Self-interest, Slavery, and the Exploitation of Elderly Slaves in the American South

Abstract In this article, I show how the self-serving economic worldview of enslavers—and their belief that aging was a process of inexorable physical loss—motivated them to sell or abandon enslaved people as they grew older. It seeks to diversify our understanding of the exploitative character of American slavery by moving away from considering the vast profits gained by individual slavers, the systems of control or production on large plantations, and the economic value of slavery writ large, and to instead show how self-interest led antebellum slavers of low-to-middling means to offload the aged enslaved, and their stated need to avoid the obligations associated with paternalism on account of their own reduced circumstances. Rather than focus on the economic “efficiency” of slavers, or accede to their self-image as “masters”—whether of enslaved people or of the market—I emphasize their sense of insecurity and weakness when looking to rid themselves of elderly slaves. In doing so, I undermine their claims to mastery, underline how slavery was a system of exploitation enmeshed in wider social, economic, and political concerns, and provide direct evidence of the self-interest that shaped the actions of southern enslavers and the harm this caused enslaved people.