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Title: Coerced Labor, Insurrection and the Economic Costs: Theory and Evidence From the Antebellum United States

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2015

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Abstract: This paper investigates some of the causal factors which increased the incidence of slave insurrections and conspiracies in the antebellum Southern United States. The analysis relies on a novel dataset, which is an amalgam of geographic data, occupational data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), county-level census data and a compilation of incidents of slave unrest as recorded by Aptheker (1993). I find that slave insurrections and conspiracies were more likely in areas which, due to natural geographic factors, enjoyed a greater degree of productivity in cotton production, and were less likely in areas naturally endowed with a greater degree of productivity in tobacco. I also find that conspiracies were more likely in counties geographically situated closer to Southern cities. To interpret these results, I develop a theoretical model of slave insurrection which incorporates slaves incentives to rebel, as well as slaveowners incentives to surveil. I find that if the strenuousness of the work regime is severe, as was the case on cotton plantations, and if the costs borne by slaves in the wake of a rebellion decrease, as was the case in urban areas, then revolt is more likely and slaveowners are more likely to devote greater resources toward stymieing such outbreaks.

Url: http://www.economics.uci.edu/grad/job_market_files/Finn_JMP.pdf

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Authors: Finn, Ian

Publisher: University of California at Irvine

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration, Poverty and Welfare, Race and Ethnicity

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