The Treatment and Valuation of Enslaved People Through the Slave Economy
These 3 sources from this history of slavery at Georgetown University demonstrate the treatment and valuation of enslaved people in the slave economy. The first source documents the hire of Joseph Edlin, who was hired to work at a farm for $8 per month in 1845. The second is a source Shoes for Harriette, a slave who worked at Georgetown who was paid $3 per month was expected to pay back the university for four pairs of shoes in 1824. The third source is the death of Margaret Smallwood in 1837 due to an illness.
These sources were all created to keep track of records, keeping records is common in businesses, however, keeping records of the enslaved men and women that are being bought and sold represents how enslaved people are used and treated as commodities rather than people. The constant use of records that concern the money involved in slavery shows how money was valued. For example, when looking at the document recording the hiring of Joseph Edlin, it is evident that slavery was not just seen as hiring enslaved people as labourers but as commodities. Enslaved people were seen as “both labor and capital, both people and property.”[1] Enslaved people were only valuable in terms of the profit the slave owners receive. The reason records are kept is because there has to be a way to show that Joeseph Edlin was an enslaved man owned by Georgetown. Through records, Georgetown is able to identify who is working on what, and by doing so they are able to track their “investment” and what Edlin produces in terms of his work.
The second source shows that the university bought Harriette four pairs of shoes, but she was expected to pay them back. It is interesting because when you require someone to do a job they are either provided with the tools needed or are paid enough to be able to get what they need to be able to do the job. However, in this case, Harriette had to pay for her own shoes, and she was only paid $3 a month. Harriette had to buy four pairs of shoes for $7 each, a total of $21 which is about seven months worth of work. Harriette is a prime example of how money was the only thing slave owners cared about. If Harriette had to pay for her own shoes, how were enslaved people expected to pay for jackets in the cold winter? Well, the answer is, they were not expected to be able to afford jackets, they were given the bare minimum which was usually not enough. Enslaved people’s quarters were poorly insulated and “illness and disease were perpetual concerns, the vulnerability of Maryland slaves to cold weather was compounded by the more immediate threat by exposure.”[2] Depending on the size of the plantation and when the slaves were expected to work, “labour was often required year-round in an effort among Maryland slaveholders to maximize profit”[3] Thus showing how the main concern is always profit and not the wellbeing of the enslaved people. Harriette’s example of having to pay for her own shoes despite inadequate pay shows how Georgetown University at the time cared more about profit and labour than the actual people. “The slave economy was a primary driver or wealth across the South and therefore across the nation.”[4] Slavery was something that was seen as a way to make money and a way to profit off of extreme labour and harsh conditions. Meanwhile, slaveowners lived a life of luxury and comfort. The extensive amount of extreme labour enslaved people had to go through would sometimes make them sick. The enslaved people’s wellbeing was seen as inferior to profit, it was not something slaveowners cared about because buying clothing for the enslaved men and women adds to the cost of labour.
By ignoring basics such as clothes that can keep the enslaved men and women warm during rough winters leads to the last piece of evidence, Margaret Smallwood’s death. Smallwood’s death is an example of how enslaved people at Georgetown were only valued in death. The description provided represents how they only saw the value of Smallwood’s work after she died, as well as how they only saw her as a person, a human, and not a commodity when she was no longer restricted to that role.
Maryam K. Al-Thani
GUQ Class of 2024
Works Cited
Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years A Slave. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kevin M. Burke. New York, New York: W • W • NORTON & COMPANY, 2016.
Martin, Jonathan D. Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Perry, Tony C. “In Bondage When Cold Was King: The Frigid Terrain of Slavery in Antebellum Maryland.” Slavery & Abolition 38, no. 1 (March 2017): 23–36.
ACHARYA, AVIDIT, MATTHEW BLACKWELL, and MAYA SEN. "ANTEBELLUM POLITICS OF SLAVERY AND RACE IN THE SOUTH." In Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics, 105-26.
Footnotes:
[1]Jonathan D. Martin, Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004) 17.
[2] Tony C. Perry, “In Bondage When Cold Was King: The Frigid Terrain of Slavery in Antebellum Maryland.” Slavery & Abolition 38, no. 1 23–36. (March 2017). 25
[3] Perry, 25.
[4] AVIDIT ACHARYA, MATTHEW BLACKWELL, and MAYA SEN. "ANTEBELLUM POLITICS OF SLAVERY AND RACE IN THE SOUTH." In Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics, 105-26. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 2018. 109.[Turn into note form