Ok I working with one of my earlist POD in the pre-1900 section at the moment for a possible TL. One thing I been fighting back and fore over for a week is would Virginia pass a general emancipation law on its own in the 1830s if Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion never happened. I'm looking at a POD in the 1800s but Nat Turner dies some time in the 1820s dur to a disease and as such his slave rebellion never happens. Could Virginia pass a 30 year general emancipation law to phase out slavery in their state before the ITL version of the Mexican-American War happens?
Virginia Emancipation in the 1830s or 1840s?
- Thread starter Jim Smitty
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I was figuring on a 40 year window where this is phased in. I was figuring those born after 1858 to 63 (I haven't been that date down yet) would be born free. Children around this time would be set free. The last slaves would be set free some time in the 1870s with sells of slaves to other slave states being banned late in this, late 1860s is my thinking. Slave owners who don't sell their slaves get money from the commonwealth.
My understanding was that it was specifically because of Nat Turner's rebellion that Virginia seriously considered gradual abolition in 1831: there was a lot of latent antipathy towards slavery, particularly in the inland portions of the state (especially the counties that would later become West Virginia), and in the context of the crisis a people already unsympathetic to slavery looked at abolition as a way to remove the threat of future rebellion. The vote on Preston's Amendment (a nonbinding of the legislature's intent to abolish slavery) failed on a vote of 58-71, largely due to malapportionment of legislative districts: the older Tidewater counties had disproportionately more legislative seats relative to their population, while the Appalachian counties had disproportionately fewer, and it was the former where slavery was most practiced and support for it most entrenched.
Although if you avert Nat Turner's rebellion but set off a different trigger for the debate several years later, you could get a different outcome. Virginia trended towards a slightly lower slave population over 1830-1840 (due to the very high profitability of the cotton plantations in the Deep South, which lead to cotton planters bidding up the price of slaves and making slavery less profitable for other crops), and the Western counties were increasing somewhat in political power. Getting abolition out of that would be difficult, but not completely implausible.
Grimbald's provisions are pretty much what gradual emancipation would have to look like. It's not far from the template used by many Northern states in the 1777-1804 round of state emancipation: free birth after a certain date (with a required "apprenticeship" until a certain age between 21 and 28), but no restrictions or only delayed on sale within the US of existing slaves (with most states eventually converting existing slaves into a lifelong legal status based on Indenture or Apprenticeship -- still unfree, but with more legal rights than a chattel slave).
Although if you avert Nat Turner's rebellion but set off a different trigger for the debate several years later, you could get a different outcome. Virginia trended towards a slightly lower slave population over 1830-1840 (due to the very high profitability of the cotton plantations in the Deep South, which lead to cotton planters bidding up the price of slaves and making slavery less profitable for other crops), and the Western counties were increasing somewhat in political power. Getting abolition out of that would be difficult, but not completely implausible.
Grimbald's provisions are pretty much what gradual emancipation would have to look like. It's not far from the template used by many Northern states in the 1777-1804 round of state emancipation: free birth after a certain date (with a required "apprenticeship" until a certain age between 21 and 28), but no restrictions or only delayed on sale within the US of existing slaves (with most states eventually converting existing slaves into a lifelong legal status based on Indenture or Apprenticeship -- still unfree, but with more legal rights than a chattel slave).
Yes there would be. Its part of a wider reaching TL I'm working on in my mind at the moment.
B-29_Bomber
Banned
Of course! One is the symbolic (slavery started in Virginia) and the other is that this is one less slave state as part of the "Solid South" weakening their political power.
This might just trigger abolition in Maryland and Delaware and maybe even Kentucky and Tennessee, weakening Slave Power even further.
And North Carolina - western part is Appalachia and was unionist, and the eastern part was tobacco country similar to Virginia. They also didn't secede until they were basically forced to (surrounded by the CSA).
