Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism - The Half Has Never Been Told

This is a book that every American should read. Mr. Baptist provides a platform that enables a reader to come to a certain truth about our Nation. It should be mandatory reading in History courses. This book will change your life!

I appreciated Professor Baptist blending of slave narratives into the raw fabric of American Capitalism most simplest and often disregarded component—wealth derived from mortgaging African American forced free labor. An excellent companion read is the "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, "by Professor Joy DeGruy. It will help readers understand slaves ancestors' enduring injury and the need for healing.

Here, without false patriotic embellishment, or sentimentalism, is the true story of slavery, and how for the last three centuries, it came to dominate every aspect of the American consciousness, and shadow the American way of life.

In America, despite its self-congratulatory democratic pretenses to the contrary, there was no political, moral, religious or economic imperatives, or an alternative higher consciousness, than the will to buy and sell human flesh for profit. Simply put, this book shows how slavery and its meanings were intertwined with the development of capitalism, and how together they have co-evolved to continuously dominate the American mind from the colonial era well into the present.

In this book, the institution that made America ceases to be a quaint abstraction. Here, without benefit of its normal disingenuous rosy blinkers, slavery is seen for what it was: literally the "meat and bones" of a horribly destructive and evil way of life, one built up on the backs of those shackled in irons for a nine thousand mile voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in the filthy cubby-holes of boats, to a forced-march through the swamps of Louisiana, where their bodies were greased-up for the slave markets of New Orleans, and then were "seasoned with the whip," and put to "pushing" to increase their labor output.

The unmistakable justification for this unmitigated evil way was, and has always been: the great profits and riches that slaves could bring. Cotton, tobacco, slaves and the whip, became not just the engines of American capitalism, but also its ideology and its way of life. The brutality of slavery and capitalism developed hand-in-hand; you could not have had one without the other. Period.

There were no "moral-free zones," for the American conscience, no sacred corners of the American way of life tucked away off limits and protected from the willful self-generated evil of slavery. All institutions, peoples, and ideologies were implicated in, corrupted by, or ruled by slavery.

Even the morally pristine Quakers and other abolitionist religious groups, at one time or another succumbed to either owning or exploiting slaves. And even when religious guilt did eventually get the best of them, forcing them out into a "existential moral clearing," where they had no choice but to confront their own consciences and face the contradictions of what it meant to engage in a way of life that was so utterly evil, they still remained white supremacist racists to the bitter end.

In the modern American mind, erroneously we have come to equate abolitionism with being "anti-racist," and "anti-racism" with, being "pro-black." However, as we see, this book frees us from that disillusionment. In fact, both equations were wrong, as it remains as true today, as it was during the colonial era, that other than blacks themselves, there is no "pro-black" constituency in American society. Anti-racism in America does not mean "pro-black," nor does it mean "anti-white supremacy," either.

Here we have the names and addresses of the perpetrators given through the horror stories of their victims. Slaves have been abruptly awakened from the dead to provide their testimonies of their day-to-day lives through a uniquely American made hell. And even though the truth of their stories will remain palpable forever, their stories are not provided here in the typical way, as just another opportunity for false white empathy for the victims to be used to misdirect attention away from the white perpetrators.

Here, the testimonies are provided as a sober reminder, and as an opportunity to reflect on, just how addictive the drug of slavery really was; and on just how utterly evil slavery in America really was. As a consequence of this evil intoxication, this book shows just how utterly evil men had to be, to continuously run the risk each day of their lives of being overrun by the slaves who they had shackled in order to steal labor from them for the entirety of their lives.

This canvas of evil, this dark cloud of all-pervasive fear makes up the main constituent part of American culture. The fear of slave revolts, of race mixing, and the deepest fear of all: that revenge would eventually be exacted for the crimes committed against slave women, all implemented through brutality, rape, use of the whip, callousness, and general meanness, is what inexorably evolved into the American way of life that we have today.

And make no mistake about it, the American way is still one ruled by the same primitive racial fears and traits that have pervaded American culture since the colonial days, and continues to do so today, three centuries later. Witness exhibit number one: our 45th President-elect, Mr. Donald Trump.

This American continent, "the continent of slavery," is the same one that now curiously claims as its moral patrimony, democracy, freedom, equality, justice and religious brotherhood. But in a culture that has evolved from slavery, those traits mysteriously still get stopped at the color line, and thus are not the true moral patrimony of the American way of life. Today's police culture and subconscious racism, and the trail of fears that comes as its baggage, makes clear that the midwife of American culture has always been fear, racial brutality, callousness and meanness. These are all racial meanings inherited directly from slavery, not from democracy.

