Darkest Hours: Origins of Slavery

around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover.

“With your subscription you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries”

with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe to bring the past alive. The history of American slavery is not buried in the past. It is written into the nation's landscape. It stands in brick and stone in ports and fields. In the architecture of power itself, slavery shaped where America built, how it expanded and who profited.

At Monticello and Mount Vernon enslaved people built and sustained the homes of presidents.

In Charleston and New Orleans, auction blocks once stood near busy docks where human lives were

bought and sold alongside cotton and sugar. In Washington, D.C., enslaved labor helped construct the White House and the capital and during symbols of liberty and freedom, constructed a mid-bondage. Followed the geography and the system comes into wider focus to backo in Virginia, rice in the Carolinas, sugar along the Mississippi, cotton spreading across the deep south. These landscapes generated immense wealth that flowed north into banks,

insurance companies, factories, railroads, universities, institutions and infrastructure that benefited from slavery even as many denied responsibility for it.

Slavery built one America while another claimed distance. The nation divided not only by belief

but by geography between those who depended openly on enslavement and those who profited while looking away. To understand the United States, we must read the land itself because slavery was not a side story, it was a national system embedded in the ground beneath our feet. It is American history, welcome. I'm Don Wildman. One of the things we try to do on this series is find a clear path into history that can otherwise feel dense and overwhelming, not to simplify

“it but open it up. This episode is especially important in this regard because our story is so often”

relegated to the past when it has so much to do with our shared present. We'll discuss today the earlier years of American slavery, where this system came from, how it took shape on this continent and why decisions made at the beginning of this nation mattered so long afterwards. For this, we're fortunate to have the guidance of historian Justin Hill Edwards, author of a number of award-winning books and publications, including savings and trust, the rise and

betrayal of the Friedman's Bank, which won the 2025 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, as well as unfree markets, the slaves economy, and the rise of capitalism in South Carolina. She is an associate professor at the Great and Good University of Virginia. Professor Hill Edwards, justine, welcome to the podcast, honored you could be here. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for having me. You teach what I understand is a very popular class, covering the origins of American

slavery and right there in Virginia. I'm curious, what are the ideas that most resonate with your students? Yeah, I mean, I'm teaching this class right now and it's a lecture course on American slavery and it's the course that I've taught the most here at UVA and the ideas that resonate with my students most are really connecting the history of slavery to kind of what they see all around them. We are at Thomas Jefferson's University and so a lot of what what I do is try to connect

the history of the University, the history of the founding of the nation, the history of slavery in Virginia specifically, but the colonies and the country writ large to kind of everything that they see. And so it is such a fascinating place to do this history and to teach it because everything that they kind of we talk about and they look, look at around them in some ways relates interestingly to the history of American slavery. Knowledge is power. It it frees us up and it's

actually ends up having a positive impact which is such a welcome thing in this world today. Hopefully this episode does the same for listeners. The American system of slavery,

“the slave economy begins of course as a transatlantic practice. Where does it first begin?”

Who initiates it and why do they conceive of doing it at that time? Yeah, well the history of American slavery does not actually start in the colonies that would become the United States of America. We actually have to go across to Atlantic Africa to regions like modern day, Ghana,

the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade. And we're talking about not in 1619. But we're talking

“about really in the 1440s with Portuguese explorers really making these kind of first economic and”

political contacts with Atlantic for nations in the 1440s. Why the Portuguese? I always wondered

that. What was their culture that they began this practice? Sure. Well they began to develop fairly sophisticated naval technologies in terms of understanding when understanding how to build and construct ships. And so we are seeing them kind of use this technological advantage to exploring regions of the South Atlantic which kind of brings them into contact with these highly developed, highly kind of militarized and politicized Atlantic for canoletes and nations.

Was the notion of, I'm looking for the chicken egg here? The notion of, oh, free labor or, oh, these people need to be dominated or what was the initial sparse? Sure. Well, when we talk

“about kind of modern conceptions of the transatlantic slave trade, I think the popular ideas that”

we have kind of European traders and explorers and merchants going in and kind of ravaging regions of Atlantic Africa. But that was not at all the case. We are talking about diplomatic relationships and connections between Atlantic African rulers and European traders and merchants. And so we're talking about unilateral political relationships that were developed. We're not talking about pillage and domination, especially in the first generations of

contact and trade and political negotiations. Yeah, I asked that intentionally naive question to say, you know, there's a lot of thinking that goes into this. I mean, the understanding of how these colonies, future colonies are going to be developed and the agriculture that will be

