On Wed, 01 Jul 2015 07:40:52 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:16:31 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:41:42 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Wed, 01 Jul 2015 08:16:03 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Tue, 30 Jun 2015 04:35:42 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:


http://www.vice.com/read/hey-v12n5

An interesting article. Of course the first line in the article says
that it is for people in "elementary school" which, in the U.S. seems
to be the first 4 grads in the school system. the Wiki says for
children between the ages of 4 - 11.

Which apparently says something about either your reading, or
comprehensive, ability.

--
cheers,

John B.

I posted it because we have Leftists here and we all know that they
are dummer than dirt. Now do you have a problem with the Contents of
the article..or are you simply bitching because it explained things so
the Leftist could understand it?

Hummm?

Gunner

No, I didn't spend a lot of time studying the article, but it seemed
to say that at various times slavery has been a part of almost every
society, which, of course, is true. After winning the Battle of
Alesia, September, 52 BC, Julius Caesar gave each soldier in his army
one of the captured as a slave. This amounted to something like forty
thousand slaves.... from a single campaign. In his eight years of
campaigning against the Gaul's, he was said to have enslaved more than
a million people.

What the article seemed to ignore was that in nearly every society
slavery died out primarily because slaves, while cost effective in a
purely agricultural environment are somewhat less efficient when the
society becomes less dependent on agriculture and begins to depend
more on machinery.

That's not what happened in the US, however. Slavery died out because
the federal government prevented westward expansion of slavery, which
provoked a war that led to the outlawing of slavery.

Federal resistance to expansion of slavery limited the growth of
cotton agriculture. In fact, it guarenteed that it would become less
profitable, because cotton wears the hell out of the soil, and
southern plantations were already beginning to lose productivity.

I think that you are ignoring the decrease in slavery in the northern,
industrializing, States. The New England states, Maine - Connecticut,
had a slave population of 2,703 in 1790 and in 1820 it was 145. The
Middle States, New York - Delaware, had 45,910 in 1790 and by 1820
were at 22,305.

The Southern States, in contrast, went from 648,131 in 1790 to
1,319,208 in 1820.

The demand for cotton shy rocketed from the late 18th century with the
dev elopement of the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and the power
loom, while at the same time the Cotton Gin was invented in the U.S.

As for the cotton fields losing production:
In 1790 total cotton production in the U.S. was 3,135 bales of raw
cotton. In 1800 it was 73,145, and at ten year intervals it was
177,838, 334,378, 731,452, 1,346,252, 2,133,851, 3,837,402 in 1860.

Cotton was priced at $0.13/lb. in 1820 for a 225 lb. bale. so 1860
production (in 1860 prices) was about $112,244,008 which in 1820 was a
lot of money. so the cotton economy grew from ~ $91,698 in 1790 to
$112,244,008 in 1860 and while I do not have numbers on the 1961 crop
I have read references that it was larger than the 1960 crop.

It might also be of interest to note that in 1820 only some 42.5% of
U.S. labor was employed in non agricultural businesses but by 1860
that number had increased to 86.2%.
--
Cheers,

John B.