Ai:counting Buyness
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Financial lIistaDt I3:3 lVoutntber 1003 369-.192
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Industrial slavery in the United States: the North Carolina turpentine industry L849-61 Gloria !bllrners
Abstract 'Ihe operation of the North Carolina turpentine industry in the late Antebelium
period
(1849-61) depended upon labour supplied by slavcs who u'ere either owned or hired. The nature of the work, *'hich covered thousands of acres of forestland, lcd to the use of a task system u'hereby each slave was assigned a larp;e tract of fblest that u'as worked with little supervision over several months. An important finding is the content and significance of -i-he slaves, like the production records for the slaves assigned to these long term tasks. those in other industries and on plantations, could earn a certain amount of money for rhemselves by takrng on extra chores. l)etails of those payments appear in these rccords. -I-he conditions of life, including food, clothing, and the forest environment are reconstructed rvherc possible. The rccords raise some questions about the relationship bctrveen the payments, extra rvork and slave behaviour rvhich however, temarn unansrvered.
Keywords: industrial slavery; siai'ery; turpentine industry; accounting ftrr slaverv; North Cerulina; ar, hiral rcse.rrcf,
Introduction -I-his
research examines the turpentine industry of North Carolina and the slave labour it demanded in the late antcbellum period. It relies on original sources: the fillinghast Family Papers, the James R. Grist Papers, and the Ntl. -fones Account Book, all held in the Rare Book, lvlanuscript and Special Collcctions Library of I)uke University. The 'I'illinghast Papers is the smaller of the collections but contains production information about a major aspcct of turpentine r.vork that does -l'he Grist Papers and the Jones Account Book, though catnot appear in the othe rs. alogued separately, are related. Jones was the ovcrscer of one of the Grist works. lbgether, they allow us to construct a r,ision of that life although much remains
Gioria Vollncrs is an Associate Professor of Accounting at thc Univcrsity of College of'Business, Public Policy and Health, D.P Corbett (te
l: 207 581-1968; fax:
*
207-581-1930; e mail:
[email protected]). Actountmg, I|ustness
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Ftnanttal Lhslorlt
ISSN 0958-5206 print/ISSN 1466 42'15 online (Q 2003 Taylor & Francis l-td http: // rv ww. tand f. co. uk/jou rnals I0. 1 080/095852001 1000 1606626
DOI:
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l{all, Orono, N4ainc, USA 04+69-5,"23
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unknown. Iror erample, there is no information about the living accommodation of or o\crseerr neither are there any kno\\'n e\tant sla\,e reminisccnces of hr-rusing conditions. 1'he production records of slave labor.rr and othcr accounts rer,eal much about routine oi life in a turpentine camp. The tcrnr 'accounts' is uscd broadll' to include, as raell as accounting records in thc narrorv sensc, lcttcrs that rcveal a more detailed representarion of the utilisarion of slavcs in this intlustrv. l-he slaves working in the Grjst operation rvere primarily or.rned bl the Grist family or b,r,a Grist partnership that. in turn. hired out slaves to othcr Grist operations. Some slaves ',vere hired from unrclatcd owners. This confirms the research findings of other historians, particularll'Starobin (1970) and Stampp (19-56) that hiring slaves for rvork in inclustrl' \\'as common. l-he os'ners of the'I'illinghast slave labour force are unknoqn, although it is likelr', sincc thc famill'rvas ucalthy. that it u'as the 1-illinghast family l'he industrv used thc task s1,stem. Slaves clid not u'ork in groups; rrther, each rvas assignecl a task and *,as responsible for complcting it.'fhis meant that the slave worked without supcri'ision or u,ith limitcd supervision fbr several davs at a stretch. Incleed, the primarv task, \\hich requircd tending manv acrcs of forest and harvcsting the turpentine, strctched orer scvcral monrhs. 'fhc paper is organiscd into nine furthcr sections. l'he first is a literature revieu'.'lhe second discr:sses gang and task labour, the major s-r-stems employ'ed to control the nork -I'he of slavcs. third introduces the turpcntine industrv. The contents and backgrouncl of the archival sources of this research appear in the fourth section. 'I'hc flfth section contains information about slave orinership and hiring of slaves. Slave resistancc as revealed b1' the documentary sourccs is the subjcct of thc sirth scction. Anall'sis of the contents of-the 'I'illinghast Papers forms the sever.rrh. 'l-hc Jones and (irist collcctions arc presentcd in the eighth. lhc nrnth section concludes thc research. slaves
