I doubt it, while slavery was a reprehensible, immoral time in America, I seriously doubt that with/without it the U.S. economy would be significantly different. On the social side however, the rooster has definitely come home to roost on this issue.
At the beginning of the Civil War, the northern states vastly overproduced the southern states in agriculture and manufacturing. The South had cotton which was the major export but in every other way the North was way ahead in terms of the economic engine of the nation.
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Well since no one will come up with FACTS Iāll throw a few out: You can see from the census data in 1800 that slaves in NY made up 3.5% of the population (ruling out that they were a MAJOR economic contrubutor and half were free non white), while in the South (and I agreed that slavery was a major agriculture economic input) it was closer to an average of 35% of the population. Try to view this through a fact based lens and not an emotional one. Pardon the formatting.
1800 Census
State/Slaves/Population/ Pct. Slave/Free Non-White/Pct. FNW
North
New York 20,613 586,182 3.5 10,374 1.8
New Jersey 12,422 211,149 5.9 4,402 2.1
Pennsylvania 1,706 602,365 0.3 14,564 2.4
Connecticut 951 64,273 1.5 8,268 12.9
Rhode Island 380 69,122 0.5 3,304 4.8
New Hampshire 8 183,856 0.0 852 0.5
Massachusetts 0 422,845 0.0 6,452 1.5
Vermont 0 154,465 0.0 557 0.4
Total 36,080 2,294,257 1.6 38,399 1.7
South
Virginia 346,671 885,171 39.2 20,493 2.3
South Carolina 146,151 345,591 42.3 3,185 0.9
Maryland 105,635 341,543 30.9 19,587 5.7
North Carolina 133,296 478,103 27.9 7,073 1.5
Georgia 59,699 162,686 36.7 1,919 1.2
Kentucky 40,343 151,719 26.6 741 0.5
Delaware 6,153 64,273 9.6 8,268 12.9
Tennessee 13584 105,602 12.9 309 0.3
Total 851,532 2,534,688 33.6 61,575 2.4
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For the record, I did not say slavery in NYC was an economic driver in the US.
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Closeā¦
Not even close. Read what I said closely. I did not say anything about slavery in NYC specifically.
All these statistics about slave population in NYC vs. other places-why? As you can see, the poster in question did not say what you seem to think she said. Iām not going to argue about the accuracy of her statement, but as she said, read it closely.
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Can we get away from how much of an economic impact that slavery had 200+ years ago? The ā1619 Projectā discussion thread ended up getting locked, and I donāt want the same thing to happen here.
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I pose this as an earnest question not having done enough research to know the facts.
New Yorkās wealth and eventual position as a financial capital seems to have originated in its being the most active port on the east coast. The goods and cash flows that went through the port as a result were the foundation upon which the local NY economy thrived.
Assuming this to be a basis in fact werenāt the goods produced by slave labor in agrarian parts of the US contributing to global trade? By extension then could it be argued that the NY economy as a proxy for the broader US economy and a global trade center directly and indirectly benefited from slave labor?
As an aside, I also think it is hard to fully discuss the economic growth of NY and ignore its direct benefit from taking advantage of wave after wave of immigrants many of whom were employed and treated deplorably.
Yes I understand you donāt want to validate the comment. Times were much different then, transportation was slow and inefficient (especially over land). NYC was a trade center and most of its production/trade (for expoert) was localized . Trade from the South would have gone through Charleston vs NYC, where vast majority of slavery was agriculture based. So if you want to say slavery was a major economic driver for Charleston, well I can agree to that.
Read the BBC article linked by @mathmom above. I was going to cut and paste a quote from it, but the whole thing is about how the northern statesās and NYCās economy was profoundly impacted by slavery.
Raw materials went north, creating a trade triangle with Europe. The lending industry and banking was in the north, which was critical to the farming industry of the south. The insurance industry was in the north, and guess who insured slave ships? Etc etc.
I am no historian, but slaves donāt have to be present in the north for them to have a huge impact on the economic food chain.
Eta: I am with @roycroftmom on this one, though. Letās talk about now.
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OK, but believe it or not everything back then was not involved/part of slavery/slave trade.
No one is saying otherwise. Yay! We agree! :).
Eta: I should say I donāt think anyone is saying otherwise. Donāt want to speak for anyone else.
As long as they donāt pull another Bush v. Gore and then deny the right to cite the case as precedent, I agree. But because this possibility remains, I view it as a wildcard.
Thankfully, the judiciary stood up in 2020.
Okā¦now I am reengagingā¦maybe against my better judgment.
NYC was a major shipping hub for both raw cotton and for the textiles that were made from that cotton.
There is a reason that a popular saying for a time was that cotton was New Yorkās biggest crop. Shipping (at one time cotton accounted for half of all goods shipped out of New York), banking, brokers, textiles, etc. Then there are all the merchants who supplied the goods the souths agricultural economy needed.
Estimates at the time were that 40% of all cotton revenue was generated in NYC.
Slavery and the economy of cotton was such a big deal to NYC that there were serious discussions and official proposals, including by the NYC mayor, for the city to succeed from the union over the fear and threat of losing all the slave generated revenue.
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Sure, and accountability for those that would thwart the federal legislation. Until itās passed, the courts will be the battleground.
Courts will be a battleground if it does pass.
This curse is both a shame and a necessity, even in 2021. As much as Blacks may want and feel a need to live, learn, work and play alongside Whites, doing so remains risky and potentially dangerous.
