to the risks of their business. A news item
of 1849 reported that an outbreak of cholera at the Hillman Iron Works near
Clarksville, Tenn., had brought the death of four or five slaves and the
removal of the remainder from the vicinity until the epidemic should have
passed.[40] A more normal episode of mere financial failure was that which
wrecked the Nesbitt Manufacturing Company whose plant was located on Broad
River in South Carolina. To complete its works and begin operations this
company procured a loan of some $92,000 in 1837 from the Bank of the State
of South Carolina on the security of the land and buildings and a hundred
slaves owned by the company. After several years of operation during which
the purchase of additional slaves raised the number to 194, twenty-seven of
whom were mechanics, the company admitted its insolvency. When the mortgage
was foreclosed in 1845 the bank bought in virtually the whole property to
save its investment, and operated the works for several years until a new
company, with a manager imported from Sweden, was floated to take the
concern off its hands.[41]

[Footnote 40: New Orleans _Delta_, Mch. 10, 1849.]

[Footnote 41: _Report of the Special Joint Committee appointed to examine
the Bank of the State of South Carolina_ (Charleston, 1849); _Report of
the President and Directors of the Bank of the State of South Carolina,
November, 1850_ (Columbia, 1850).]

Most of the cotton mills depended wholly upon white labor, though a few
made experiments with slave staffs. One of these was in operation in Maury
County, Tennessee, in 1827,[42] and another near Pensacola, Florida, twenty
years afterward. Except for their foremen, each of these was run by slave
operatives exclusively; and in the latter case, at least, all the slaves
were owned by the company. These comprised in 1847 some forty boys and
girls, who were all fed, and apparently well fed, at the company's
table.[43] The career of these enterprises is not ascertainable. A better
known case is that of the Saluda Factory, near Columbia, South Carolina.
When J. Graves came from New England in 1848 to assume the management of
this mill he found several negroes among the operatives, all of whom were
on hire. His first impulse was to replace all the negroes with whites; but
before this was accomplished the newcomer was quite converted by their
"activity and promptness," and he recommended that the number of black
operatives be increased i