I think it's possible, but we need a 1740s or earlier POD that doesn't butterfly away the revolution. You see, by the revolution, slavery sort of wormed its way into society in more ways than simply an economic institution to assist agriculture. It's kind of ideologically baked in by that point
The South was not monolithic in its attitudes towards slavery. Slavery was ideologically baked in for South Carolina very early, but South Carolina was really its own thing. The rest of the Deep South didn't get that kind of ideological bake-in until some time after independence. And Virgina, as a Middle South state, lagged the Deep South significantly. As late as the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1850, there was a real fear among Virginia planters that universal white male suffrage and proportional legislative apportionment would open the door for abolition of slavery in the state: at that point, slavery was culturally baked in in Virginia's eastern counties (the Tidewater region), but much less so in the Appalachian counties.
I was under the impression that the "baking-in" didn't really occur until the 1840s and '50s, when you started to get people defending slavery as a positive social good. Before that, the more usual view in the South was that slavery was a necessary evil.
Since Louisiana was settled by the French and later governed by the Spanish, they had a different attitude toward slaves. Many years ago, I took my daughters to Natchitoches and hear this story. We visited the Cane river area. I am wondering of this could have happened in the other Southern states.
"In 1742, Marie Thérèse Coincoin was born a slave into the household of Natchitoches’ founder Louis Juchereau de St. Denis. St. Denis later leased the twenty-six year old Coincoin as a housekeeper to a young French merchant named Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. A nineteen year relationship ensued, resulting in ten children. Eventually, Metoyer purchased Marie Thérèse and several of their children, giving them their freedom.
With her freedom, a yearly allowance, and a parcel of land given by Metoyer, Marie Thérèse began raising tobacco, cattle, and harvesting bear grease. In the coming years, Marie’s fortunes grew by virtue of her and her sons receiving land grants and purchasing slaves. They became the leading family of a community called Isle Brevelle, populated by “gens de couleur libre", free people of color who thrived as business people, plantation owners, and slave owners.
In 1796, one of her sons, Louis Metoyer, was deeded 911 acres of land on which he would eventually build one of Cane River’s jewels, Melrose Plantation. Louis likely began development of the East bank of the river shortly after his land grant. Development of the west bank (the current Melrose property) began between 1810-1815 with the construction of Yucca House, African House, and a large barn.
Louis began construction of the Big House in 1832. His death on March 11, 1832 left his only son, Jean Baptiste Louis Metoyer to finish construction. When Jean Baptiste died in 1838, Melrose was a sizable estate worth over $100,000.
By 1843, Theophile Louis Metoyer - just nineteen years of age and married to his second cousin, Marie Elina - owned two plantations, a third smaller tract of land and was heir to 13,000 piasters. But Theophile Louis was an inexperienced businessman and within five years found his creditors pushing for settlement of deep debts.
In 1847, Theophile Louis Metoyer lost almost everything he owned. Bayou Plat, one of his plantations, was purchased by his cousin Jean Baptiste Augustine Metoyer at only one-sixth of its appraised value. Beloved Melrose was sold to Henry and Hypolite Hertzog for $8,340.
The Metoyer family owned Melrose Plantation from 1796 until 1847. Melrose would never again come under the ownership of the family who founded it but their legacy lives today as the founding family of the Cane River Isle Brevelle Creole of Color Community. Metoyer decedents who live along Cane River today are a people proud of their heritage and culture."
"In 1742, Marie Thérèse Coincoin was born a slave into the household of Natchitoches’ founder Louis Juchereau de St. Denis. St. Denis later leased the twenty-six year old Coincoin as a housekeeper to a young French merchant named Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. A nineteen year relationship ensued, resulting in ten children. Eventually, Metoyer purchased Marie Thérèse and several of their children, giving them their freedom.
