Chapter 1615 Frogampfog (Part 3)

No. 1g&fog(3)

After the War of Independence, both the American people and the government fell into a serious debt crisis.

Slavery distorted the normal class division. The normal class in capitalist society is based on the amount of means of production and wealth a person controls, but the United States is based on the number of slaves. For slave owners in the southern United States, slaves are both means of production and profitable capital.

The Portuguese in the 18th century used this model. The faster the slaves died, the more demand there would be for agricultural estates. Slave ships used trade goods as collateral, borrowed money in the form of credit, and then went to the slave market to meet the slave hunters. Once the slaves arrived in Brazil, credit became a driving force again. Agricultural estates often had a lot of debts, and plantation owners had to continue to buy slaves to produce sugar, cotton, tobacco, etc. to repay previous loans.

Whipping and other things are still minor matters. The main thing is that when slaves get sick, slave owners will not spend money to treat them and let them die, because the money spent on treating a slave may be more expensive than buying a new one.

How can people not get sick? How can a person feel that he will get sick when he is strong? The credit rating of a sovereign state is not based on the wealth that the country actually possesses, but on the country's repayment capacity, gross domestic product, foreign trade, etc. Britain must repay the money it borrows, so its credit rating is high. The United States also spent money on the War of Independence, and its current gross domestic product is completely maintained by agriculture, that is, the plantation owners in the South.

With the end of the War of Independence, it was time to divide the property. At that time, the United States and Britain signed a "Peace Treaty", which was a little different from the "Treaty of Paris" signed by Louis XVI. Henry Laurens set a ban in Article 7 of the treaty, prohibiting the British from "transporting any slaves or other property" after the war. This clause was proposed by the slave owners, meaning that Britain should return the slaves who escaped to British territories during the war, otherwise they would have to pay compensation, while the British claimed that the former slaves were free after crossing the British border.

Slaves = money. The more slaves a slave owner has, the richer he is. Large plantation owners have huge wealth and political power. Small and medium-sized slave owners are self-cultivating farmers. Most ordinary people who are not slave owners have lower economic status. The slave owner group spans the upper and middle levels of American society. Ordinary non-slave owners will not be equal to slaves, and then incite them to rebel. They will work hard as advocated by the American spirit and strive to become slave owners themselves.

Wealth, identity, prestige and future prosperity are all based on slavery. The direction of social mobility is to expand wealth and improve social status through slavery. The elite class, such as lawyers, teachers, doctors, and government officials, whether they own slaves or not, all have to provide services for the slave owner class. Profits drive lawyers to serve the slave owner's property and wills, bankers provide funds for the purchase of slaves, the middle class in towns join the slave owner group, and even pastors preach to slaves and slave owners, saying that slavery is legal.

Compared with this part of people, speculators who resell treasury bonds are the black sheep.

There is also a man named Hamilton in the United States, Alexander Hamilton, who was the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. He was George Washington's aide-de-camp and the founder of the U.S. Central Bank, but he was a staunch abolitionist.

There are many ways to interpret Article 7 of the Peace Treaty. For example, a slave has escaped to the Commonwealth-controlled area and become a free man. Should he be caught and become a slave again when he returns to the United States to visit his relatives?

He comes back to visit his relatives not only to visit his family, but also to take his wife and children away so that they can also obtain the status of freedom. If this free slave gives compensation to the slave owner, then there may be some hope, but if the slave owner opens his mouth too high, or does not give the slave owner any compensation, and takes away the slave owner's "property" as a husband or father, then the slave can only become "Django Unchained", exterminate the slave owner's family, and then take away his wife and children.

Otherwise, the freed slave would be captured and enslaved again by the slave owner and his thugs. In 1785, a "Society for Promoting Slave Emancipation" was established in New York to protect the freed slaves from the fate of being enslaved again. At that time, the slave owners were so bad that they kidnapped dark-skinned free people on the streets of New York and took them to the slave market to sell them.

Henry Petty abolished slavery not only on the basis of morality, but even the loans of the United States would become a problem. The United States was actually bankrupt. Major European securities trading institutions and investors were very skeptical of the credit ability of the United States. They sold US bonds at a price far below the face value.

Because the federal treasury was empty and there was no money left to pay debts or build the United States' overseas credit, even if domestic creditors were patient, foreign creditors would not be so. Hamilton believed that if the federal states could not unite, then sooner or later domestic creditors would start selling national debts. As for expecting the 13 states to "voluntarily" pay taxes, forget it. The American War of Independence broke out because the states did not want to continue paying taxes to the United Kingdom. The end result was that riots broke out in Massachusetts in 1786, with thousands of indebted farmers protesting against the sharp increase in taxes and the cancellation of their land redemption rights.

