This study will discuss Time On the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, and will analyze the book in light of critical reviews.
The thesis of the authors is that earlier scholars have not shown slavery to be as it truly was. The authors say that slavery was not as cruel to slaves as was believed. They also say that slavery was much more economically efficient than has been previously reported. They use statistics and computer-organized data as evidence to prove their theses. The book raised a raging debate because of its conclusions as well as its methodology. Critics attacked the book because its authors seemed to be saying that slavery was a good institution both economically and socially, that slaveholders were good and reasonable people, and that slaves had a fairly good life. For example, the authors make the startling claim that
Slaves were exploited in the sense that part of the income which they produced was expropriated by their owners. However, the rate of expropriation was much lower than has been generally assumed. Over the course of his lifetime, the typical slave field hand received about 90 percent of the income he produced.
Critics of the work call such statistics into question, however. It is impossible for this reader to know whose statistics are correct or incorrect. It is impossible to know which side in the debate draws the most true conclusions from this battle of statistics. It is clear, however, that Fogel and Engerman have caused a great debate over the issue of slavery.
There seems to be more work critical of their book than in agreement with it. This may be because they are wrong, or it could be that their conclusions are true but so radical that many other historians responded as if attacked personally. The critiques of Time On the Cross, however, seem to be reasonable, detailed, and as full of statistics as Fogel's and Engerman's ...