Don’t Fuss ... Let’s Discuss
The African-American Community Forum

By the beginning of the 1790s, the people of Wilkes County had established their own county government under the constitutional government of Georgia, which had ratified the Constitution of the United States of America. The people of Wilkes County were now free from control by Great Britain and could now live freely under the umbrella of democracy and capitalism. By what means would they survive?

What were the natural resources and the human labor resources available to the people of Wilkes County to build their lives in and as a part of the recently formed United States of America?

We know that the State of Georgia acquired two million acres of ceded lands from the Creek and Cherokee Indians for Wilkes County at a guesstimated value of 11 cents an acre. The two million acres of land contained unimaginable natural resources: fertile soil for a variety of crows, “king cotton” being the most profitable; fruit and nut trees; virgin forests and centuries old trees to be harvested into building materials; abundant edible wildlife such as rabbits and deer; rivers of fishes; and favorable climate conditions, among other things.

The natural resources were indeed abundant; but what about the people and labor resources to fully exploit the abundance of nature? What labor options were available in 1790 to convert the natural resources into wealth for the privileged landowners, and at what marginal cost. There was no invented machinery to perform any production functions.

Some small settlers farmed and worked their own land; other settlers utilized indentured servants for whom they paid the cost of their fare and upkeep to come to the new world with an agreement to work for the sponsoring settlers until the debt was paid off, after which the servants would be free human beings to pursue the American dream.

The settlers who did not or were not able to choose the former or latter option could have partnership with the Native Indians. The final, cheapest and most immoral option was to enslave other human beings for their free and forced labor, only to receive clothing, room and board. This path entailed buying African people, taking away their humanity, and conditioning their minds to become subservient beings, responding to predetermined commands and expected obedience.

They are now transformed from human beings to slaves. It was this option that came to predominate in Wilkes County, Georgia, from the 1790s until the end of the Civil War, a period of 75 years. Georgia settlers believed that the institution of slavery was essential to their social and economic prosperity, regardless of its dehumanization of Africans and African-descended human beings.

Thus, the economic development of the State of Georgia and of Wilkes County came to depend on the major source of free and forced labor, the enslavement of African people. Therefore, beginning on March 4, 1789, when the Constitution of the United States became the supreme law of the United States of America, the white community of Wilkes County received its freedom and the pursuit of happiness from the oppressed government of Great Britain. But instituted a slavery system of another ethnic people and defended that system until it was dismantled by a Civil War.

Meanwhile, let’s return to 1750 when Georgia was unique among Britain’s American colonies, as it was the only one of the colonies that attempted to prohibit African slavery as a matter of public policy. The trustees of the colony of Georgia under the leadership of James Oglethorpe, outlawed slavery and it remained so until Oglethorpe returned to England, at which time the trustees of the colony agreed that the ban on slavery be overturned.

Thus, the practice of slavery was legal in Georgia by the mid-1770s. According to the “History and Archaeology,” Oglethorpe and the trustees of Georgia had rejected slavery for the colony because they felt that slavery would be a threat to the security of the colony in that Spain, who occupied nearby Florida, and the enemy of England, would offer freedom to some slaves in exchange for military service against the colony.

In addition, reports the “New Georgia Encyclopedia,” the trustees of the colony wanted the early settlers to have a comfortable living rather than the prospect of the enormous personal wealth associated with the plantation economies elsewhere in the other British colonies.

The best long term situation would be for the settlers to obtain their living by working for themselves rather than being dependent upon the work of slaves. But these reasons set forth by the trustees to the early Savannah settlers did not last very long in that many settlers were reluctant to undertake the hard work necessary to succeed.

Some began to grumble that they would never make money unless they were allowed to use enslaved Africans, like their neighbors, South Carolinians across the other side of the Savannah River who were expanding their land acquisition and profiting from the African slaves.

The situation did change when Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Bloody Marsh and returned to England, having lost interest in Georgia. The trustees, without the leadership of Oglethorpe, agreed that the ban on slavery be overturned. By 1775, Georgia’s African slave population grew in size from less than 500 to approximately 18,000, according to the “History and Archaeology-Slavery in Colonial Georgia.” The population of enslaved Africans and their offsprings was to grow even more dramatically after Eli Whitney developed the world’s first cotton gin on a Wilkes County plantation in 1774.

The newly established government of the United States of America conducted its first official United States Census in 1790, the next year after the Constitution of the United States went into effect on March 4, 1789. Georgia’s total population grew from approximately 18,000 in 1775 to an official count of 82,548 in 1790, of which 31,500 or 38.1% of the people lived in Wilkes County. Wilkes County’s population consisted of 24,052 whites or 76.4%, a quarter of the State of Georgia’s African slaves, 7,268, or 32.1% and 180 free Africans or 0.6%, according to the U.S. Census of 1790.

What capital assets did the white Americans have to begin the economic development of Wilkes County? There were two million acres of debt free lands obtained at 11 cents per acre and 7,268 African slaves. What was the investment in human capital and the expected return in profits on the combined use of the land’s natural resources and the free and forced slave labor?

There are two reference sources which provide the history on the cost of buying enslaved human beings: Digital History – American History and Buying and Selling Human Beings. The price of a slave varied. Slaves were often divided into classes, such as Number One Men (19-25 years old); Fair/ Ordinary Men; Best Boys (15-18 years old); Best Boys (10-14 years old); Number One Women; Fair/Ordinary Women; Best Girls (10-15 years old); Women with One or Two Children and Families (also called “fancies” or “scrubs.”)

