Until the end of the Civil War, slaves constituted the backbone of the southern labor force. While picking cotton and other agricultural employments are commonly associated with black bondsmen, it is not so widely known that they also predominated in craft and industrial labor as well. The Documents in Part I reveal the use and extent of slave labor in the Old South, and some of the unique occupational patterns which developed under the “peculiar institution.”
An overview of the Afro-American prevalence in southern crafts is presented in Documents 1–3, with W. E. B. Du Bois and A. G. Dill suggesting that this propensity could be attributed to African ancestry (Doc. 1). Whether or not their assertion is true, slaves were found in all the crafts, from the most skilled to the least skilled. Documents 4–23 clearly show the variety of skills practiced by slave craftsmen. Equally striking is the significance of slave labor in virtually all of the important southern industries. In fact, it is difficult to see how most industries could have operated without bonded labor. Documents 24–37 indicate the extent of this omnipresence. According to the famous southern novelist Thomas Nelson Page, in 1865 blacks held “without a rival the entire field of industrial labor throughout the South.” Indeed, Page claimed that “ninety-five per cent of all the industrial work of the southern states” was performed by black labor (Doc. 24). While this was an exaggeration, slaves were heavily concentrated in the industries.
The skills these slaves learned naturally increased their economic value. Because the slave artisan or mechanic could not be regulated as easily as the farm hand, especially in urban areas, he usually enjoyed more mobility than his more regimented brother in the field. While owners frequently hired, or leased, the services of their slaves to industrial employers, for example, bondsmen sometimes were permitted to hire their own time. As long as their earnings were turned over to the master, these slave mechanics experienced a relative freedom. This was not entirely enviable for frequently the hired mechanic encountered physical and psychological difficulties with his work which were as unique as the status itself (Doc. 38–40). Because slave artisans and mechanics were in great demand, they frequently used their free time to perform extra work for money which they kept for themselves. Sometimes they were able to accumulate enough money to purchase freedom for themselves or for loved ones, several cases of which are indicated in Documents 41–45.
