Slave punishments escalated and slackened with cotton market prices

Evidence

Planters’ profits were harnessed through the anguish of the enslaved. Punishments rose and fell with global market fluctuations. Speaking of cotton in 1854, John Brown, a fugitive from slavery, remembered, “When the price rises in the English market, the poor slaves immediately feel the effects, for they are harder driven, and the whip is kept more constantly going.” In making possible the pursuit of nearly limitless personal fortunes at someone else’s expense, slavery put a cash value on our moral commitments. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 579

Categorization

• CANDY: A quotable, grim one-liner from a fugitive slave that pins the market-to-violence link in vivid words.