The price of slaves doubled after 1794 when Eli Whitney’s cotton gin was invented. Slaves that were sold for $500 each prior to 1794, the price increased to $1,500 a decade later. The price for slaves varied according to their economic classification and value, such as, Number One Men, $1,250-$1,450; Fair/ Ordinary Men, $1,000-$1,150; Best Boys (Age 15-18), $1,100-1,200; Best Boys (Age 10-14), $500-$575; Number One Women, $1,050-$1,225); Fair/Ordinary Women, $1,050-$1,225; Best Girls (age 10-15), $500-$1,000; and Women with One or Two Children and Families, sold at usual proportions of the above prices.

An Illustration:

What may have been the estimated cost for a slave owner in Wilkes County in 1790 to buy four slaves to start a small cotton farm and other related subsistence crops on 100 acres that he purchased for 11 cents per acre or $11.00 for the 100 acres of land, including other natural resources?

The estimated cost is projected thusly: Number One Man at the average price of $1,350; Number One Woman at the average price of $1,137; Best Boy (age 16) at the average price of $1,150; Best Girl (age 13) at the average price of $750.

The total capital investment for four human capital assets would be $4,387, plus the land cost of $11.00; total capital assets, $4,398.

One year later, the female slave gives birth to a boy; cost of additional capital asset to the slave owner, zero. Two years later the Best Girl is age 15 and gives birth to a boy; cost of additional capital asset to the slave owner, zero. Six years later, the slave owner has four grown adult slaves, two slave boys, ages 6 and 4. The two older female slaves give birth for the second time to another boy and girl. The slave owner after six years has 6 working age African slaves and two baby slaves, who will be working age within the next six years.

Meanwhile, the slave owner’s cotton production from 20 acres is producing 20 bales of cotton to be sold at 37 cents per pound, as recorded in the Slavery in America History. It also recorded that one acre could produce an average of 530 pounds of cotton. The owner received $3,922 from the sale of 20 bales as has been the case for the previous three years, total cash for three years, $11,766.

It can be assumed that at least 45 percent or less was used to cover farm operating costs, including covering his original investment of $4,387 for his slave property and to purchase farm equipment and animals, but the $6,472 remaining represents the return on the initial capital investment (human capital assets and land) of $4,398.

The four slaves alone have produced in six years enough income for the owner to personally have income of $2,074 in excess of cost over a three year period. In addition, the four children born to enslaved mothers have been added to the owner’s assets at no addition capital investment, to receive clothing, room and board.

Within the next six years the slave owner can double his cotton cultivation acreage to six acres per single slave, as recorded in the 1820 American Farmer, an agricultural magazine. The owner can at least put 70 acres of the 100 acres into cotton production therefore, with 24 years with the continuous increase in child birth, the production of cotton could grow to 70 bales or 530 pounds per bale, priced at each year’s market rate. The original four bought slaves and offsprings within a few years had produced excess income for their owner which far exceeds his initial investment of $4,398. Thereafter, more slave hands are born with no additional capital outlay required to replace the sick and dead. The landowner is able to continue to maintain increases in cotton production and related farm products for generations to come until 1865. End of illustration.

What can the above illustration tell us about the economic development of Wilkes County? From 7,268 African slaves in 1790 to an average of 8,191 slaves in each decade between 1800 and 1860, it is clear that the humongous economic development was accomplished by using free and forced slave laborers as human capital assets from the inception of slavery in 1775 to 1865. Ninety years of free and forced labor and it cost slave owners only clothing, room and board.

The accumulative social benefits and economic development of Wilkes County were acquired by a major input of free and forced labor of the African slaves. In 1824, Wilkes County was one of the wealthiest counties in the State of Georgia based on the tax payments, according to the Wilkes County, Georgia, Collection – The University of Michigan, William L. Clement Library.

Cotton production in the United States increased from 1,567,000 pounds in 1790 to 1,918,701,000 in 1860 as reported in King Cotton – The Fiber of Slavery by Jean M. West. The total cotton production in Georgia in 1860 was 584,000 bales and there were more than 1000 plantations in Georgia at least 1000 acres in size, according to the Research Bulletin – The Georgia Agriculture Experiment Station, College of Agriculture and Environmental Science, The University of Georgia.

We African-Americans and our ancestors back to 1865 were freed from slavery by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865 but economic subordination did not end and no wealth was ever redistributed (reparation). In 2005 there are still too many of us who have been unable to break the cycle of economic poverty and subordination. Between 2002 and 2005, 41.8 percent of our high school seniors did not graduate on time after spending 14 years learning how to meet graduating requirements.

We must challenge such illiteracy as another form of slavery. In 2005, 73.6 percent of Wilkes County’s incarcerated residents are African American. Is this self-imposed prison slavery? The future is just waiting to give our young adults between the ages of 25-35, and our younger children and grandchildren who obtain the necessary educational skills (free for the asking) competitive jobs ($45,000-$80,000, beginning at the age of 25) that are now available in the global market. Please “go west” young African-Americans in Wilkes County.

Don’t fuss or cuss, let’s discuss. What is your contribution to the solution?

Send your response to docdanner @nu-znet or P.O. Box 1328, Washington, Ga. 30673 or I have Laptop Power point, will travel to your community town hall meetings.

The opinions expressed by this columnist does not necessarily reflect the editorial position of this newspaper.