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Title: Slave Escape and Regional Price Differences: Evidence from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2014

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Abstract: For many decades prior to the American Civil War, records show that slaves in the Upper South sold at a significant discount compared to slaves in the Deep South. This regional variation in slave prices has been attributed to agricultural productivity differences by the existing literature. This paper tests that claim by proposing an additional explanation for the price gap: regional variation in the risk of slave escape. That is, if slaves in each area were equally productive, would there have been any interregional slave trade? Under the assumption that escape to the North was easier for slaves who were closer to the Mason-Dixon line (the dividing line between Slave and Free states), available data suggests that between 25 and 33% of regional slave price heterogeneity was eliminated after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. The 1850 Act had numerous provisions which made successful escape less likely. Interestingly, because the Act reduced rather than eliminated the potential for successful slave escape, the observed regional price convergence can only be considered a lower bound on how the risk of slave escape affected prices. These results imply that even if productivity were somehow equalized across regions, the varying likelihood of escape in the Upper and Deep South could have resulted in transportation of slaves between regions.

Url: http://www.conorjlennon.com/uploads/3/9/6/0/39604893/escape_paper_late_2014.pdf

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Authors: Lennon, Conor

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Migration and Immigration, Other, Race and Ethnicity

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