Postbellum Economic Growth - Human Capital in the South Atlantic Region Versus the North Atlantic Region of the United States

 Introduction

    This blog post will examine the economic growth and conditions of two territories of the postbellum United States: the South Atlantic region versus the North Atlantic region immediately following the Civil War. Additionally, this blog post will examine human capital and postbellum human economic behavior in those same regions. First, human capital must be explained in postbellum terms, understanding that white plantation owners in the South Atlantic had to contend with a new mode of existence after slavery which included policies that made it difficult for African Americans and poor whites to succeed in planting. Next, a description of the emerging differences in postbellum societies of the South Atlantic and North Atlantic regions should be compared to show the differences in economic growth in relation to human capital. Third, a conclusion can be drawn that shows the North Atlantic region far exceeded the South Atlantic region of the United States when it came to human capital, economic differentiation, and economic growth. Finally, an explanation of why the North Atlantic region so far exceeded the South Atlantic region in raising its human capital is essential. In the end, the North Atlantic region exceeded the South Atlantic region in the value of its human capital and economic growth was because of the North's cultural emphasis on education, capitalism, and refinement of skills, while the South Atlantic region grappled with simple survival on an agricultural setting in the postbellum period, putting education and other forms of industry on the backburner. Additionally, the North Atlantic population was much more likely to leave agriculture and enter a field such as business than their South Atlantic counterparts, according to U.S. Census data compiled by Joseph D. Reid, whose article is used below.

Research Methodology

    For this project, I used scholarly journals to research human capital and human labor in the South Atlantic and North Atlantic regions in the United States in the postbellum period. I found several scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles that outlined how the South Atlantic region used penal codes and penal systems such as convict leasing to ensure many African Americans and some poor white Americans were put back into the plantation workforce in a loophole of the Thirteenth Amendment. Next, I found a data set put into a graph in one of those articles that showed the average income for a worker from both regions from the immediate postbellum period to 1880, which showed the North Atlantic region having higher worker incomes and higher human capital values than the South Atlantic region. Finally, for my primary sources, I used U.S. Census Data up to 1900 on black sharecropping found in Joseph D. Reid's scholarly journal article, "White Land, Black Labor, and Agricultural Stagnation: The Causes and Effects of Sharecropping in the Postbellum South," (1979), and a 1967 graph showing incomes of North Atlantic and South Atlantic human capital from census data from 1865-1900 in Michelle Connolly's scholarly journal article, "Human Capital and Growth in the Postbellum South: A Separate but Unequal Story," (2004). 

The End of Slavery: The South Atlantic Region

    After slavery was effectively ended and the American Civil War was over, there was still a great need for human labor in the South Atlantic region of the United States.1 This was largely due to the fact that the South was heavily reliant upon slavery to prop up their agricultural economy. Many states, such as Georgia, turned to "convict leasing" beginning in 1865 in an experimental method of filling the gap left by the end of slavery. 2 By the mid-1870s, Georgia had turned fully towards turning out all of its convicts for labor, usually in agriculture.3 In one southern state, an African American man was arrested for the crime of "vagrancy," and was sentenced to be leased out as labor, the emerging form of human capital in the South and South Atlantic regions.4 In other words, human capital was based on very cheap labor of prisoners. While slavery had been abolished, in reality, the South Atlantic region of the United States had simply found a loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment and extended the use of primarily black convicts as a new form of slave labor to help fill work shortage gaps in the agricultural sector.5 In addition to convict leasing programs which created an underclass of convicts working in the agricultural industry vacated by slaves, in the postbellum South Atlantic region, some modern economists note that education was not heavily emphasized, as the region grappled with simply keeping their agricultural system alive.6 The lack of emphasis on education meant that both African Americans and Caucasians in the South Atlantic region lacked an emphasis on furthering education or refining skills, lowering their human capital value.7 Furthermore, according to postbellum U.S. Census Data, white Southerners were much less likely to leave planting and move to urban areas to find or refine skill sets or gain an education.8 In fact, white Southerners in the South Atlantic region in that same data were ten times less likely to leave agricultural livelihoods to pursue educational betterment than their Northern counterparts.9

