Page 46 - 1619 Project Curriculum

The 1619 Project

suicide, but the bankrupt states financial instruments that hide risk its abandon,’’ writes the historian America promotes a particular

refused to pay their debts. Cotton while connecting bankers, inves- Joshua Rothman in his 2012 book, kind of low-road capitalism — a

slavery was too big to fail. The South tors and families around the globe; ‘‘Flush Times and Fever Dreams.’’ union-busting capitalism of pov-

chose to cut itself out of the global fantastic profits amassed overnight; That culture would drive cotton erty wages, gig jobs and normal-

credit market, the hand that had fed the normalization of speculation production up to the Civil War, and ized insecurity; a winner-take-all

cotton expansion, rather than hold and breathless risk-taking; stacks it has been a defining characteristic capitalism of stunning disparities

planters and their banks accountable of paper money printed on the of American capitalism ever since. not only permitting but awarding

for their negligence and avarice. myth that some institution (cotton, It is the culture of acquiring wealth financial rule-bending; a racist

Even academic historians, who housing) is unshakable; considered without work, growing at all costs capitalism that ignores the fact

from their very first graduate course and intentional exploitation of black and abusing the powerless. It is the that slavery didn’t just deny black

are taught to shun presentism and people; and impunity for the prof- culture that brought us the Panic freedom but built white fortunes,
accept history on its own terms, iteers when it all falls apart — the of 1837, the stock-market crash of originating the black-white wealth

haven’t been able to resist drawing borrowers were bailed out after 1929 and the recession of 2008. I gap that annually grows wider —

t

parallels between the Panic of 1837 1837, the banks after 2008. is the culture that has produced one reason is that American capi-

and the 2008 financial crisis. All the During slavery, ‘‘Americans built staggering inequality and undigni- talism was founded on the lowest

ingredients are there: mystifying a culture of speculation unique in fied working conditions. If today road there is.•

Bonds:
Municipal
Slavery Built Wall Street
How
By Tiya Miles
While ‘‘Main Street’’ might be become the City of New York first And New York City’s investment phenomenal economic con-

anywhere and everywhere, as imported 11 African men in 1626. in slavery expanded in the 19th solidation came as a result of

the historian Joshua Freeman The Dutch West India Company century. In 1799 the state of New its dominance in the Southern

points out, ‘‘Wall Street’’ has owned these men and their fam- York passed the first of a series of cotton trade, facilitated by the

o com-
only ever been one specific place ilies, directing their labors t laws that would gradually abolish construction of the Erie Canal. It

on the map. New York has been mon enterprises like land clearing slavery over the coming decades, was in this moment — the early

a principal center of American and road construction. After the but the investors and financiers decades of the 1800s — that

commerce dating back to the English Duke of York acquired of the state’s primary metropolis New York City gained its status

colonial period — a centrality authority over the colony and doubled down on the business as a financial behemoth through

founded on the labor extracted changed its name, slavery grew of slavery. New Yorkers invested shipping raw cotton to Europe

from thousands of indigenous harsher and more comprehen- heavily in the growth of Southern and bankrolling the boom indus-

American and African slaves. sive. As the historian Leslie Har- plantations, catching the wave of try that slavery made.

Desperate for hands to build ris has written, 40 percent of New the first cotton boom. Southern In 1711, New York City officials
towns, work wharves, tend farms York households held enslaved planters who wanted to buy more decreed that ‘‘all Negro and

and keep households, colonists people in the early 1700s. land and black people borrowed Indian slaves that are let out to

across the American Northeast New Amsterdam’s and New funds from New York bankers and hire . . . be hired at the Market

— Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, York’s enslaved put in place protected the value of bought house at the Wall Street Slip.’’

Dutch settlers in New Netherland much o bodies with policies from New It is uncanny, but perhaps pre-
f the local infrastructure,

and Quakers in Pennsylvania — including Broad Way and the York insurance companies. New dictable, that the original wall

availed themselves of slave labor. Bowery roads, Governors Island, York factories produced the agri- for which Wall Street is named

Native Americans captured in and the first municipal buildings cultural tools forced into South- was built by the enslaved at

colonial wars in New England and churches. The unfree popu- ern slaves’ hands and the rough a site that served as the city’s

were forced to work, and African lation in New York was not small, fabric called ‘‘Negro Cloth’’ worn first organized slave auction.

people were imported in greater and their experience of exploita- on their backs. Ships originating The capital profits and financial

and greater numbers. New York tion was not brief. In 1991, con- in New York docked in the port wagers of Manhattan, the Unit-

City soon surpassed other slaving struction workers uncovered an of New Orleans to service the ed States and the world still flow

f the Northeast in scale as

towns o extensive 18th-century African trade in domestic and (by then, through this place where black

well as impact. burial ground in Lower Manhat- illegal) international slaves. As and red people were traded and

Founded by the Dutch as New tan, the final resting place of the historian David Quigley has where the wealth of a region was

Amsterdam in 1625, what would approximately 20,000 people. demonstrated, New York City’s built on slavery.
40