How long could slavery last in the CSA?

[John Fredrick Parker]

Apartheid south africa lasted 46 years.

In large measure, Apartheid fell when it did due to international pressure (made easier by the end of the Cold War, i.e. the US's emergence as a hyperpower).

Just a way of saying this gets back to the question the degree to which CSA and it's institution of slavery has international recognition and tolerance respectively; and whether the nation can get it.

 

[black angel]

well if they get rid of Slavery its a faze out, so even if they do a "born free" thing around 1875 its the 1920s-30s before slavery is really done, that being said slavery likely lasts a lot longer than the 1800s I say 1920-1960 is most likely for the start of the end

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Victory in 1864 is going to be a LOT more of a problem for the South compared to Victory in 1862. For one thing, there are tens of thousands of Union trained Black troops around who will likely stay and fight even if the North loses. I think Turtledove was right about that in "Guns of the South"

Indeed; by 1864, even if the South somehow managed to secure a favorable peace with the Union, the plantation system was irrevocably shattered in almost all of the South outside Virginia and the Carolinas (and not exactly in great shape there). Reimposing slavery in territory that had been under Union occupation for years would have been a very messy business.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Point taken -- let's assume, then, that the CSA wins recognition in 1862.

 

[southernsontn]

Hi. first post here. I personally said 1875-1900, although I believe that Slavery would be ended completely at the latest by the last decade of the 19th century. Honestly, it really all depended upon how long the war lasted.

In 1863, Gen. Patrick Cleburne had proposed the idea of emancipation for military service, and although not very well received immediately, the idea gained steam the next year. There had been reports of free Black men as well as slaves seeking enlistment in the Confederate army virtually from the beginning. I have seen estimates ranging from 10,000 to over 60,000 Confederate soldiers of African descent by Wars end, but no exact number has ever been reached because those who served as cooks, teamsters, and "manservants" were granted full pensions as well as combat troops.

had the war ended in 1863, as it does in a piece that I am working on, I believe that at least a small minority would begin stumping for emancipation fairly soon after the war. Since the Confederate constitution specifically forbade Congress from acting upon the matter without a constitutional amendment, it would have begun at the State level. I would personally believe that Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky (If her secession was recognized at wars end) would have abolished the practice first. The practice would then have spread State by State, especially as the "millstone around their necks" as Jefferson Davis once said, began to be seen recognized for the immoral practice that it was. there would probably have been a couple of hold out States, which would have ultimately have to have given up the practice or secede themselves by the end of the 19th century.

international opinion was slowly turning against the practice, and eventually, so would the opinion of the South.

 

[archaeogeek]

If by Kentucky's secession you mean "the southern invasion of Kentucky" - the state proclaimed neutrality, Polk invaded because he interpreted it as secession, the government of Kentucky threw their lot with the union: after 61, Kentucky is not going in the CSA.

 

[Snowstalker]

It'll fade away in the 1880s and 1890s as better technology becomes superior to slave labor.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Here's my idea for how slavery could be extended into the "modern" age -- in any plausible CSA victory scenario, you're still going to see prices for key plantation crops like cotton drop, thus depressing the prices of slaves overall, thus depressing the wealth of plantation owners and the south at large. So you're going to have very anxious plantation owners.

A lot of TL's take this and assume that manumission thus becomes inevitable, since the very owners of slaves want to see some kind of security for their investment. But this ignores the rest of the non-slave holding south who: (a) large segments of fought for the order of white supremacy, which they believed depended on the institution of slavery, and (b) aren't so anxious about falling slave prices, since that only makes it easier for them to acquire themselves.

So what's the CSA to do? Well, another possibility is, instead of manumission to buy slaves their freedom, the Confederate and/or State governments buy the slaves, and work them as property of the state, renting them out -- or reselling them, when profitable -- to raise revenue, and work on public projects for the benefit of the larger white population (roads, etc).

This appeals to all segments of the white (supremacist) population -- the plantation owners have a reliable buyer who will stabilize slave prices, and the poorer population has a source of labor to work on public benefits with relatively small tax increases (buying human beings being cheaper than paying for labor). It's a win-win solution, excepting the slaves.

With a "public sector" that can stabilize slave prices and maintain the institution as a major facet of Confederate economy, it's more than possible for the institution to play a role in an industrial south.

 

[southernsontn]

If by Kentucky's secession you mean "the southern invasion of Kentucky" - the state proclaimed neutrality, Polk invaded because he interpreted it as secession, the government of Kentucky threw their lot with the union: after 61, Kentucky is not going in the CSA.

there was a rump secessionist government in Kentucky at the time, although they never physically controlled the State. depending upon the circumstances, that rump government may have been able to sway public opinion. Kentucky in the CSA was a possibility. For that matter, there was a rump government in Missouri for awhile, and Maryland even held a secession convention, and went to vote in the legislature on convening a second convention; although Lincoln ordered the arrest of all pro-secession legislators. btw, all of that happened in OTL...

 

[cclittle]

Legaly

If the law remained unchanged then it would be legal. With urbanization and indusrilasation haveing slaves would be much less proffitable. By 1960 there would be a lot less slaves than in 1860. Combines killed the slave market. Becauces big scale farming was increasingly done be machines slaves fell into disuse. Wistling is still illega in some places. As technology has changed computers are now used to attract the attention of prostitutes.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Wistling is still illega in some places. As technology has changed computers are now used to attract the attention of prostitutes.

