While most theories of capitalism set slavery apart, as something utterly distinct, because under slavery, workers do not labor for a wage, in fact slaves were seen as a form of capital, because they could reproduce and thus “grow” the initial capital investment beyond merely the economic production of the individual slave. At the dawn of the industrial age theorists like Rev. Thomas Malthus could not envision that capital, which is an asset that is used but not consumed in the production of goods and service, could compound and diversify its forms, increasing productivity and engendering economic growth. Yet, ironically, when Malthus penned his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, the economies of Western Europe already had crawled their way out of the socalled “Malthusian trap” and this was certainly the case in the New World with slavery. (Schneider and Schneider, 2007, …show more content…
In the years between 1725 and 1775, slavery became increasingly significant in the northern colonies. Massachusetts was the first slaveholding colony in New England. New York traced its connection to slavery and the slave trade back to the Dutch settlers of New Netherland in the seventeenth century. Philadelphia became an active site of the Atlantic slave trade, and slaves accounted for nearly 8% of the city’s population in 1770. In southern cities, including Charleston, urban slavery played an important role in the market economy. Slaves, both rural and urban, made up the majority of the working population of the thirteen