Just googled a bit and came across this book, "The Known World," about blacks who owned slaves. Got the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
amazon.com
Why own slaves? Boy, I wish I knew the simple answer. I have read work by economists "proving" that hiring agricultural labor was cheaper than owning slaves.
One thing I ran across while studying history that we have a hard time comprehending today is the ways people coped without having cash money to pay bills with. No matter how rich you are, unless you have cash, how do you settle your bills?
Think about it. If gold is worth $400 an ounce, how do you buy a stick of chewing gum or a pencil or a piece of paper?
If you are forced to barter, maybe you can't hire people to work on your farm?
That's the only thing that comes to mind.
Oh, except for the obvious -- in the beginning there was a dearth of warm bodies to do the work. So even if slavery isn't as cost-effective, at least you have a work force.
For example, in Mexico at the time of the Conquest, there were about 22 million people. Of those, about 8 million died of smallpox by 1520. Another 7 to 17 million were wiped out before the end of the century by a disease we can't identify, which they called "cocoliztli". That's why slavery.
cdc.gov |