“propagated there is going to require a labor. And that is always fascinating to me and I've not”

done enough study to understand the chain reaction of thinking that goes on with those European powers that say, hmm, we want to make a lot of money here. How are we going to do that if we

have to take laborers over there and pay them? That's not going to work. So I've always tried to sort

of reverse engineer this and understand where that came from. But it's very complicated. And we're not, of course, talking only about the Portuguese. We're talking about the English and the Spanish, the French, the Dutch. All of those European economic powers who are now, you know, freed from their shores by the age of discovery and suddenly they can sail all around this world as they're finding out. And there is land and weather that's going to make things back in Europe, you know,

prosper. Jamaica Barbados Brazil are a bigger part of this overhaul story than Americans usually realize, right? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If we are looking at the Atlantic world as historians and scholars call it, this kind of the clashing and colliding of empires, of labor, of explorers, of merchants, of diplomats, of politicians. And they are traveling back and forth from regions of Europe to again Atlantic Africa to South America, Brazil in particular to the Caribbean, the West Indies,

to mainland North America. That is what we are talking about. And then if we are talking really about in terms of numbers, shared numbers, we are really talking about Brazil with the Dutch and then the Portuguese. We're talking about places like Barbados, which was at one point the kind of grant crown jewel of the British pire in this period of time. And we are talking about later on Jamaica. And for the French really, we are talking about Saint-Domingue modern day Haiti. That comes later

in the 18th century. But in terms of sheer numbers, the British colonies that would become the

US actually received a small per percentage, about 5 percent of the total population of enslaved

Africans that were sold throughout the Atlantic world. Yeah, exactly. This is something that begins to the 1400s, moves into the 1500s. This is long before the American colonies become anything as we know them. And this is all really planting this and creating this foundation for a whole economy and a whole market place that will then steer north towards the American colonies. The interesting thing is that we're talking about plantations. You know, when we hear the word plantation

in the American mind, it is they gone with a whim thing. You know, it's that kind of place. But really that word refers to these enormous industrial level enterprises that were really started on those islands and in Brazil. Yeah, I mean, we are talking about massive economic enterprises that

were looking to both expand their political power, but expand their economic power as well,

and tandem those two things went hand in hand. And so they were seeing their investments in the expansion of plantations as an expansion of their kind of colonial holdings. And slavery was part and parcel of that colonial project. And so again, we see the Dutch in Brazil. We see the Portuguese in Brazil as well. We see all of these kind of colonial enterprises crop up around the production and exportation of crops. But there were specific crops that were kind of honed on. Early on sugar

“becomes a massively important product that really fuels economic activity and travel and trade throughout”

the Atlantic world. And so in many ways sugar and slavery go hand in hand. One would not have

virgin and didn't grew without the other. This being an American history show, we will not spend as much time as I wish we could on the African story. At that point, I desperately want to tell that story. But what brings that free labor across the ocean tragically is what's called the middle passage. The forced transportation of enslaved people from western and central African coast often working through in a many areas. These slave factors or traders, they were called

of course worked for companies. And they placed these folks captive onto these slave ships under the most horrific and lethal conditions. And we should describe this experience. How long

were they held before they were put to sea? Sure. Well first, I mean I do want to kind of reframe this.

“I tend to not call slave labor free labor because I think that terminology could be a bit”

fraud and a bit confusing. You're right. I'm being glib when I say that. I agree with you. I mean that to put the onus on those who are using these people for their own good. Of course free labor becomes another term labor. Yeah, but the transition of slave traders kind of taking a person and taking a person and making them into a commodity into a slave is such an important part of this conversation in that in many ways kind of the violence of slavery and the violence of

the slave trade was kind of the catalyst that kind of turned a person into a commodity into a slave. And that process was through the middle passage, kind of taking a person either captured in war or

“kidnapped holding them in a slave port in a slave pen in a port along the Atlantic for Concoast.”

