Slavery Revisited: Using Economic Reasoning to Teach about the Past and Present
or years, scholars have engaged in a F raging debate about the origin of slavery in the New World. Some scholars adhere to the cultural deterministic theory, which contends that Africans were enslaved on the basis of their perceived inferiority and the racist tendencies of their captors. Those arguing along these lines include Degler ( 1 97 I), Jordan (1974), and more recently, Sweet (1997) and Vaughan (1995). Other scholars, from an equally compelling school of thought, adhere to the economic determinist theory, which holds that the decision to enslave Africans was based purely on economic necessity of the South and claims that racism was a result of slavery, and not vice versa. Scholars working in this tradition include 0. and M. Handlin (1950), Morgan (1975), Rodney (1972), Williams (1944), and with more contemporary work, Fields (1990). What is not in dispute is that Africans filled a need for labor. Slavery was born out of economic motives. Its perpetuation was driven by economic factors, and