I-iterature rcview Ircrv accounting historians have publishcd research on accounting for slaverr'. 1'he paper b1'Flesher rrnd Irlcshcr (1980) has been thc onlv stucll of industrial slaver1,, and it rlas bascd on the busincss recolds of rhe ,\ndrer.r. Bro*n l.r,rmber Companl' flom about l8-10 to 1865. 1'hcy identificd the annual erpenditures m,rde for rhe support ofslavcs.'l'hev also found that slaves receivcd rnoney for extra irork - a powerful incentive - and could rise to managcrial positions. Lvidence in both crrllections used in this lvork shorvs that slaves in the turpcntine industrv could also earn mone-v. F-aton (1960: 663) belio'cd that the practicc of sl:rvc hire and the prevalencc of incentive pavmcnts in industrv indicate that a rvagc s],stem u,as der,eloping and that this wor-rld have lcd to the evcnrual abolitron of slaverr'. IIori,c',.er, hiring our slavcs was not an innovation of the late antebcllum period but had been a common practicc since the colonial vears (Kay,and Cary, 1995: -18-51) Providing monetar), incerrtivcs to rcduce slavc resistance and increase their productivitr., qas also customary, though not univcrsal, on plantations and in industries (Ka1 and C-ar1,, 1995: 37). Plantation slar,cs might earn moncv from cxtrl work or frorn sclling producc raised on owner-prr)riclcd plots of lar-rcl. but the pror,ision of'cash incentivcs appcars to bc a far morc common practice in the inclustrial arenir rvhere survivine records suggcst
LitlLnters; ]ndustrtal sla.-ery tlt Ihe U'nited Sta,tes 371
that about half of all industrial establishments made incentrve pavments. Ilan1, industries used cash (rir in kind) incentir"es for so manr' \'ears rhar thel should be considcred part of the sl.rve svstem rathcr than an er.olution awa,v from rt. Because the\ uerc used to reduce rcsistance, thev would bc lost to the slave uhose actions r,iolated acceptable norms of behavior,rr (Starobin, 1919.99 10,+, 2,59) 'I'here is no evidence that sourhern o\\.'ners had sollened their position against enrancipation. Thc hrgh rates of slave hire provided an excellent rcturn on investment, and are probablv the best evidence of slavery's profitabilitr and of the near certaintl that hare bccn unu,illing to fbrego such income roluntarily. There have been a lerv studies of plantatron accounting in rhe accriunting history literature. 'l\r'o of them (Razek, 1985; FIcier, 1988) examincd plantation accounrs in general and mentioned slave accollnts onlv in so far as tl-rey cxisted as part of thosc records and are not rcally relcrant to this uork. I3arney and Flesher (1994), houever, analvsed slave productivitv data fron.r a \lississippi cotton plantation. One of their findo\\1ners w'ould
lngs was that tomen picked significantly more cotton than men in one ycar but that the gender dilference was not significant when taking all vears jnro accounr. although the
rvomen's production continued to excecd the mcn's. Barncv and Flesher concluded that productivitv information enabled o$.ners to make infcrrmed choices about r.vhcre to assign thcir slaves. 'l'he *orking paper of Flcischman and rvson (2001) looked at the records of a number of plantations to discover ho*. they accountcd for slaves and their activities.'fhey found procluctivirl records and slave valuations used for various purposes) the most prominent being cstate distribution. A slavc lcdger rvas maintained, for one plantation, which shorved rhat each slave u,as credited for prodr.rce gro\r'n or work perforrned asainst rvhich he,/shc could dra',r'select supplies (tobacco. molasses). 'fhey conciuded that accounting rvas complicit in obliterating thc humanitl, of slaves by assigning them propertv ralucs and quantifling their rvork. Historians and economists have studied plantation slaver)' exte nsi\ielv. J'he rescarch has becn u'ide ranging and the volume oidata available for research is overrilrelming.