And a European trader would then buy them and wear house them or imprison them on slave ships. And this is where the kind of technology comes in. Increasingly again, beginning in the 15th century but kind of going on, it's even the 16th and 17th. We see Europeans start to invest in kind of figuring out how to make slave trading vessels more quote unquote efficient. And so they were kind of strategizing about how they could manufacture slave trading ships in

boats to warehouse as many in slave Africans as possible to hopefully for their part ensure that the fewest amount died on the transatlantic passage. And so you have these ideas kind of colliding with the real experiences of the enslaved. And when when I say imprisoned, these were called kind of floating slave prisons that they were incredibly violent. They were incredibly unhealthy. The transatlantic voyage was incredibly physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually traumatic

for the enslaved. And so in many ways it was that trauma of being warehouse and imprisoned, being shipped across the Atlantic that in in slavers and slave traders mine kind of transition them from being a person on the Atlantic African side to being a slave on the new world side. Yeah, so there was a dehumanization, a conscious dehumanization of these individuals. The voyage would take up to two months. At times more, it would be a lesser amount of time

from places like in Gola to Brazil. It could be from places on the gold coast to Jamaica or Barbados for our five months and then getting up to the English colonies of mainland North America, that could add in just additional month or two. And so we are talking about months long process,

that there's a, this is the second leg, right, of what essentially is this whole economic

“diagram, how so? Well, historians call this the triangular trade. And this is a trade of goods”

from Atlantic Africa to perhaps regions of South America or the Caribbean up to regions of mainland North America and then perhaps to Western Europe. And so this is a triangular trade of goods and commodities from slaves to gold to guns to gunpowder to sugar to the byproducts of sugar. We're talking about rum was incredibly popular. And so this triangular trade really defined Atlantic commerce in this period of time. Where is a good part to place the story of

American slavery in this, in this paradigm? Well, historians will often say 1619 is this pivotal moment in terms of examining this history for the colonies that would become the United States. 1619 was

the first recorded instance in August of that year of enslaved Africans being purchased or traded

“in Virginia. And so this is within the kind of British colonial context. And so we have about 20”

enslaved Africans being traded in Virginia at this period of time. And interestingly enough, if you read the historical record, it's kind of not this dramatic event as it's written. John Rolf is kind of talking about politics and everything and then he says it, yes, 20 and odd enslaved Africans are kind of brought here. And so within the primary source, within the historical record, it's not written as being this extraordinary event. But we know as historians

that this is a remarkable moment, a dramatic moment that kind of catapults virginia in particular into

this broader trade of freaking slavery in mainland North America. I'll be back with more American history after this short break, which is the catch clip crop of James down at that time. That of course, we'll spread far and wide in different kinds of efforts like in rice and of course in cotton later on. This begins what becomes the plantation system of production through the 1600s spreading upwards to the Chesapeake, the rise of rice, as I say down

in South Carolina, depends on the landscape and geography. Very specifically, slave labor really helps build South Carolina, right? Yeah, I mean, slave labor came to completely define life for colonists in South Carolina in particular. South Carolina was the colony founded for the growth and expansion of slavery. And it was established at a period of time after Barbados had really kind of grown to be this major point in terms of slavery and kind of the exploitation of sugar

in the British Empire. But it's really in the early 17th century when Barbados, of course, is an island colony. There's only so much land there. And so South Carolina is kind of founded as an extension, a satellite, if you will, of Barbados in the form of slavery that is developed there. And so South Carolina is interesting for that reason. And that it is the colony founded for the growth and expansion of slavery and slave labor really helps to catapult South Carolina's economy into prominence

because of this relationship between slavery and the major export at this time, which was rice. Sullivan's island in particular was interesting as a tiny quarantine station in the Charleston Harbor, which is a huge harbor and ideal for so much. This was a point of entry for 40 to 50 percent of enslaved Africans brought to North America during that period, I suppose. It was likened to an Ellis island of sorts. On a typical plantation in this early period, can you describe these

enslaved folks how they would be experiencing this? How did they live? What was the experience

“lying? Well, I mean, I think it is important to note that when we talk about the history of slavery,”

especially if we talk about the experiences of the enslaved, the experience of an enslaved person in colonial South Carolina, let's say Charleston, with the outskirts of Charleston, it's actually slightly different than the experience of an enslaved person in Virginia for, for example. And so the experience of an enslaved person working on a tobacco plantation was actually not the same as an enslaved person on or rice plantation. And so in South Carolina, the enslaved work by what was called

the task system. And this was a system by which enslaved communities would work into a specific

pretty systemic and that's certain times of year re-quires certain types of labor in terms of

“regation in terms of harvesting. And so once an enslaved person or community finished a”

particular work task during the day, they would essentially have the rest of the day on their own. And in South Carolina and the low country, the enslaved really didn't work side-by-side with lights for a no-verseer or an enslaveder. They were really working independently on their own. And so what this meant is that some historians might say that they had more quote unquote autonomy, freedom for lack, lack of a better word, I tend to not use that word, but it meant that all of the

these other aspects of slave life could develop and evolve. This is what what I talk about

on my first book, free markets. And so there was a robust and a vibrant slave's economy that

developed in tandem with the task system. And so it meant that travelers who would go to

“Charleston, for example, would be surprised that the enslaved would be in market places selling goods.”

