Existing comment:
In the antebellum years, most southerners considered slavery a vital economic necessity, even though a majority of southerners were not slaveowners. The social and economic hierarchy of the South provided whites the opportunity to own or least reap benefits from the slave system.
Slaves were valued both as personal property and for the work they performed. By definition of the law, slaves were a commodity that could be bought, sold, inherited, managed and "hired out" for the owner's profit.
Although legally defined as property, slaves were people. Potential and actual economic transactions affected the lives of African-Americans dramatically. |