While we push for more integration and equity, we simultaneously remind ourselves and teach our children to be ever vigilant. To not say the wrong thing at the wrong time. To watch closely for that hint that a chance encounter will become confrontational. To know when to step back, back down, and try to deescalate a situation even when weāve done nothing wrong.
As Iāve gotten older, I stopped doing that. My children, not knowing me when I was younger and willing to emasculate myself to protect myself, follow my lead now and have learned (are learning) to be more assertive in their agency. Especially my oldest, my son. That worries me even though he is nothing but polite, because I know being polite is not good enough when the Dangerous Ones demand not just politeness but submissiveness. My son is not the least bit submissive - sometimes I think he may not even know the meaning of the word. That worries me.
If my son is relaxing in a public park and asks a woman to restrain her unleashed potentially dangerous large dog and the woman verbally threatens him, Iām not sure he wonāt tell her to go jump off a cliff. If my son is in a hotel lobby and a woman starts shouting at him accusing him of stealing from her and vigorously grabs him, Iām not sure he wonāt cuss her out and just as vigorously defend his physical being by shaking her off his body. If my son is accosted in his dorm by someone who says he is trespassing in what is his home-away-from-home and threatens him, I donāt have to guess how my son will respond. If my son is approached by shouting demeaning cops while walking an Ohio street, Iām not sure heāll show the deference necessary to keep him alive - heāll probably respond with the same demeaning language used against him.
@ChangeTheGame I understand why you refer to it as a āhandicapā and I agree, because this state of existence, living with the ever-present unconscious desire to be amenable in the face of disdain, to hide in plain sight, to silently and blankly absorb insults and inequitable treatment, does indeed handicap too many of us from being emotionally strong/fresh enough to overcome the non-racist obstacles to being successful. But it also remains very necessary to our survival in America. We want to speak aloud and say itās not true, and sometimes we do speak it aloud, but inside you and I both know it is as true today as it was twenty years ago, fifty years ago. We know, it is better to be unsuccessful (or less successful) and alive, than strive too hard for too much success and end up dead or imprisoned.
itās a tremendous handicap, just as it was/is planned to be. Some overcome the handicap. Many many more are overwhelmed by it.
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I think your list is a great place to start, but Iād like to correct one often misunderstood and mischaracterized fact: Single-parent households are not more prevalent in African-American families because of some deficiency in the character of African-American men. Black men donāt need to substantially change their behavior any more than any other group of men. America, specifically the USA Criminal Justice System, needs to change its behavior toward African-Americans.
According to this chart from a Rochester NY source, single-parent households occur twice as often in AA households than White households, 66% to 34%. Taken on the surface, it could be wrongly assumed the simple reason for this is because AA men abandon their women and children more often than men from other groups.
However, looking at other resources (pg 11 on this chart) we learn that AA men are many times more likely to be arrested, convicted and imprisoned than men from other groups ā In 2000 Whites comprised 80% of USA but 35% of prisons; Blacks comprised 12% of USA but 46% of prisons. That is a gross inequity that has far reaching generational ramifications.
Further, because extreme and overt discrimination is allowed against people with criminal records, a high percentage of AA men become not just unemployable but unable to obtain credit, unable to lease from some landlords, unable to attend some colleges to obtain an education, barred from volunteering in their childrenās classrooms, being an assistant coach for school sports and attending school field trips or overnight bus trips. This all means they also may be deemed unsuitable mates by women looking for someone to help raise a family and share the financial, logistical and emotional responsibilities of family life. First the state creates AA single-parent households by inequitably applied Criminal Justice, then the state legalizes otherwise illegal treatment of those AA men by the greater American society. Naturally, many of these men feel insufficient as life partners, parental figures. Naturally, a single mother may shy away from a potential mate who is an ex-con because she knows society will make her life tougher just by being in a life partnership with an ex-con. But if this UGA study says 33% of the AA male dating pool (a higher percentage in previous decades) is carrying the scarlet letter of a felony conviction, and most marriages are intraracial, how does this become a problem caused by African-Americans?
And we havenāt even discussed the emotional trauma being imprisoned has on AA men, which is described as a much more detrimental effect than suffered by soldiers in combat - Just as some soldiers struggling with PTSD find it difficult to maintain a familial unit after returning home from battle, so to do ex-cons returning from prison. One source (RussellSage.org in this paper published by Princeton) says young men who are ex-cons marry at roughly half the rate of people who have never been imprisoned (25% to 46%). Remember, the UGA study cited earlier says as many as 33% of African-American men have been forever emotionally scarred by an inequitable Criminal Justice System.
This is but one racism-based reason that single-parent households are more prevalent among AA families. Just as with educational and wealth gaps, redlining and health gaps, it has long been (purposefully or unintentionally) been mischaracterized as a failing of African-Americans that their households are less intact than households of other groups. Today, these truths are more apparent and demonstrably provable than ever. There are numerous books, studies, charts, etc available to anyone who seeks facts.
The truth is, when controlled for a grossly inequitable Criminal Justice System and other forms of systemic racism, African-American families are just as likely to be two-parent households as any other group.
Great thead idea, @ChangeTheGame !!
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You are so right, @EconPop. I hope I have not downplayed that this āhandicapā or fear has been absolutely necessary at times for the survival of African-Americans (I donāt know many Black people who are comfortable in the presence of the Police, even in 2021). As a kid, I was definitely more of a āDie on my feet, rather than Live on my kneesā sort which probably caused my Mom unending heartache and fear, so I have spent most of my life toning down my own natural instinct to push back and honing my ability to use my words, but I have had that fear in some situations that my kids were in (you always wonder if you have given them the ātoolsā they need to overcome certain situations).
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