much of New York’s wealth came from its close ties to the South, a fact Wood emphasized in his message to the Common Council: “With our aggrieved brethren of the Slave States, we have friendly relations and a common sympathy.” Much of the South’s cotton exports passed through New York, and the city’s merchants took 40 cents of every dollar that Europeans paid for Southern cotton through warehouse fees, shipping, insurance and profits. Cotton — and hence slavery — helped build the new marble-fronted mercantile buildings in lower Manhattan, fill Broadway hotels and stores with customers, and build block after block of fashionable brownstones north of 14th Street. If seceding Southern states formed their own nation, New York merchants could expect to lose much of that lucrative trade."
"New York was not only a major commercial supply hub for the South’s legal institution of slavery; it was—and had been for many years—the epicenter of America’s illegal slave trade. Although the state of New York had voted in 1827 to abolish slavery, New York City traders continued to provide slaves––first to the South, then to Brazil and Cuba––right up to and during the Civil War. Whether as investors, ship owners or captains and crews, New Yorkers promoted, enabled and carried on the traffic in humans. Of all the cities in America, New York was the most invested in the transatlantic slave trade.
New York’s ship owners built their vessels to accommodate large slave cargoes; its businessmen financed and invested in the voyages and its seamen made the trips. The profits realized from a single slaving expedition were staggering: A slave purchased for $40 worth of cloth, beads or whiskey would sell for between $400 and $1,200 on the blocks of Charleston, Mobile, Rio de Janeiro or Havana. With the sale of an average cargo of 800 slaves bringing as much as $960,000—a sum equalling tens of millions in today’s currency—many a ship owner, investor and captain grew wealthy from the proceeds of a single successful voyage."
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