How could these maestros, drunk with "slashing with the whip," so dependent on slavery for their own survival, have so smoothly flipped the switch from three centuries of unmitigated brutality and evil against their black brothers, to suddenly changing overnight into democracy, equality, justice, and religious brotherhood? Can it really be done without permanent scar tissue? I don't think so. Ten stars

This is an outstanding work that should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand what the history of this country is all about. It explains so much about the nature of slavery in this country and how it impacted our society. We're still feeling the effects today.

Thank you for telling this half. I have read extensively from the few authors gutsy enough to tackle this unspoken, ugly, still evident todaypiece of American history/ culture. Read this book and SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME, to fully comprehend the underpinnings of the racism still powerfully present in the news today. Write to Prof. Baptist. He is accessible and helpful. I will be incorporating this books info into my 2015-16 high school American Lit. unit on Harlem Renaissance poetry. NEVER BEEN TOLD'S history informs its themes. Every year, when my kids learn about this unstudied history, they ask me why they never read about this before!!! THAT is why I teach it!

This book revealed how slave labor and slave trade fueled economic activity in the early development of our country. This is a must read for people who want to understand how certain people how benefited from slavery, even until the present day.

Monumental book. Describes how the wealth of early US capitalism and the British industrial revolution were based on slave labor and how the increases in slave "efficiency" were achieved by torture. A grisly tale everyone should read. Revisionist history at its finest.

Well researched and beautifully written. Very insightful and informative. The book adequately dealt with the half that has never been told and how slavery indeed was immensely responsible for the making of American capitalism.

It took reading this book to make me realize once and for all that everything we were taught in school about the history of America was wrong. And the sad part is that they are still teaching this trash today. Everything is a lie from the story about Columbus discovering America all the way to our political system and our right to vote. I am convinced that the only way the planet will ever evolve beyond the need to enslave another fellow human being is when Capitalism and all the "isms" are destroyed.

This book makes you wonder anew at the venality of the slave traders and slave owners of our nation, who treated human beings as expendable animals to be whipped and worked to death, in the interests of economic gain. It is an eye-opening antidote to the euphemisms and coverup of the sad history of slavery in this country. Substituting "slave labor camp" for "plantation" in our discourse would be a good start for taking a more honest view of our history.

Very well researched and extremely detailed, this historical narrative describes an era in American history we'd probably all prefer not to think about very much. The book covers all kinds of pragmatic and fascinating period detail including politics (both local and national), economics, finance and the direct human stories of the millions of Americans involved on all sides of this divisive issue. It moves a tad slow at times, but a very powerful and important work.

This is broad, sweeping examination of the distorted effects of slavery on the development of our nation. Contrary to what we have been taught, the intended and collateral impact of slavery on the growth of our nation, particularly expansion into the Southwest, has been grossly understated. The impact was huge, radiating north to states like Connecticut (which manufactured the implements necessary for slaves to do their work), and across the ocean (to England, which imported all the valuable cotton made by the "hands").

When one steps back and considers how the West was won, it was won on the backs of slaves, which provided the raw material, the incentive, and the profits necessary to push out or kill the Native Americans, seize their lands, and turn them into productive homesteads, farms, and cities.

Although long, given the clear organizational and narrative structure, this book was worth every page. Indeed, Mr. Baptist is a gifted writer, picking up on small details to weave a very compelling individual story, and then linking that story into the bigger picture.

Well done.

An extraordinary history survey of the African American experience. This author delved deeply and explored widely to assemble critically important observations of what Blacks had to deal with in America; insights into the characters responsible for the behaviors of slave owners and slaves, and understandings of the impact of the legacy of the continuing plunder and pillage of a conquered people.

I have already purchased this text for a friend because it is astoundingly researched and an enriching read. I hope to incorporate this text into my courses and I have recommended it to students. Baptist has done us all a favor, those of us interested in the truth of the enslavement of Black people and its economic foundation for America

Fantastic book that both introduces and integrates many topics related to Slavery in the US in an easy to read manner. A number of myths are debunked and a very real history of the United States is presented. The subject matter is not always pleasant to face, but is the reality of American History. The book encourages one to read the biographies of the key players of the 1790 - 1860 period to help round out the basic knowledge gained from the book itself. The image of President Lincoln is enhanced because his clear vision of the future is placed in perspective.