Slaves Participation In The Internal Economy

I believe the slaves’ participation in the internal economy was a form of resistance because they were owning things or animals which was one step closer to freedom and land ownership. Which in the end lead to the right to vote and citizenship. However, I believe it was a form of resistance in the eyes of the slaves’. Yet, in the eyes of the slave owners it was just a mere trick to keep peace with the slaves, so they would not run away. This was shown in the case of Nancy Bacon, John Baker, Andrew Stacy and Mr. Walthour, Nancy Bacon who belonged to Baker had inherited cattle from her deceased husband who had belonged to Mr. Walthour. Bacon then employed her second cousin Stacy to take charge of the cattle and drive them over. According to Stacy, Mr. Walthour “didn’t object to my taking them and never claimed them”, he did not object because he legally did not own the cattle and knew he could not stop them. Some masters would …show more content…
The attitude this independence produced was suggested in one freedman’s passing comment that, when he was a slave he used to work in his “own field” after completing his task (Morgan 415). This could have felt like a resistance to the slaves because they were finishing early on their master’s field but they were still able to be free and have their own crop and possibly create a profit from it. Another example would be of Paris James, who was a former slave driver, who was described as a “substantial man before the war and was more like a free man than any slave” (Morgan 411). James owned eight cows, a horse, sixteen sheep, a wagon, and twenty-six hogs. Mentioned by another slave driver James had all the credit as a white man’s because he had property to back his items up. Although, the credit of owning these items did nothing in law when the items were stolen or lost because yet again they were lower down in