They'd have to haggle with enslaved women to buy goods. And so this became part and parcel of life in the low country and it evolved around rice production. If we go north to Virginia, the enslaved worked by what was called gang labor. They would work in groups side-by-side, often guided by an overseer. And that was the kind of day and day-out experience of slave life in places like Virginia. And at the same time, of course, we can't forget that this was happening

up north as well in a whole different kind of way, not on the industrial level I suppose. But more on a family farm kind of basis, is that fair to say? Yeah, I mean, it kind of gets back to this idea that slavery evolved in a variety of ways based on time and place. And so slavery and Charleston in, let's say, 17, 20 was not the same as the experience of an enslaved person in Massachusetts, for example, in the same period of time. There weren't really plantations in New England.

There were kind of smaller slave holdings and so the entire slave population was actually a bit smaller. And the enslaved were kind of clustered in cities. And so we have slaves in Boston, in Newport, and as opposed to kind of outside of those specific regions. One needs to build the the enslavement story in America. You can't just accept it, wrote certainly from the movies. You can't take that sort of naive view of this. And I'm sure this is what you're teaching in your

class, that there was a very progressive systemic path that this took over these periods of time that built with the size of the agriculture that was being cultivated, the industry that was being built. And so this enslavement happens very sustainably and it creates a marketplace which is where it gets so ugly and so, you know, vial really. So we'll take a short break and when we come back, we'll talk about the legal development surrounding slavery in this period. I'll be back with more

American history after this short break. Join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago from the Babylonians to the Coats, to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which revealed

who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the ancients from history hit.

Welcome back, we're speaking with Professor Justine Hill Edwards. Justine, before the break, we looked at how the Atlantic slave trade began and then landed in America. But I'm wondering

“about the legal and political aspect of this trade. How did this industry break down on political lines?”

I mean, I'm imagining these companies are horrible, say these, but prevailing these commodities as they see them. You know, this is the property that they're using. And so how was this codified in the laws and and breakdown in these different colonies? Well, understanding the laws of slavery is really fundamental to understanding how slavery evolves and expands here. And so if we think about kind of the popular narrative of American slavery, I think is focused on this

south in places like South Carolina in Georgia. But if we're to understand the kind of legal

foundations of slavery, especially in colonial America, we actually have to go first to Massachusetts.

in 1641, the Massachusetts body of liberties. And it is a law that essentially says,

and I'll get the actual language wrong. But slavery is essentially legal if slaves are sold to colonists in just wars. And so what it kind of means is that this idea that that colonists were recognizing the presence of enslaved Africans, even slave-native Americans, but they were kind of taking a backseat to being active participants in the slave trade. Like slavery is fine, if we're fighting wars or if slaves are sold to us, we are not going out and part pursuing slaves,

which was not true. But it is in 1641 again in Massachusetts, not in a place like South Carolina, or word Virginia, that slavery is recognized within its laws. Now this shifts to 1662 in verb Virginia. We often think about slavery being inheritable, this idea that an enslaved child status is based on the status of the father. Well, this shifts fairly early on in an American

“history again in 1662 in Virginia. There is an important law that essentially says”

that the status of the child follows the status, not of the father, but of the mother. And so if a child's mother was enslaved, then that child would be enslaved. And if a child's father was not enslaved or free, then that child would be free. And so what this means is that this makes slavery and inheritable status, and increasingly this recognizes the racialized status of the enslaved. And so it means then to that slavery and the status of the enslaved is kind of made into an

economic unit, slaves are made into a commodity. And so it is really early on again in this process that we have these laws, both in Massachusetts and Virginia, that fundamentally structure how slavery evolves. People who want to minimize this historically in the American story, you know, often compare it all. There were slaves in Rome and all that sort of thing. And the difference is that this is a racialized slavery. This is a very specifically racialized slavery

legally, as you're saying. And these slave codes, which you know, chilling how it then resonates through to black codes later on in the, you know, after the Civil War, really do make it official that this is everything to do with the color one skin. This is, again, not only an American phenomenon, this was done through the Spanish colonies as well. And this was codified all over the place in different, it to really breaks down to absurd fractions is what ends up happening or someone

is quarter this or an eighth this and it's really amazing how specific and legal it tries to be.

