Page 41 - 1619 Project Curriculum

August 18, 2019

market value of enslaved workers 1846, one Alabama planter advised Good as Gold: In Lincoln’s
over their life spans. Values gen- his fellow enslavers to always give

erally peaked between the prime orders ‘‘in a mild tone, and try to wartime ‘‘greenbacks,’’ a
ages of 20 and 40 but were indi- leave the impression on the mind

vidually adjusted up or down based of the negro that what you say is the preview of the 20th-century

on sex, strength and temperament: result of reflection.’’ The devil (and

people reduced to data points. his profits rise of fiat currency.

) were in the details.
This level of data analysis also The uncompromising pursuit

allowed planters to anticipate rebel- of measurement and scientif-

lion. Tools were accounted for on a ic accounting displayed in slave By Mehrsa Baradaran

regular basis to make sure a large plantations predates industrial-
number of axes or other potential ism. Northern factories would not

weapons didn’t suddenly go miss- begin adopting these techniques

ing. ‘‘Never allow any slave to lock or until decades after the Emanci-

unlock any door,’’ advised a Virgin- pation Proclamation. As the large

ia enslaver in 1847. In this way, new slave-labor camps grew increas-

bookkeeping techniques developed ingly efficient, enslaved black peo-

to maximize returns also helped to ple became America’s first mod-

ensure that violence flowed in one ern workers, their productivity

direction, allowing a minority of increasing at an astonishing pace.

whites to control a much larger group During the 60 years leading up to

of enslaved black people. American the Civil War, the daily amount of
planters never forgot what happened cotton picked per enslaved worker

in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in increased 2.3 percent a year. That

1791, when enslaved workers took means that in 1862, the average
up arms and revolted. In fact, many enslaved fieldworker picked not 25 The Constitution is riddled by the holdings of private

white enslavers overthrown during percent or 50 percent as much but with compromises made banks — the same banks

the Haitian Revolution relocated to 400 percent as much cotton than his between the North and that helped finance the

the United States and started over. or her counterpart did in 1801. South over the issue of slav- entire Southern economy,

Overseers recorded each enslaved ery — the Electoral College, from the plantations to the

worker’s yield. Accountings took Today modern technology has the three-fifths clause — people enslaved on them.

place not only after nightfall, when facilitated unremitting workplace but paper currency was too Some Confederate bills even

cotton baskets were weighed, but supervision, particularly in the ser- contentious an issue for the had depictions of enslaved

throughout the workday. In the vice sector. Companies have devel- framers, so it was left out people on their backs.
words of a North Carolina plant- oped software that records work- entirely. Thomas Jeffer- In a sense, the war over

er, enslaved workers were to be ers’ keystrokes and mouse clicks, son, like many Southerners, slavery was also a war over

‘‘followed up from day break until along with randomly capturing believed that a national the future of the econo-

dark.’’ Having hands line-pick in screenshots multiple times a day. currency would make the my and the essentiality of

rows sometimes longer than five Modern-day workers are subject- federal government too value. By issuing fiat curren-

football fields allowed overseers ed to a wide variety of surveillance powerful and would also cy, Lincoln bet the future on

to spot anyone lagging behind. strategies, from drug tests and favor the Northern trade- the elasticity f value. This

o

The uniform layout of the land had closed-circuit video monitoring based economy over the was the United States’ first

a logic; a logic designed to domi- to tracking apps and even devic- plantation economy. So, for formal experiment with fiat

nate. Faster workers were placed at es that sense heat and motion. A much of money, and it was a resound-
its first century, the

the head of the line, which encour- 2006 survey found that more than a United States was without ing success. The currency
aged those who followed to match third of companies with work forc- a national bank or a uniform was accepted by national

the captain’s pace. When enslaved es of 1,000 or more had staff mem- currency, leaving its econo- and international creditors

workers grew ill or old, or became bers who read through employees’ my prone to crisis, bank runs — such as private creditors

pregnant, they were assigned to outbound emails. The technology and instability. from London, Amsterdam

lighter tasks. One enslaver estab- that accompanies this workplace At the height of the war, and Paris — and funded the

lished a ‘‘sucklers gang’’ for nursing supervision can make it feel futur- Lincoln understood that he feeding and provisioning of

mothers, as well as a ‘‘measles gang,’’ istic. But it’s only the technology could not feed the troops Union troops. In turn, the
which at once quarantined those that’s new. The core impulse without more money, so he success of the Union Army

struck y the virus and ensured that behind that technology pervaded issued a national currency, fortified the new currency.

b

they did their part to contribute to plantations, which sought inner- backed by the full faith and Lincoln assured critics that

the productivity machine. Bodies most control over the bodies of credit of the United States the move would be tempo-

and tasks were aligned with rigor- their enslaved work force. Treasury — but not by gold. rary, but leaders who fol-

ous exactitude. In trade magazines, The cotton plantation was Amer- (These bills were known lowed him eventually made

owners swapped advice about the ica’s first big business, and the derisively as ‘‘greenbacks,’’ it permanent — first Franklin
minutiae of planting, including slave nation’s first corporate Big Brother a word that has lived on.) Roosevelt during the Great

diets and clothing as well as the was the overseer. And behind every The South had a patchwork Depression and then, for-

kind of tone a master should use. In cold calculation, every rational currency that was backed mally, Richard Nixon in 1971.
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