Dcspite these efforts, sll'erv is not fully understood.'l'herc remain manv disagreements, includrng the profitabilitv and cflicicncy of slavc rersus f ree larrns and concerning thc clcgree and extent of siar,e resistance to thcir masters and thcir qualiti' of life A major gap in the data has been the voices of the sluvcs themselyes. There are a fcrv surviving written nlrratir,es but thev are rare because it r.r'as illegal, in all southern states, to teach slar,es to read rnd writc (Stampp, 1956 201 ).'fhere are about 4000 inten'ieu's ri'ith former slar,es recorded in the 1920s br,threc southern universitics and in the i930s by thc Nov l)eal's Ircderal \\'riters Project, all of uhich are -fhat available on thc web. data does have problems. The intcn.iervecs were very cild rvhich calls their memories into question.'fhere are concerns that these former slaves may have coloured therr stories to please the intervreri,crsl most of rvhom r.r'ere u'hite solrtherners, or that the intcrvieriers biased the stories bccause ofthcir own bcliefs about slaverr'. For a detailed critique of rhese nrervierl's sce Bcrlin et ul. (1998. xiii xx). These stories, taken as a rr'hole, are invaluable neverrheless. T'he_v arc ferv com'. pared to the extant recorcis fionr u'hite America but thel do providc some balance to the accounts of or,r'ners and entployers u,ho recorded primarilv slavc cxpenscs and slave actir.ities and ignored living conciitions, brutalitlr or rhc pstchological eff'ccts on slaves of the breakup of thcir families becausc of slles or est:rte propert)r
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Accounting, Rusmess (5 Ftnancial Htstory
distributions. Fcrv gcneralisations about slavery can be made other than other than it il'as a dehurnanising and cruel institution maintained by larv and b,"- thc u,hip. Slaverv in industry has not been as cxtcnsircly studied even though slaves n'erc widely used. 8y 1840-50 about 5 per cent of all slaves vvere u,orkingi outsidc plantations in cotton mills, iron *'orks, tobacco manufacture, tanncries, processing of agricultural products, mining, timber. turpentine, fisherics and railroads (Starobin, 1970. ll).lEvcn municipalities and the federal government used slavc labour (Starobin, 1970: 3l-3) Industrial slaves uere either ou,ncd b1,the business (about 4/5s of the total) or hired out b_y their owners for the vear, usually at a pricc somen'hat lor.r,cr than frce labour u,ould dcmand (Starobin, \970 l2). Slaves u'ere hired at around l2 to l5 per cent oftheir value annuall); representing a good rate ofreturn for their ouners (l,aton, 1960: 663). llired slaves reccived living accommodation as rl,cll as food and clorhing. \\:hitc rvorkers did not receir.e these benelits in kind, which accounrs par tially, though not completell', for slavcs' lorver ratcs of hire. There is overrvhelming cvidence that sla'ue labour, including food, board, and clothing, was 25-40 per cenr le ss costly than u'hite (Starobin, 1970: 1-55-62) 'I'hc rvnrk in industrv u'as hard, and evcn morc intcuse in ccrtain times of the vear. In sugar refining, for example, eighteen hours a dav lor several months o1-the 1'car uas common. NIan1, industrics were inhcrentlr, dangcrous (mining, lumbering) and evcn *,here not, slaves u,orked in thc riskiest arcas (e.g. with the steam engines and boilers in steamboats and railroads). Keeping slavcs u,orking around the clock \\ras common practice) resulting in accidents caused bv exhaustion. Irires rverc lrequent in nrills, rrines, factories, stcamboats, and turpcntine drstilleries, and man_v slaves died or rvcre injured- I)oisonous snakes and plants and malarial mosquitoes made rlork in thc southcrn lorests hazardous. Starobin (1970 37,42) csrimared that rhe chancc of death in thc steamboat industrr'\\as one in tcn and that of scrious iniun one in fbur.
N{ajor forms of slave labour: gang and task 'I-here u,ere t\\,o common modes of directing slavc labour in thc sourh In gang labour, the slavcs would uork as a group on a particular activitr,, or slaves at rhe front of the line uould perfcrrm a chore and those behind u,ould perform anorher that depended upon the completion of the first. Gang labour uas hear,ilv superviscd bv a u'hite overseer or bl a drirel rvho might be eithcr ul-ritc or another slavc. ]r u,as an ef6cient and routinelt, usecl s1'stem in manv kinds of agricultural labour. The other mode u'as the task svstcm in u'hich an indir.idual slavc uas giren a task that u,as to be con.rplctcd in a particular timc period, In the turpentine inclustn', a maior task could span a uhole lcar vvhereas, at the othcl cxtreme, it maf involr,c no more than a day's u,olk. 'fhe Furman Plantation Book (records of a South Carolina cotton plantation held at Duke Univcrsitr') explicitll' dcfincd the tlpe of tasks to bc undertaken. Among thc many listed wcre thc follou'ir-rg to be accornplished in one dav: laving n a u'all with a l00tl lrricks; turning in arches u,ith 500 bricks; cutting a cord of u,ood (a cord is an 8' x 4' x 4' stack). 'l'he -l'homas \\'alter Pey're Papers (also a South Carolina cotton plantation held at Duke) also speci{icd
I,?tllnurs: Jndustrrul slaxcrt' rn Ihe Limttd
Sttttts
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these:'l hand riill dig 60 holes 2ft deep; I 75 pair of posts per dar". Under 'threshing' u'as u'rittcn: '6 bushels is a good task f
