The Economics of Slavery in the Antebellum South

The “peculiar institution” of slavery casts a dark shadow on American history, with the effects lasting long after its abolition by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1865). The origins of African slavery on the mainland can be traced back to the beginnings of European settlement and was practiced in all parts of British colonial America. Although the statistical record of this history is abundant, many aspects of slavery’s human reality are beyond the reach of quantitative measurement. The economic impact of slavery in the Antebellum South has been pieced together by scholars from a wide array of surveys and reports. This article considers the scope of census inquiries as they expanded in 1840, 1850, and 1860, while the surveys of agriculture and manufacturing have formed the primary basis for an increase in the analysis of the economics of slavery in the late antebellum period.