by Leighton Smith

Created on: July 15, 2009   Last Updated: July 18, 2009

The abolition of slavery was unprecedented. From time immemorial, slavery had existed on every continent. All major religions at one time or another gave authoritative permission for slavery. Many societies relied on slavery as their primary source of labor. And yet in less than one century, the institution of slavery was brought to an end. What possible explanations are there for such a phenomenon? Scholars of slavery have debated this question, and their findings tend to cite either economics or morality as the cause for the ending of slavery.

Economics cannot, by itself, account for the abolition of slavery. In the antebellum United States, slavery was flourishing when the abolition movement began to gain momentum. Indeed, from 1791 and on, slave prices were on the rise. With this increase in price came an increase in productivity, based on economies of scale.

In this economic tendency, the plantation's production would increase with each added slave. If productivity was rising, plantation owners would have wanted to continue the slave trade. There was no decrease in productivity or profits, so this facet of economics could not be a reason for ending slavery.

Planters had also honed their managerial techniques by the end of the 18th century. The planters had years of experience with plantation management and they knew what had to be done to ensure maximum efficiency from their workers. Economically-minded slave owners implemented systems such as gang and task labor, both of which had their advantages.

Gang labor relied on the monopoly of force for efficiency, while task labor offered an appealing incentive to the slaves - that they were finished with work after completing their assigned task - that led to their effective completion of work. These practices led to optimal economic efficiency.

West Indian historian Eric Williams proposed an economic explanation for the end of slavery. Williams' based his thesis on the idea that the British West Indies were declining in political and economic importance during the first part of the 19th century. Therefore, Britain was willing to let go of its investments in the islands.

Upon closer inspection, however, his argument does not hold up. Slavery had been banned by 1807, and only started to decline after this point. Williams based his theory on this decline. Up until 1807, demand for sugar and coffee was increasing, and land prices in the West Indies did not begin to fall until after that year. These are

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