With her freedom, a yearly allowance, and a parcel of land given by Metoyer, Marie Thérèse began raising tobacco, cattle, and harvesting bear grease. In the coming years, Marie’s fortunes grew by virtue of her and her sons receiving land grants and purchasing slaves. They became the leading family of a community called Isle Brevelle, populated by “gens de couleur libre", free people of color who thrived as business people, plantation owners, and slave owners.
In 1796, one of her sons, Louis Metoyer, was deeded 911 acres of land on which he would eventually build one of Cane River’s jewels, Melrose Plantation. Louis likely began development of the East bank of the river shortly after his land grant. Development of the west bank (the current Melrose property) began between 1810-1815 with the construction of Yucca House, African House, and a large barn.
Louis began construction of the Big House in 1832. His death on March 11, 1832 left his only son, Jean Baptiste Louis Metoyer to finish construction. When Jean Baptiste died in 1838, Melrose was a sizable estate worth over $100,000.
By 1843, Theophile Louis Metoyer - just nineteen years of age and married to his second cousin, Marie Elina - owned two plantations, a third smaller tract of land and was heir to 13,000 piasters. But Theophile Louis was an inexperienced businessman and within five years found his creditors pushing for settlement of deep debts.
In 1847, Theophile Louis Metoyer lost almost everything he owned. Bayou Plat, one of his plantations, was purchased by his cousin Jean Baptiste Augustine Metoyer at only one-sixth of its appraised value. Beloved Melrose was sold to Henry and Hypolite Hertzog for $8,340.
The Metoyer family owned Melrose Plantation from 1796 until 1847. Melrose would never again come under the ownership of the family who founded it but their legacy lives today as the founding family of the Cane River Isle Brevelle Creole of Color Community. Metoyer decedents who live along Cane River today are a people proud of their heritage and culture."
John Calhoun has no small part of responsibility for this philosophical shift, IMO.
For what it's worth, repeated servile wars led to the (partial) decline of slavery in the Roman Empire, as many landowners made their workforce more diverse or switched to hired laborers entirely.
The proposed reforms after Nat Turners rebellion have already been discussed. OTL was probably the closest this could come to happening.
The proposed reforms after Nat Turners rebellion have already been discussed. OTL was probably the closest this could come to happening.
IIRC the major servile wars were mostly in the 1st century BC, whereas slavery in the Roman Empire didn't start to decline until the AD period. More likely the slowing down of Rome's conquests simply meant that there were no longer as many slaves to go around, leading landowners to seek alternative sources of labour.
As I have noted here before, Virginia didn't really come as close to abolishing slavery in 1831 as many people think. A resolution saying that legislative action against slavery was "expedient"--without specifying any particular plan--was defeated 73-58. ("Only the East's extra legislative seats prevented nonslaveholder power from truly menacing the Slavepower. The legislative malapportionment of 1829 gave western Virginia seven less, eastern Virginia seven more delegates than a one-white-man, one-vote apportionment would have provided. A shift of seven votes would have narrowed a rather substantial 73-58 vote against the expediency of legislative termination [of slavery] into a razor-thin 66-65 defeat for nonslaveholders." William W. Freehling, *The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854*, p. 188.)
But "without specifying any particular plan" is important here. The devil, as usual, was in the details. There were at least two very different plans. Thomas Jefferson Randolph introduced a proposal to free all slaves born after 1840 (when they became 18 in the case of women, 21 in the case of men) and then deport them to Africa, argued that there was no obligation to pay masters compensation, because no slaves *currently* held would be emancipated without their master's consent. (Indeed, under Randolph's proposal, no slave born in Virginia need *ever* be freed, since even slaves born after 1840 could be sold to the Deep South before their otherwise-emancipating birthdays...)
