Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery is a book authored by Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman
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Time on the Cross directly challenged the long-held conclusions that American slavery was unprofitable, a moribund institution, inefficient, and extremely harsh for typical slave. Instead, the authors propose that slavery before the Civil War was economically efficient, especially in the case of the South, which grew crops such as cotton, sugar, and coffee. These types of crops were usually grown on plantations that employed gang system of labor that was monitored and thus more efficient. Fogel wrote that small farms were just as productive as free farms and that it was only large plantation-style slave farms (16+ slaves) were the most efficient, having a Total Factor Productivity ratio (Ai/Aj) to be around 1.33. Fogel also wrote that if slaves had a day of rest, they tended to be more efficient because of the extra day of rest. They would be able to regain their energy and thus have more energy to produce more. In addition, since different crops were grown in the South and the North, it was noted that although slavery was efficient in the South, it wouldn't have been in the North due to different weather conditions.
The authors predicted that if slavery had not been abolished, the price of slaves would have continued to rise rapidly in the late 19th century as more cotton lands were put into production. The book compares conditions and economics in the "Old South" (Atlantic Coastal states) with the "New South" (areas further west) and uses available statistics to shed light on slave life. The authors point out that in the traumatic disruption following emancipation, the life expectancy of freedmen declined by ten percent, and their illnesses increased by twenty percent, over slavery times. The authors use oral interviews conducted by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration, United States Census information, and other statistical data to assert that many slaves were encouraged to marry and maintain households, that they were given garden plots, that the dehumanizing practice of "slave breeding" was virtually non-existent, that the quality of their daily diets and medical care were comparable to the white population, and that many trusted slaves were given great responsibility in managing plantations.
The book received a large amount of mainstream media attention for its revisionism, impressed the historical community with its use of cliometrics, and outraged many in the civil rights community (with some calling it a rallying cry for racism). In general its findings and methodology were severely criticized by many historians and economists.
Historian Herbert Gutman criticized the authors' reliance on evidence from a single, unrepresentative plantation. He also noted the authors were extremely careless in their math, and often used the wrong measurement to estimate the harshness of slavery (for example, estimating the number of slaves whipped rather than how often each slave was whipped). In Slavery and the Numbers Game, Gutman argued that Fogel and Engerman also routinely ignored better, readily-available data. Gutman roundly criticized Fogel and Engerman on a host of other claims as well, including the lack of evidence for systematic and regular rewards and a failure to consider the effect public whipping would have on other slaves. Gutman also argued that Fogel and Engerman had fallen prey to an ideological pitfall by assuming that slaves had assimilated the Protestant work ethic. If they had such an ethic, then the system of punishments and rewards outlined in Time on the Cross would support Fogel and Engerman's thesis. Gutman conclusively showed, however, that most slaves had not adopted this ethic at all and that slavery's carrot-and-stick approach to work was not part of the slave worldview. Gutman's critique was so thorough that later reviewers called Time on the Cross "severely flawed and possibly not even worth further attention by serious scholars." Other historians disagree with Gutman. For instance, William Whitney from the University of Pennsylvania asserted, "I believe it represents a monumental work of historical scholarship, and an unavoidable challenge to historians who wish to argue from a different perspective.". The great politically liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith called Time on the Cross one of the greatest books of the century.
In American Slavery, historian Peter Kolchin suggests that their flapping away the slaves's move from Eastern non-cotton-producing states to Western cotton-producing states may be a bit steep.[1]
Elton and Engleman controversially asserted that slavery also had a reciprocal economic benefit for slave owners and slaves themselves claiming, "slave owners expropriated far less than generally presumed, and over the course of a lifetime a slave field hand received approximately ninety percent of the income produced."(p. 5-6)
Nevertheless, debate and controversy continue over the conclusions reached in Time on the Cross. A large number of symposia and roundtables discussed the books, generating large numbers of scholarly articles and books about the work.