Unfree Markets: The Slaves' Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina

Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism

by Justene Hill Edwards

The everyday lives of enslaved people were filled with the backbreaking tasks that their enslavers forced them to complete. But in spare moments, they found time in which to earn money and obtain goods for themselves. Enslaved people led vibrant economic lives, cultivating produce and raising livestock to trade and sell. They exchanged goods with nonslaveholding whites and even sold products to their enslavers. Did these pursuits represent a modicum of freedom in the interstices of slavery, or did they further shackle enslaved people by other means?

Justene Hill Edwards illuminates the inner workings of the slaves’ economy and the strategies that enslaved people used to participate in the market. Focusing on South Carolina from the colonial period to the Civil War, she examines how the capitalist development of slavery influenced the economic lives of enslaved people. Hill Edwards demonstrates that as enslavers embraced increasingly capitalist principles, enslaved people slowly lost their economic autonomy. As slaveholders became more profit-oriented in the nineteenth century, they also sought to control enslaved people’s economic behavior and capture the gains. Despite enslaved people’s aptitude for enterprise, their market activities came to be one more part of the violent and exploitative regime that shaped their lives. Drawing on wide-ranging archival research to expand our understanding of racial capitalism, Unfree Markets shows the limits of the connection between economic activity and freedom.

Genres: History

288 pages, Paperback

Published April 13, 2021

Reviews

[Calvin Schermerhorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a compact volume that says a lot about enslaved capitalists in South Carolina. And while the idea seems nonsensical at first, Justene Hill Edwards shrewdly shows how Black people created enterprises while enslaved. Some sold home-grown produce or stolen grain; others operated enterprises that extended credit to whites and even enslavers. But the old understanding of capitalism and freedom didn’t apply. Most enslaved entrepreneurs didn’t barter or deal their way to freedom. And enslavers endorsed their businesses because it strengthened their own hand. Unfree Markets does a beautiful job of exploring changes over time and grounding evidence in contexts. It’s a tragic story of slavery’s capitalism that gives a convincing analysis of its subjects. Anyone interested in African American history or South Carolina will want to read.