The reason why some people owned vast numbers of slaves is because
they owned a vast amount of property and neededslaves to work the
fields. If one freed all of one's slaves they would have nobody to
work the fields and thus how were they going to grow tabacco and
other crops to maintain their standard of living or a livelyhood
period? The wealthiest men in colonial America did not have a lot of
cash currency. The economic system in America was a credit system.
That is they traded goods for goods rather than exchange goods with
someone in England for cash money. The purpose of a colony is
benefit the mother country and thus the mother country keeps the
colony dependent on the mother country. Thus goods were not allowed
to be sold to England for money.The point I am making is that the
farmers and plantation owners didn't have money to pay someone to
work for them. They depended on slaves. Also even large land owners
like Washington owed debts. If one were to free all of one's slaves
and they were debt they would end up being bancrupt because they had
to grow crops in part so that they could pay their debts. The reason
why it was illegal to free mass numbers of slaves at once and
difficult to get permission by the government to free slaves is
because people feared slave uprisings. In some parts of the colonies
slaves outnumbered White people because there were slave owners who
owned perhaps a 100 or more slaves. Must didn't necessarily have
that many but someone like Washington and Jefferson who owned vast
land holdings did own slaves numbering in the 100's. Because people
feared slave uprising there were laws on how many slaves could be in
a public place at the same time without being accompanied by a White
person. For example if you lived in VA you could not send 6 slaves
into town together on thier own to pick up supplies. Slavery at
least in the 18th century presented a conundrum. Also because slaves
were property another reason why one had to get permission by the
government to free slaves is because if one owed debts (who wouldn't
have) their slaves could be given to their creditors if they were
unable to pay their debts. When a man died if he owed debts and
there was an estate auction to pay his creditors what he owed the
ownership of slaves could be transfered as payment for debt.
$
" It (slavery) is like holding a wolf by its' ears, you don't like
the situation but you dare not let go."
- Thomas Jefferson
--- In [email protected], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>
knowing you, you have studied this. It does not make logical sense
for
> such an action to destroy a person financially. So that means
there is
> something I do not know here.
> A persons wealth is made up of what they own. How much of their
wealth was
> based on the ownership of the Slaves and how much was based on
their other
> possessions.
> There must have been a fee to register the papers that freed the
slaves but
> it could not have been that much.
> Was there some other consideration that was required, like 40
acres and a
> mule, or just 5 acres, or $100.00 to get them started or nothing
at all.
>
> If half of their wealth was based on the ownership of the slaves,
They would
> have still had half of it left. Without the expenses of keeping
the slaves
> their expenses would be much less. They could have hired those
same people for
> less than it would have taken for them to hold them as slaves.
Their income
> could have remained the same, their expenses less, their profit
more.
>
> Such a statement as "destroying himself financially" just does not
compute.
> What am I missing here.
>
> John Wayne
>
>
>
> So, question:
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