Massachusetts was a fiefdom of the British king, and trade there required a charter from the king. When the Treaty of Paris was signed, the British king and his heirs gave up their right to rule Massachusetts.

Compared with southern plantations, the majority of slaves in Massachusetts were domestic slaves. Generally speaking, due to the trade blockade during the war and the excessive issuance of banknotes by the Continental Congress, the Revolutionary War dealt a heavy blow to New England, which was dominated by industry and commerce. After the war, There was no improvement either. In Puritan thought, family is the foundation of social life and the basic factor of social stability. Slaves are part of the family members, not just protected economic investments. The mother of each family had to provide free services to the family. Slaves and slave owners lived and ate together. As part of the family, they could be taken care of when sick. Slaves in the central and northern regions would work with slave owners.

This makes it easy for slave owners and slaves to develop feelings for each other in the process of getting along. The slave owners also sympathize with the slaves' situation, and their restraint on the slaves is relatively gentle. At the same time, the priests will often remind the slave owners that if they only focus on economic interests and ignore Slavery came to an end in Massachusetts without the inherent benefits of being punished.

This has also resulted in Massachusetts becoming the most indebted state in the United States.

Shays also participated in the Revolutionary War and returned home to farm after the war. Massachusetts was the hardest hit area by the economic depression. The state's agricultural products were seriously unsaleable, but the state government increased taxes. Many farmers had to go to jail or mortgage themselves because they could not pay the taxes. land.

In order to activate the economy, money must be input, but coins require precious metals to make. Relatively speaking, banknotes can be printed in large quantities. Farmers in western Massachusetts put forward demands for relief payments, debt moratoriums, and the abolition of debt imprisonment, but they were all rejected. The governor refused.

So after the autumn harvest of 1786, Shays, who had rich war experience, launched an armed rebellion. They still followed the method of 1776, pinned hemlock branch patterns on their hats, and started the "War of Independence" within the United States.

In 1787, the Shays' Rebellion was put down. The rebel army at that time grew to 15,000 people. They once occupied the city and destroyed the court. This uprising impacted the rule of the federal government and prompted the adoption of the 1787 Constitution.

In fact, the banknotes issued by the Continental Congress have long lost their role as currency due to severe devaluation. The problem is that Massachusetts does not even have banknotes. Civilized society cannot use barter transactions like the Indians did, right?

The slave trade is not just about human trafficking. Slave traders can also make money if they are willing to open trading companies to sell sugar, cotton, and tobacco provided by plantation owners. A slave bought for $50 in Africa can be bought for $400 in the Americas. Sell, some slave owners don’t have that much cash, use In exchange for physical goods, sugar cane is very popular in countries without tropical colonies, and the price will rise. Generally speaking, the slave trade can make them 100% to 1000% profitable. Even if there will be "loss" during transportation, as long as three slave ships Once one reaches America, they can make huge profits.

These losses usually refer to shipwrecks and plagues. After this primitive capital accumulation process, some slave traders began to become professional. This is how the famous British steel tycoon Anthony Bacon started.

Who doesn’t want to be a kind-hearted, lovely, pure and noble good person?

Georgiana really envied Lily for being able to die before she knew the evil in this world.

But she is still alive, living in the memory of Severus Snape. She is still the beautiful girl with red hair and green eyes who can use magic to make daisies bloom.

At this moment, the door suddenly opened quietly, and a person flashed in from behind the door. She could see the medal on his chest from a distance.

"Why haven't you slept yet?" Leon asked.

"Look at the information. Dumont gave it to me. Do you want to read it?"

"French?"

"English."

He walked to the desk, stretched out his beautiful hand and flipped through the document casually, then pulled her up and walked towards the bed.

"Sleep, this is an order." He said after tucking her into the quilt.

"What about you?" she said as she lay on the bed.

"I have to find someone who knows English to read those materials to me." After saying that, he turned and left.

Georgiana caught him by the sleeve.

"Lie with me for a while. Wait until I fall asleep before you leave." She said softly.

Leon agreed easily, wearing neat clothes and holding her across the quilt.

"Do you want me to sing to you?" he teased.

"Then I won't be able to sleep even more." She said with a smile, and then closed her eyes. "Good night, my lion."

"Good night, princess, have sweet dreams." He kissed her forehead, then patted her gently, coaxing her to sleep like a child.

What was even weirder was that she could still fall asleep after reading such a terrifying document, and soon she fell into darkness.