The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

by Edward E. Baptist

In 1798, Congress was debating whether to organize the Mississippi Territory—the land sold off by the Georgia legislature in 1795. Several northern Federalists attempted to add the Northwest Ordinance’s Article VI to the bill, proposing to outlaw slavery in a land where it already existed—especially around Natchez. Although the territory would obviously become at least one Jefferson-leaning state, Federalist Robert Goodloe Harper gathered an interregional coalition of both Federalists and Republicans to defeat the amendment. These were not only southerners, but also northerners who knew that trying to ban slavery could jeopardize Georgia’s surrender of land claims to the federal government. That would delay the survey and sale of land, and thus the time when Yazoo investors could recoup their investments. And the investors knew that these millions of acres would yield much more value if purchasers could count on setting slaves to labor on them.