Remarks on the Population, Culture, and Products of Louisiana: The Economics of Enslaved Labor on Plantations

[Slavery] Daniel Clark. "Remarks on the Population, Culture, and Products of Louisiana." pp. 45 - 57 in The Literary Magazine and American Register, January 1807 Vol. VII, No. 40. Philadelphia. 1807. Bound with five monthly issues, front cover lacking. Pages are browned. The last few pages of the issue are lacking. Poor.

OCLC shows ten holdings for this magazine, seven in the US. Clark addresses the criticisms that New Orleans and the area along the Mississippi is unhealthy and then documents the opportunities for immigrants to take advantage of the fertile land for raising sugarcane and cotton. He provides extensive details on the actual sales, expenses and large profits that were being made, almost all dependent on enslaved labor. The cost of enslaved people is shown as a business expense. Enslaved people were valued higher in Louisiana ($500) then in Virginia and Maryland ($280) because of the higher economic benefit of their labor in Louisiana. In describing the economics of growing cotton versus sugarcane, Clark writes "in the calculation of the price of slaves for a cotton plantation, they are rated less than in the calculation for a sugar estate; the reason is, it is not necessary they should all be slaves in the prime of their age and strength; the labor is lighter; there are to be a greater proportion of women, and boys and girls above 12 are nearly as useful as the best of other hands… . A cotton plantation, though not, perhaps, so productive as a sugar establishment, has still many advantages. It may be undertaken, with success, by any number of hands, from one to 100. The expenses at first are trifling, the labor is light, and the country in general, from one extremity to the other, is suited to it; whereas, but a smaller portion of it is adapted to the culture of the Cane. The lands therefore, required by the cotton planter are easy to be procured at a cheap rate, and nothing but sobriety, industry and perseverance are required to make him, in the course of the three years, a man of opulent fortune " pp. 56–57. Clark was a large slaver and one of the wealthiest and most influential men in New Orleans. He assisted the US before and after the Louisiana Purchase and became the first delegate from the territory of Orleans to the US Congress. An important primary source regarding slavery and plantation economics in the United States.