Slavery in the South ôdominated the social structure, drove the economy, and permeated the political systemö (Oakes 40). While all slave societies had similarities, each one was shaped by the historical circumstances within which it developed. The influence of liberal capitalism in the South helps explain how the slaveholders achieved extraordinary powers and how western political culture, the capitalist economy, and the liberal state limited these powers (Oakes 40-42). Modern slave societies shared the fact that their existence was inconceivable except as a function of capitalist development. The institution of slavery in the American South was different because while slavery dominated the economy of the ancient world, this New World slavery was in and of itself the servant of the driving force of capitalism (Oakes 52).
In ancient societies, the economic security of slavery required that slave masters limit production so the base of consumer demand was not overwhelmed. In the South, however, slavery was tied to the developing capitalist society with an insatiable demand for slave-produced goods, giving slaveholders the incentive not to limit production (Oakes 52). American slaveholders were the first in history whose power depended on commercial relationships with a capitalist world that was more powerful than all the slave societies put together (Oakes 53).
Additionally, in the American South, unlike in countries such as Brazil and the West Indies, interracial sex did not lead to the acceptance of a multi-colored mixed race society. Planters asserted the equality and superiority of whites as a group and the inferiority of all blacks, including those with light skin color and mixed ancestry. The unification of a white population divided by property and varying regional outlooks was, in part, the goal of this rigid racial ideology (Henretta 342).
Eventually, legislators and merchants sought faster and more ec...