 Industrial slavery in the United States: the North Carolina turpentine industry 1849-61Gloria Vollmers Accounting History Review, 2003, vol. 13, issue 3, 369-392 Abstract: The operation of the North Carolina turpentine industry in the late Antebellum period (1849-61) depended upon labour supplied by slaves who were either owned or hired. The nature of the work, which covered thousands of acres of forestland, led to the use of a task system whereby each slave was assigned a large tract of forest that was worked with little supervision over several months. An important finding is the content and significance of the production records for the slaves assigned to these long-term tasks. The slaves, like those in other industries and on plantations, could earn a certain amount of money for themselves by taking on extra chores. Details of those payments appear in these records. The conditions of life, including food, clothing, and the forest environment are reconstructed where possible. The records raise some questions about the relationship between the payments, extra work and slave behaviour which however, remain unanswered. Keywords: industrial slavery; slavery; turpentine industry; accounting for slavery; North Carolina; archival research (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:13:y:2003:i:3:p:369-392 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09585200310001606626 Access Statistics for this article Accounting History Review is currently edited by Stephen Walker More articles in Accounting History Review from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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