nded with the changing value of the
slaves. Phillips publishes a detailed table of slave values in which he
estimates that an unskilled, able-bodied young slave man was worth $300
in 1795; $500 to $700 in 1810; $700 to $1200 to in 1840; and $1100 to
$1800 in 1860.[26] The factors which resulted in the increased slave
prices were the increased demand for cotton, the increased demand for
slaves, and the decrease in the importation of negroes due to the
greater severity of the prohibitions on the slave trade.

5. _Slavery for a Race_

The American colonists needed labor to develop the wilderness. White
labor was scarce and high, so the colonists turned to slave labor
performed by imported blacks. The merchants of the North built the ships
and carried on the slave trade at an immense profit. The plantation
owners of the South exploited the Negroes after they reached the states.

The continuance of the slave trade and the provision of a satisfactory
supply of slaves for the Southern market depended upon slave-catching in
Africa, which, in turn, involved the destruction of an entire
civilization. This work of destruction was carried forward by the
leading commercial nations of the world. During nearly 250 years the
English speaking inhabitants of America took an active part in the
business of enslaving, transporting and selling black men. These
Americans--citizens of the United States--bought stolen Negroes on the
African coast; carried them against their will across the ocean; sold
them into slavery, and then, on the plantations, made use of their
enforced labor.

Both slavery and the slave trade were based on a purely economic
motive--the desire for profit. In order to satisfy that desire, the
American people helped to depopulate villages,--to devastate, burn,
murder and enslave; to wipe out a civilization, and to bring the
unwilling objects of their gain-lust thousands of miles across an
impassable barrier to alien shores.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] "History of the Gold Coast," W. W. Claridge. London, Murray, 1915,
vol. I, p. 39.

[13] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1908,
p. 43.

[14] "A History of the Gold Coast," W. W. Claridge. London, Murray,
1915, vol. I, p. 144.

[15] Ibid., p. 150.

[16] "American Negro Slavery," U. B. Phillips. New York, Appleton, 1918,
p. 20.

[17] "History of the Gold Coast," W. W. Claridge. London, Murray, 1915,
vol. I, p. 172.

[18] "Economic History of