Again, also to distinguish it from an indentured labor, which is a whole other kind of thing that someone could move through and essentially an apprentice kind of thing. But this is very specifically and so and hatefully. So a system about people who look a certain

“way and therefore we project upon them a status. Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's really important to”

distinguish that. Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, this, this is a period of time and the, the question often comes up, well, there's Roman slavery, there was slavery in the ancient world. Most of civilizations had forms of slavery or kind of bonded labor. But the kind of American, or if we, we can call it Atlantic story, has two main features that are really important. One, the racialized aspect of slavery, slave status, becomes affiliated with black skin or dark skin.

And two, the inheritability of slave status in another civilization and an enslaved person could buy themselves out of slavery, could marry out of slavery or could convert to a different religion to not be enslaved in those three factors were very early on eliminated within the

“Atlantic world. And that is why this is so important. Well, and, you know, as generations go on,”

soon we have African Americans, you know, we have whole generations who have born and raised here and then many others after that. It happens fairly soon because Americans, I mean, because human beings procreate that we have an entire population who has, you know, only been living as an enslaved population as their fathers and, and for fathers who were before them,

it's incredible. But when do we become aware of that identity among that population? When did they

start thinking that way? Sure. Well, this really happens in the late 17th or late 18th centuries,

affiliated with kind of black skin. And so it is in this this period, especially by the early 18th cent century when we get this idea, this identity of African Americans being affiliated and associated with with enslaved status that happens fairly early. There's a emerging that goes on with West African traditions. It's fascinating, especially when you go to New Orleans and talk about it there, the West African religions marrying up with Christianity and all the music and religious practices

it's amazing how this culture despite the oppression and cruelty still sort of flowers underneath

of that and then rises up later on for sure. When is the notion of white supremacy first begin to emerge? And how does that even stick? Because that's absolutely necessary in this equation.

“Sure. Well, I mean, this idea of white supremacy is so important to understanding, not just how”

slavery kind of developed and evolved and grew, but the kind of racialized aspect of slavery as well. And it happens fairly early. I mean, even in the 17th century, you have colonists kind of pushing back on the enslaved attempting to buy themselves out of slavery, white colonists have having a child with or even attempting to marry a black person or a slave person. And so the idea that kind of slavery and race and these ideas of white supremacy really happens in this early colonial period

to further separate kind of races in terms of status. It happens from the founding of the colony. One could say in Virginia it really starts with this 1662 law and accelerates with bacon's rebellion

“in the 1670s. We have this idea of kind of the separation of races based on status and kind of”

bound up in that idea is the idea of whites being supreme or better than those of African descent. And so in many ways, you can't separate understanding the origins of American slavery without understanding the kind of parallel track of the expansion and kind of entrenchment of ideas of white supremacy there as well. Yeah, I mean, it becomes a religion unto itself really. It becomes a way of instilling in children and generations to come this idea that we are better than them and therefore

we have a system that makes perfect sense to us. Of course we're going to be like this and that sort of

the given aspect of that, the assumption of that, it becomes a perpetual motion machine. It never ends

after you've kind of accepted that basic idea. Let's digest this again, take a short break and when we come back, we'll discuss how slavery changed after the Revolutionary War and the growing resistance against the practice. Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Coliseum, find out on the ancients podcast from history hit. Twice a week, join me,

Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago from the Babylonians to the cults to the Romans and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the ancients from history hit. Welcome back folks. Justine, by the time we get to the American Revolution, mid 1770s there are so many new ideas that have permeated human society, new ideas of science and

religion, individual rights of life and property, all that must have had an effect, a dramatic effect on the slave economy. Is this the beginning of northern attitudes versus southern because of course they end up being diametrically opposed? Sure, sure. Well, I mean, kind of to take a step back,

“I think it is important to remember that we have historian who say that the Revolution is really”

the kind of beginning of anti-slavery and abolitionist politics, but if we look at this from the

lives and experiences of the enslaved, there's always been abolitionism, right? They were the first

abolitionist as the historian, Manisha Sinha said, but the Revolutionary War and the Revolution really accelerates. These kind of diverging, converging conversations about the founding of a new nation,

all collides in this period around the kind of politics of the Revolution. When meanwhile,