An alternate plan was proposed by William Henry Brodnax, whose scornful treatment of Randolph's proposal shows one of the crucial weaknesses of the emancipationists--their disagreements about how to accomplish emancipation. Brodnax thought that it was preposterous to combat impending dangers with a plan that would not even begin to go into effect for thirty years. "[W]hat is to become of...our safety...in the meantime[?]" Slaves would become impatient, and those born before 1840 would be angry that they would be held in perpetual bondage, while younger ones would be freed. Virginia legislatures would spend "winter after winter" debating whether to repeal the law, further inflaming passions. Moreover, "Randolph's proposal would give every gentleman 'the strongest temptation to convert himself into a negro-trader.' Owners could 'sell and pocket the value of every one of these post-nati, up to the very hour' of adulthood. Under 'this fanciful' emancipation, where not 'one single negro ever would be liberated,' blacks would rise like madmen when sold down river in the final hour. Randolph's chimera was thus a scheme of liberation destined to free no one, a preservation of domestic peace destined to produce 30 years of domestic warfare, a maturation of Virginia paternalism destined to make every patriarch a child-seller. "William Henry Brodnax proposed instead that deportation be commenced immediately, and emancipation soon. He would begin by exiling 6,000 free blacks a year, at state or federal expense. "Within ten years,' no free black would remain. After this 'process...shall have demonstrated the practicality...of gradual deportation,' Virginia should move on to deporting 10,000 slaves a year, with compensation to masters. 'In less than 80 years,' not one slave would blacken lily-white Virginia. Expensive? Certainly. But less costly and more moral than the alternative: slaughtering domestics during the next insurrection panic, a catastrophe Thomas Jefferson Randolph's proposal would hasten." Freehling, *The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854*, p. 185.
So when you have two such different plans, you have to ask yourself: Even if emancipationists could squeeze out a bare majority for gradual emancipation "in principle," could any particular plan get a majority? Very likely any plan would be defeated by a coalition of anti-emancipationists and emancipationists who desired a different approach. (True, some emancipationists might be willing to vote for a less-than-optimal approach as better than no emancipation at all, but others would not--Brodnax seems to have seen Randolph's plan as worse than doing nothing.)
And anyway, saying that a more equitably apportioned legislature might have voted to abolish slavery begs the question of how you get eastern Virginia to give up its disproportionate power in the legislature if eastern Virginians know that doing so puts slavery at risk. Even the 1850 Constitutional Convention--held at a time when antislavery sentiment in Virginia had declined and slaveholders therefore had less to fear from greater western representation--would only go as far as a compromise under which "the House of Delegates to be on the white population basis, giving the western counties a majority, and for the Senate to be on a modified mixed basis of population and property including slaves, giving the eastern counties a majority." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Constitutional_Convention_of_1850
But "without specifying any particular plan" is important here. The devil, as usual, was in the details. There were at least two very different plans. Thomas Jefferson Randolph introduced a proposal to free all slaves born after 1840 (when they became 18 in the case of women, 21 in the case of men) and then deport them to Africa, argued that there was no obligation to pay masters compensation, because no slaves *currently* held would be emancipated without their master's consent. (Indeed, under Randolph's proposal, no slave born in Virginia need *ever* be freed, since even slaves born after 1840 could be sold to the Deep South before their otherwise-emancipating birthdays...)
An alternate plan was proposed by William Henry Brodnax, whose scornful treatment of Randolph's proposal shows one of the crucial weaknesses of the emancipationists--their disagreements about how to accomplish emancipation. Brodnax thought that it was preposterous to combat impending dangers with a plan that would not even begin to go into effect for thirty years. "[W]hat is to become of...our safety...in the meantime[?]" Slaves would become impatient, and those born before 1840 would be angry that they would be held in perpetual bondage, while younger ones would be freed. Virginia legislatures would spend "winter after winter" debating whether to repeal the law, further inflaming passions. Moreover, "Randolph's proposal would give every gentleman 'the strongest temptation to convert himself into a negro-trader.' Owners could 'sell and pocket the value of every one of these post-nati, up to the very hour' of adulthood. Under 'this fanciful' emancipation, where not 'one single negro ever would be liberated,' blacks would rise like madmen when sold down river in the final hour. Randolph's chimera was thus a scheme of liberation destined to free no one, a preservation of domestic peace destined to produce 30 years of domestic warfare, a maturation of Virginia paternalism destined to make every patriarch a child-seller. "William Henry Brodnax proposed instead that deportation be commenced immediately, and emancipation soon. He would begin by exiling 6,000 free blacks a year, at state or federal expense. "Within ten years,' no free black would remain. After this 'process...shall have demonstrated the practicality...of gradual deportation,' Virginia should move on to deporting 10,000 slaves a year, with compensation to masters. 'In less than 80 years,' not one slave would blacken lily-white Virginia. Expensive? Certainly. But less costly and more moral than the alternative: slaughtering domestics during the next insurrection panic, a catastrophe Thomas Jefferson Randolph's proposal would hasten." Freehling, *The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854*, p. 185.