 

[Cook]

It'll fade away in the 1880s and 1890s as better technology becomes superior to slave labor.

What 1880 – 1900s technology makes manual agricultural labour obsolete?

 

[KillerT]

I'd hate to point this out to you all but slavery is alive and well in most nations -even UK and USA. How? Domestic workers and sex workers for a start brought in with the promise of a better life, passports taken from them, charges made for lodgings that exceed their 'earnings' and so on. We've only just had a trafficker jailed in Harrogate for bringing in basically slave workers for her restaurant.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

I'd hate to point this out to you all but slavery is alive and well in most nations -even UK and USA. How? Domestic workers and sex workers for a start brought in with the promise of a better life, passports taken from them, charges made for lodgings that exceed their 'earnings' and so on. We've only just had a trafficker jailed in Harrogate for bringing in basically slave workers for her restaurant.

I'm sure most of us are aware that slavery still exists in some form, but we're discussing how long legal, institutionalized slavery could last, not illegal slavery.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I'm sure most of us are aware that slavery still exists in some form, but we're discussing how long legal, institutionalized slavery could last, not illegal slavery.

While this is absolutely right, the implied point could be that OTL "illegal" slavery shows a "market" that legal slavery could fill in an ATL.

 

[Snake Featherston]

I don't see the CSA as ever officially abolishing slavery. What I could see is that use of it in the 1860s sense disappears in favor perhaps of a more Todt Organization/Gulag style of industrialization, if the CSA were ever to work up the capital for it. As an agrarian society any victorious CSA will be de facto authoritarian and it will be screwed regardless of whether or not it retains large-scale slave agriculture.

 

[Snake Featherston]

If the law remained unchanged then it would be legal. With urbanization and indusrilasation haveing slaves would be much less proffitable. By 1960 there would be a lot less slaves than in 1860. Combines killed the slave market. Becauces big scale farming was increasingly done be machines slaves fell into disuse. Wistling is still illega in some places. As technology has changed computers are now used to attract the attention of prostitutes.

The Todt Organization and the Gulag show that there's plenty of means for slavery to exist in industrial modern societies. Of course to actually industrialize requires capital the CSA's own constitution prevents it from ever building......

It'll fade away in the 1880s and 1890s as better technology becomes superior to slave labor.

The Todt Organization and Gulag offer a model, presuming the independent Confederacy gets around lack of capital.

Personally, I would think that slavery in the CSA would come under serious pressure as the 19th century came to a close and slavery became less and less acceptable internationally. After all, the Confederacy's economy was heavily dependent on exporting agricultural goods to Europe; once Europe starts refusing to buy slave-grown cotton, the Confederacy has to choose between total economic collapse or abolition. Personally, I would like to think they would choose the latter.

Of course, any Confederate abolition is certain to be accompanied by something like OTL's Black Codes, and is likely to leave the newly freed slaves with an obligation to pay off huge debts to their masters to compensate for lost property. In other words, you might have slavery officially come to an end in the 1890's, but it's likely that the newly freed slaves will only have their lot in life marginally improved at best.

I actually disagree with this. The CSA is a white, Christian, Anglophonic country. I can't see the leaders of the era of the high tide of Social Darwinism and Nordicism holding the CSA accountable to behavior the way they would be the Ottomans.

Personally I think the slaves and potentially the poorer whites would not tolerate the antebellum order for very long post war. I think its very likely that within five years of the wars end major major slave revolts would occur or escape would become a torrential problem.

Though I expect that instead of the majority heading North they would head into the wilderness areas to form something akin to Maroon Camps. Except numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Confederate efforts to destroy the Maroons could very likely accidentally piss off the white inhabitants of the regions which are mostly of the unionist sort.

The issue might end up being not how long slavery can last but how long the confederacy itself can last.

I dunno, the CSA proved very willing to suppress a revolt in East Tennessee. If the war ends in 1862 there's no large cadre of black Union troops with combat experience as would be the case in 1864. The CSA would have problems but it would have lesser ones with a short war than it would with a long one.

 

[archaeogeek]

I dunno, the CSA proved very willing to suppress a revolt in East Tennessee. If the war ends in 1862 there's no large cadre of black Union troops with combat experience as would be the case in 1864. The CSA would have problems but it would have lesser ones with a short war than it would with a long one.

A short war probably even just gives the CSA leaders more rope to hang themselves with; plantocrats with victory disease...

 

[Snake Featherston]

A short war probably even just gives the CSA leaders more rope to hang themselves with; plantocrats with victory disease...

Except that they've still had a precedent to repress in East Tennessee internal uprisings. Such precedents would not be lost on Confederate leadership. As this is the 19th Century.....

 

[archaeogeek]

Except that they've still had a precedent to repress in East Tennessee internal uprisings. Such precedents would not be lost on Confederate leadership. As this is the 19th Century.....

That was my thought actually when I quoted this; given how willingly they used force on their own country, this doesn't bode well for the new republic if they still do it in peace time; that might be the kind of case that brings back the question about not whether they can keep their slaves down but whether they can even survive as a country more than a few years of increasing instability. They'd also already moved in Kentucky to try to force the hand of the minority southern democrat government there, and while they can pretend they were defending the interests of the confederacy to avoid a situation like the Martial law in Maryland, the governor of Kentucky clearly saw it as a violation of his state's neutrality.