The End of Slavery: The North Atlantic Region

    Unlike the South Atlantic region, the North Atlantic region of the United States had a head start on emerging human capital, just in different terms. The North Atlantic region placed its emphasis on human capital in the forms of education and industry, leading to a much faster-growing economic sector in human capital.7 Since the North Atlantic states had little to no reliance on human slavery, their human capital was not based on simple agricultural labor. Rather, it was based on refined skills, furthering education, and emerging capitalist industries.8 This difference meant that the average worker in the North Atlantic region in the postbellum period far exceeded the human capital of the average worker in the South Atlantic region.9 In one analysis, in 1967 dollars, the average South Atlantic worker earned just under four dollars per month in the period immediately following the end of the Civil War.10 In the same analysis, in 1880, the North Atlantic region had human capital per worker estimated at over eight dollars per month, while the South Atlantic region was just over seven dollars per month.11 Throughout the postbellum period starting in 1865 until 1900, the North Atlantic human capital value exceeded the South Atlantic human capital value by at least one dollar.12

Conclusion

    Since the South Atlantic region of the United States relied so heavily on agriculture and slavery in its economy, once the Civil War was over and slavery ended, the region had to rely on extreme measures to survive. This included placing many black and sometimes white persons in massive prison systems that leased out human labor as a form of human capital. This system did not allow for much economic growth, and it did not advance the region as a whole in an efficient way. On the other hand, the North Atlantic region placed emphasis on its human capital in terms of educating its population in university systems, capitalist business endeavors, and like areas. This was largely due to the fact that the region did not have to recalculate its economy due to the end of slavery. This resulted in a much faster growth in what the average worker in the North Atlantic region earned yearly immediately following the Civil War in the postbellum period. In the end, the North Atlantic region advanced its population and human capital worth much faster than the South Atlantic region. The ultimate conclusion is that the North Atlantic region improved its economic conditions in relation to human capital faster and in a more efficient manner than the South Atlantic region.15

Footnotes:

1. Michelle Connolly. "Human Capital and Growth in the Postbellum South: A Separate but Unequal Story." The Journal of Economic History, 363.

2. Christopher Muller. "Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South." American Journal of Sociology, 367. 

3. Ibid, 368.

4. Brad Stoddard. "Slaves of the State: Christianity and Convict Labor in the Postbellum South." Religion, 651.

5. Ibid, 651.

6. Michelle Connolly. "Human Capital and Growth in the Postbellum South," 366.

7. Ibid, 365.

8. Joseph D. Reid. "White Land, Black Labor, and Agricultural Stagnation: The Causes and Effects of Sharecropping in the Postbellum South." Explorations in Economic History 16, No. 1 (1979): 31.

9. Joseph D. Reid.  "White Land, Black Labor, and Agricultural Stagnation: The Causes and Effects of Sharecropping in the Postbellum South." Explorations in Economic History 16, No. 1 (1979): 31.

10. Michelle Connolly. "Human Capital and Growth in the Postbellum South," 365.

11. Ibid, 365.

12. Ibid, 365.

13. Ibid, 365.

14. Ibid, 365.

15. Joseph D. Reid. "White Land, Black Labor, and Agricultural Stagnation: The Causes and Effects of Sharecropping in the Postbellum South."

Source List:

Connolly, Michelle. “Human Capital and Growth in the Postbellum South: A Separate but Unequal Story.” The Journal of Economic History 64, No. 2 (2004): 363–99. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3874778.

Muller, Christopher. 2018. “Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South.” American Journal of Sociology 124 (2): 367–405. doi:10.1086/698481.

Reid, Joseph D. "White Land, Black Labor, and Agricultural Stagnation. the Causes and Effects of Sharecropping in the Postbellum South." Explorations in Economic History 16, No. 1 (1979): 31, http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fwhite-land-black-labor-agricultural-stagnation%2Fdocview%2F1305247025%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D12085. 

Stoddard, Brad. "“Slaves of the State”: Christianity and Convict Labor in the Postbellum South." Religions 11, No. 12 (2020): 651. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fslaves-state-christianity-convict-labor%2Fdocview%2F2468074166%2Fse-2.