| Existing comment:
Slave and free African-American labor was critical to the Confederacy's effort to industrialize. Historians estimate that ninety percent of military-age white males served either in Confederate armies or in state and local homeguards. This could never have occurred without the employment of African-American labor on the farms and factories. Virginia and Georgia iron mills, coal fields, and nitrate works were especially dependent upon African-American labor. At the outbreak of war, ninety percent of Virginia's coal miners were African-Americans. Many business records were destroyed during the war, or afterwards, but we do know that Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond employed 1,200 African-Americans -- roughly half of its work-force. Free blacks worked for wages while planters were paid for slaves they leased to government or private production plants. Black labor was in such high demand that the salaries of free blacks in the various Richmond works increased substantially. |