So when you have two such different plans, you have to ask yourself: Even if emancipationists could squeeze out a bare majority for gradual emancipation "in principle," could any particular plan get a majority? Very likely any plan would be defeated by a coalition of anti-emancipationists and emancipationists who desired a different approach. (True, some emancipationists might be willing to vote for a less-than-optimal approach as better than no emancipation at all, but others would not--Brodnax seems to have seen Randolph's plan as worse than doing nothing.)
And anyway, saying that a more equitably apportioned legislature might have voted to abolish slavery begs the question of how you get eastern Virginia to give up its disproportionate power in the legislature if eastern Virginians know that doing so puts slavery at risk. Even the 1850 Constitutional Convention--held at a time when antislavery sentiment in Virginia had declined and slaveholders therefore had less to fear from greater western representation--would only go as far as a compromise under which "the House of Delegates to be on the white population basis, giving the western counties a majority, and for the Senate to be on a modified mixed basis of population and property including slaves, giving the eastern counties a majority." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Constitutional_Convention_of_1850
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Here's something I'd like to know -- putting aside for the sake of argument whether or not it's plausible, let us suppose that Virginia passes the kind of manumission policy proposed by William Henry Brodnax (as described by @David T above) circa 1831; would other states then follow suit, and which ones? And what does this mean for the prospects for slavery in the medium term (i.e. the next three decades)? (Let's also just say that the Texas Revolution of 1835 either doesn't happen or falters, just to make things a little easier.)
EDIT ADD: Going by geography, the numbers (from the 1830 Census), and OTL historical precedent, I'd say the most likely state to follow suit is Delaware; and if both Virginia and Delaware pass abolition/manumission reforms, then Maryland (which was 23% slave in 1830) will most certainly not be far behind. What I wonder, though, is what will the western slave states do -- that is, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Arkansas Territory? For example, could butterflies mean that abolitionists in these states, like Lovejoy, have more success?
EDIT ADD: Going by geography, the numbers (from the 1830 Census), and OTL historical precedent, I'd say the most likely state to follow suit is Delaware; and if both Virginia and Delaware pass abolition/manumission reforms, then Maryland (which was 23% slave in 1830) will most certainly not be far behind. What I wonder, though, is what will the western slave states do -- that is, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Arkansas Territory? For example, could butterflies mean that abolitionists in these states, like Lovejoy, have more success?
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Where are the deportations to? Deportation off the continent at a huge and constant scale is impractical, much less deportation all the way to Africa. Deportation to free states would likely provoke majorities to establish racial exclusion laws where they did not already exist. Deportation to Florida or Arkansas territory would not meet with objections of state governments, as they had none, but would meet the objections of at least neighboring states' government and other areas filled with voters who can envision settling in the territories.
I suspect the upper south dominoes could fall as you suggest, with the wave spreading west after it spreads north.
On the other hand, there's a chance some remaining slave states could laugh all the way to the bank, with slave-based agriculture pulling bigger margins as Virginia owners start a fire sale and costs of production rise in Virginia.