t
in Haiti was his abandonment of his New World dreams and his willingness
to sell Louisiana to the United States. Unfortunately, this meant new
areas for the expansion of the plantation economy and slavery. In other
words, the Haitian revolution was responsible for giving new life to the
institution of slavery inside America.

American plantation owners were faced with a dilemma. The Louisiana
Purchase, resulting from the revolution in Haiti, greatly expanded the
possibilities of plantation agriculture. This meant a greater need for
slave labor. However, they were not sure from which source to purchase
these slaves. They hesitated to bring new slaves directly from Africa.
They were also loath to bring seasoned slaves from the Caribbean. Events
in Haiti had demonstrated that these Caribbean slaves might not be as
docile as previously had been believed. Certainly, Americans did not want
repetition of the bloody Haitian revolt within their own borders. Greedy
men still bought slaves where they could, but many American slave owners
were deeply disturbed and began to give serious thought to terminating
the importation of African slaves to America.

CHAPTER 3

Slavery as Capitalism

The Shape of American Slavery

The slave system in America was unique in human history. Sometimes
slaves were treated cruelly; at other times with kindness. They were more
often used as a sign of affluence, a way of displaying one's wealth and
of enjoying luxury, rather than as the means for the systematic
accumulation of wealth. Previously, slavery had existed in hierarchical
societies in which the slave was at the bottom of a social ladder, the
most inferior in a society of unequals. While each society normally
preferred to choose its slaves from alien people, it did not limit its
selection exclusively to the members of any one race. Slave inferiority
did not lead necessarily to racial inferiority. In contrast to this,
slavery in America was set apart by three characteristics: capitalism,
individualism, and racism.

Capitalism increased the degree of dehumanization and depersonalization
implicit in the institution of slavery. While it had been normal in other
forms of slavery for the slave to be legally defined as a thing, a piece
of property, in America he also became a form of capital. Here his life
was regimented to fill the needs of a highly organized productive system
sensitively attuned to the driving forces of competiti