“our founding fathers are all enslaving people, so it's a bizarre time when you have these ideas”

of liberty and freedom being, you know, written about quite eloquently, while at the same time,

those people writing and committing this act and it's amazing. Freedom was offered as an incentive

by both American and British during the war, 100,000 Patriot owned black enslaved escaped and fled to British lines later to be organized in the military units. If we look at the revolutionary period through the experiences of the enslaved, ideas of patriotism become even more complex because above all, the enslaved wanted freedom for themselves and their families. And they would fight on the side of those who would give it to them. And so there were enslaved men and women who

fought and defended the patriot side, who fought and defended the loyal side, based on who they

“thought would give them freedom and emancipate them. And there were some who didn't believe that”

their side would give them freedom, would recognize their emancipated status. And so they then fled west or they fled to places like Canada. Nova Scotia was a major goal point for many enslaved men and women who wanted to really claim their freedom for themselves. At this time, I mean, we're talking about the revolution having happened. So this is a country, a new country now. We're going to set up our new Constitution and so forth. But during this period,

there's a rapid expansion of plantation economies in places like Virginia and South Carolina. They are moving into this new age, this new freedom using slavery. Sure, we have places like Virginia, we have the Carolinas, we have Georgia who are making massive investments in the expansion of the plantation economy. At the same time, though, because of the language of revolution, we have colonies in the states like Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, who are going down the path of

gradually emancipating the enslaved populations of their colonies in the states. And so Pennsylvania, for example, is the first state to abolish slavery in or gradually abolish slavery with gradual emancipation in 1780. Vermont comes into the Union as a free state in 1777. And so we have really kind of colonies and states north of Pennsylvania who are making strategic choices to gradually end slavery. At the same time as places like Virginia, the Carolinas in Georgia, are starting to

kind of see how to invest more and more in the kind of benefits and profits of slavery. Virginia has everything to do with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. So there must have been conversation in that house of Burgessism. So forth, talking about the fact that this is all about white men, don't worry. We're not talking about those other people. Was that ever, is that in the record, those specific distinctions? Sure, there were conversations among politicians and delegates in

Virginia about the future of slavery. Would there be many mission laws? What were the mechanisms

by which an enslaved or could emancipate an enslaved person? But there was always the the ever

present threat of what would happen if we had a free population alongside a slave population in a slave state. Jefferson talked quite a bit about that. Madison talked about that as in in slavers. And so they did decide it to go the root of kind of being more entrenched in slavery because they saw

“it as being so economically profitable. And honestly, men like Jefferson were kind of struggling with”

how to disentangle themselves from their real investments, both economic and personal in slavery as an institution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they were also working on the economic, the economy writ large of how do you, you know, secure this country's place in the world, I suppose. I'm not forgiving them. I'm just thinking, oh my god, you know, how are these minds at work at this time? When it's right in their own front yard, but all of what we're talking about basically sets up

this future free north versus slave south and the beginnings of all of what we end up in later on. What were the ways of enslaved people resisting this status? How did they go about

inflicting their own agency on this system? Well, I think the revolutionary period is kind of the

perfect example of these strategies that the enslaved use, right? They would fight for a

and directions. And so there are kind of various moments in the colonial period, even through

“the rev revolution where we have the enslaved kind of taking up arms and fighting for their own”

emancipation. We see this in South Carolina in 1739, we see this in New York in 1741. And so there are these these moments. The enslaved so fled. I mean choosing to escape and take your own freedom in your own hands was a massive form of rebellion. And these two forms kind of fleeing and fighting scared in slavers. They were afraid of armed slaves. They were afraid of losing their investments when slaves fled. And so these were two kind of major aspects in which the enslaved fought back

in fought for their own freedom and emancipation. And as, you know, we move into the 19th century,

there is an enormous disparity in terms of population. There's so many more slave than white people in the south. Of course, they're worried about that and they should be. Side by side with the reality, the north of a growing abolition movement, which in itself was triggered by ironically England, you know, which is, you know, finally gotten on the right side of this after having started. So much of it. It's just such an interesting irony, I guess. How did the explosion of the cotton

economy impact slavery? Many people do not recognize what a juiced up situation happened because of cotton as we come into the 19th century. Well, again, I'm going to just take a brief step back.

“If we kind of track the evolution of American cotton, there are a few important particular moments.”

