Talk:Industrial slave

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This article contradicts almost everything I've ever read on Industrial slaves. It makes no economic sense to own a slave which cost a lot of money, then to expose him/her to dangerous machines. In fact the South's railroads were built by cheap Irish immigrant labor. They worked for less than a quarter and if they lost body parts, which did happen, who cared, the owners just hired another immigrant. If a slave lost a finger, the owner lost about a hundred bucks. This article needs serious validation. It's not even remotely accurate. 99.48.252.188 (talk) 18:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)Bea Bryant

You're partially right, and in fact because many slaves were stolen, lost, killed, or injured during the transportation revolution, dozens of cases were brought to state Supreme Courts by slave owners against the railroad and canal companies they hired their slaves out to. But the practice of hiring out slaves, nevertheless, made "economic sense" to both planters and companies. Why? Because A) slaveholding planters were significant shareholders in the rail and canal companies and thus had a stake in seeing these ventures succeed, B) they knew the long term benefits that increased transportation would bring to their regions (and fyi they expressed their enthusiasm in local newspapers, diaries, letters, and reports), and C) during periods of economic depression when the price of cotton or rice bottomed out, or during periods of drought or blight, planters could offset their often significant financial losses and reduce their debt by hiring out (renting) their slaves to others, including "industrial" companies. For example, many Georgia planters chose to hire out their slaves, often for over a year at a time, to the Brunswick Canal Company in the 1837-1840 years due to failing rice markets.

And keep in mind that in the antebellum South, the labor force, as well as the population as a whole, was largely black. It was a combination of Irish labor and unfree black labor that build most of the South's railroads. There was a lively debate about the effects of such interracial mingling in contemporary newspapers and correspondences, and much of these primary sources are available online for those interested. Just google "slavery and the railroads." :) 69.228.80.126 (talk) 23:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)