The sentence, “As to agricultural labour, we have none,” must mean no free labour, the number of slaves in this county being according to the Census 8,161, or nearly 3,000 more than the whole white population. There are also 250 free negroes in the county.
From a Correspondent of the ‘American Agriculturist,’ Feb. 14, 1855.
“As to labourers, we work chiefly slaves, not because they are cheaper, but rather because they are the only reliable labour we can get. The whites here engage to work for less price than the blacks can be got for; yet they will not work well, and rarely work out the time specified. If any of your friends come here and wish to work whites, I would advise them by all means to bring them with them; for our white labourers are far inferior to our blacks, and our black labour is far inferior to what we read and hear of your labourers.
“C. G. G.
“Albemarle Co., Virginia.”
In Albemarle there are over thirteen thousand slaves to less than twelve thousand whites.
Among the native Virginians I find most intelligent men, very ready to assert that slavery is no disadvantage to Virginia, and, as necessary to the maintenance of this assertion, that slave-labour is no clearer than free-labour, that is, than free-labour would be, if slavery did not exist. It is even said—and, as I have shown, it is practically true, at least wherever slavery has not in a great measure withdrawn from the field—that white labour cannot live in competition with slave-labour. In other words, the holder of slave-labour controls the local market for labour, and the cost of slave-labour fixes the cost of everything which is produced by slave-labour. But it is a mistake which the Virginians generally make, when they jump from this to the conclusion that slave-labour is therefore cheaper under all circumstances than free-labour. It is evident that slaves are valuable for another purpose than to supply the local demand for their labour, namely, to supply the demand of the cotton planter; consequently those slaves which are employed to supply the local demand, must be employed either at a loss, or at what they are worth to the cotton planter. Whether this is more or less than free-labour would cost if the field were open, can only be ascertained by comparing the cost of slave-labour in Virginia with the cost of free-labour in the Free States.
An exact comparison on a large scale I cannot find the means of making, but I have taken a great many notes which lead me with confidence to a few important general conclusions.
Wages.—Many thousand slaves have been hired in Eastern Virginia during the time of my visit. The wages paid for able working men—sound, healthy, in good condition, and with no especial vices, from twenty to thirty years old—are from $110 to $140; the average, as nearly as I can ascertain, from very extended inquiry, being $120 per year, with board and lodging, and certain other expenses. These wages must represent exactly the cost of slave-labour, because any considerations which would prevent the owner of a slave disposing of his labour for those wages, when the labour for his own purposes would not be worth as much, are so many hindrances upon the free disposal of his property, and thereby deduct from its actual value, as measured with money.
As the large majority of slaves are employed in agricultural labour, and many of those, hired at the prices I have mentioned, are taken directly from the labour of the farm, and are skilled in no other, these wages represent the cost of agricultural labour in Eastern Virginia.
In New York, the usual wages for similar men, if Americans, white or black, are exactly the same in the money part; for Irish or German labourers the most common wages are $10 per month, for summer, and $8 per month, for winter, or from $96 to $120 a year, the average being about $108.