The Slave(ry) Trade and the Development of Capitalism in the United States: The Textile Industry in New England

1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Bailey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Textile Industry ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Triangular Trade

The significance of the slave trade and slavery-related commerce—what I will call the slave(ry) trade—in contributing to the development of colonial America and the United States has been a persistent theme in the work of Afro-American scholars. Two scholars in particular should be cited in this regard. W. E. B. DuBois (1896: 27) pointed out that slave labor was not widely utilized because the climate and geography of New England precluded the extensive development of agriculture: “The significance of New England in the African slave-trade does not therefore lie in the fact that she early discountenanced the system of slavery and stopped importation; but rather in the fact that her citizens, being the traders of the New World, early took part in the carrying slave trade and furnished slaves to the other colonies.” DuBois’s account of the role of Massachusetts and of Rhode Island, which later became “the clearing house for the slave trade of other colonies,” was similar to what was popularized as the “triangular trade” thesis.

Anglo-American Wage Differences in the 1820's

1967 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Arts ◽  
Wage Differences ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
Anglo American

In 1829 Zachariah Allen, a lifelong resident of Providence, Rhode Island, published his book, The Science of Mechanics. Neither the title nor a casual glance at the contents of the book suggests that it contains material of major interest to economists or economic historians. Allen's book was intended as a manual for American mechanics and manufacturers. It summarized that portion of the industrial arts of its day which the author considered most useful and relevant for the edification of his American readers. The book contains elementary tables of conversion, arithmetic and geometric rules and formulas, a good deal of simple physics, and extensive descriptions of the workings of machinery—especially water wheels, steam engines, and millwork generally. In particular, Allen attempted to summarize much of what he had learned during a recent tour of the major manufacturing districts of England and France, so as to bring Americans up to date on the “latest improvements in mechanical invention in those countries.’ Unobtrusively placed in the back of this book, however, is a chapter, “Comparative View of the Relative Advantages Possessed by England, France and the United States of America as Manufacturing Nations,’ which records his more strictly economic impressions of his tour, taken in 1825. His observations in this short chapter, often trenchant and occasionally pungent, invite comparison with some of the better known European travelers to the United States. Anyone who can write, as Allen does (p. 355), that “An industrious New-England mechanic commonly appears to take pleasure in his business; but the French mechanic is rather inclined to make a business of his pleasures,’ is obviously entitled to a sympathetic hearing.

The United States and the African Slave Trade, 1619-1862.

1964 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 349
Author(s):  
Harral E. Landry ◽  
Peter Duignan ◽  
Clarence Clendenen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Slave
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