So we are in the end of the revolutionary period. Let's say we're in the 1780s, 1790s.

One of the major catalysts was actually the slavery revolved in soft and domain modern day Haiti. And so the Haitian revolution had an indelible, a tremendous effect on slavery in the Atlantic world in slavery in the US. And so it is because of the effects of the Haitian revolution that Thomas Jefferson negotiates with France to buy the Louisiana territory in 1003. And so when that happens with the low Louisiana purchase, the US immediately dubbed doubles

in size. And it makes all of this land immediately available for the federal government to start to invest in. And what do they invest in? They start to sell land to land speculators, inslaver, start to buy land, seeing this land available for kind of agricultural production and investment. And at the same time, we have innovations made to cotton gin technology by Whitney. And so when he gets a patent for this new cotton gin, all of these things are converging at the

same time. The expansion of the US investments in kind of land development, the cotton gin. We we also have interestingly enough in 1808. Congress decides to close American participation in the Atlantic slave trade, which means that no new enslaved for kids are being brought in from foreign sources. And so we have this massive domestic slave trade as well. And so it is this

“convergence of factors that makes cotton this very important product that kind of helps the American”

economy boom, but makes American slavery more entrenched in more ways more violent for the enslaved. One of the most fascinating things I've learned about on this doing this podcast series is about how it becomes its own financial tool. Inslavement is so important to people's wealth in the South in Herodans-wise. And even women who are able to white women who, you know, this is their one form of of inherent wealth that they can trade and and and build on. It's an incredibly weird

part of this that that nobody ever thinks about it because it's all about, you know, working in the fields that is the popular notion of this, but there's a very deep financial systemic factor here. Absolutely. I mean, if we talk about the creation of modern day insurance, we actually have to look at this this period of slavery's expansion. There were entire financial products that were kind of based and grounded on the value of slave property. There were hundreds of banks that were

created in places like Louisiana and Miss Mississippi, just to serve the increasing numbers of inslavers who were trying to kind of make money and profit off of the perceived value of their enslaved populations. And so there is an entire side of this, the financial history side that is incredibly important to understand. And you do see them this now where hundreds of years down the road

thing. It's a theme to this that we are, you know, not only are they are, you know, enslaved people,

“but they, we are taking care of that. You know, as it becomes a family oriented thing, you see that”

and gone the way the wind. And that's, you know, fueled by the lost cause aspect of this later on.

It's amazing story. You could spend your life doing this kind of thing. My goodness.

In some of us do. Exactly. You know, I want to ask you, Justin, we just had the sad passing of Jesse Jackson, a man who was by Dr. King's side to the end, who did so much to keep hope alive through the years when the civil rights story was really sideline in the 70s and 80s. How do you think this story is most relevantly received by young people today? You know, you see these folks

“in your classrooms all the time. How are they adhering to these ideas and applying them in their”

own lives? Sure. Well, what I try to do is connect a lot of what we talk about to what we see and talk about today, whether it's like policy or economic justice or conversations about labor and incarceration. I mean, I really do try to frame what we talk about in terms of the history of American slavery, in terms of kind of every day topics that we continue to grapple with. And so I hope that what they learn about the history of American slavery kind of resonates with them. So

perhaps they may not be able to walk by the White House and not think about certain things or drive by a field and not wonder if that was a tobacco plantation. I hope that they are kind of thinking along those lines. Perspective. Yeah, understanding their wider perspective of this whole subject matter. And slaveed individuals are the largest asset in the United States by the 1800s. That's

insane. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. And and disregarded by most people who want to move on from this

subject to understand how important it really was. The groundwork had been set for a future conflict that would finally end slavery. But until then, the violence and trauma would continue. It is a legacy we live with today. And one would think that a nation would fight a war over this and then dispose of the system altogether. But of course that didn't happen. So easily and we end up in reconstruction and all that that's afterwards. It's a enormous subject. I hope this has been a helpful

“conversation for the audience to understand how complex this subject matter is. And you have to”

start at the beginning. And I thank you Justine for doing this with us and given us that kind of foundation. I envy those students of you who of yours who who sit in that classroom listening to you. Professor Justine Hill Edwards teaches and works at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She is authored several works. But be sure to order her most recent the award winning savings and trust the rise and betrayal of the Friedman's Bank. Also, unfree markets, the slave's economy

and the rise of capitalism in South Carolina. Thank you. It has been a great privilege. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to American history hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays

from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles

across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.