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Accounting for the Business of Suffering: A Study of the Antebellum Richmond, Virginia, Slave Trade

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  • JAN RICHARD HEIER

Abstract

When the Congress barred the importation of slaves into the United States in 1808, it left the internal slave trade intact. The trade took on a new importance as the slave states of the Old South saw their agricultural economies shift to a point that holding large numbers of slaves became too expensive. During this time, the large agricultural concerns shifted to the New South, where cotton and sugar plantations needed the cheap labour provided by the institution of slavery. As this transition intensified, Richmond, Virginia, became a central slave market that facilitated the interstate slave trade as Old South planters chose the course of selling slaves as a valuable commodity rather than the course of manumission. The records of two businesses—Dickinson & Hill and Hector Davis & Company—which plied the slave trade in the Richmond market, have survived into the twenty‐first century. These records revealed a primitive, yet sophisticated, process to account for the consignment, purchase, and sales of human merchandise in this haunting story of the ‘business of suffering’.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Richard Heier, 2010. "Accounting for the Business of Suffering: A Study of the Antebellum Richmond, Virginia, Slave Trade," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 46(1), pages 60-83, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:46:y:2010:i:1:p:60-83
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6281.2010.00306.x
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    1. Miller, Randall M., 1981. "The Fabric of Control: Slavery in Antebellum Southern Textile Mills," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(4), pages 471-490, January.
    2. Alfred H. Conrad & John R. Meyer, 1958. "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South: Reply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(5), pages 442-442.
    3. Gloria Vollmers, 2003. "Industrial slavery in the United States: the North Carolina turpentine industry 1849-61," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 369-392.
    4. Claire Nash & Dale Flesher, 2005. "Employee leasing. The antebellum 1800s and the twenty-first century: A historical perspective of the contingent labour force," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 63-76.
    5. Jonathan B. Pritchett & Richard M. Chamberlain, 1993. "Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 461-473.
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    Cited by:

    1. Walaa Wahid ElKelish*, 2023. "Accounting for Corporate Human Rights: Literature Review and Future Insights," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 33(2), pages 203-226, June.

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