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A Black Entrepreneur in Antebellum Louisiana*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

David O. Whitten
David O. Whitten
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Auburn University
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Abstract

Professor Whitten estimates capitalization, production and returns, and profits for a Louisiana sugar plantation owned and operated by Andrew Durnford, a black planter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , Summer 1971 , pp. 201 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1971

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References

1 Durnford's letters to his factor, John McDonogh, are dispersed through the John McDonogh Collection of the Manuscripts Division, Tulane University Library, New Orleans.

2 Andrew Durnford, St. Rosalie Plantation Journal (New Orleans, Manuscripts Division, Tulane University Library).

3 Plaquemines Parish Notarial Books (Pointe-a-la-Hache, Plaquemines Parish Court House).

4 Orleans Parish Conveyance Records (New Orleans, Civil Courts Building), and Plaquemines Parish Conveyance Records (Pointe-a-la-Hache, Plaquemines Parish Court House).

5 Manuscript returns of the census of population, Louisiana schedules, 1840, 1850, and 1860; manuscript returns of the census of agriculture, Louisiana schedules, 1850 and 1860.

6 Champomier, P. A., Statement of Sugar Made in Louisiana (New Orleans, 1844, 1845, and 1849–1860)Google Scholar; African Repository and Colonial Journal (Washington, American Colonization Society)Google Scholar; and New Orleans newspapers.

7 The years of the Durnford owned and operated St. Rosalie plantation prior to 183S were not included in the study because of a lack of any financial data. The year 1860 was included despite Durnford's death in 1859, because the crop sold in 1860 was the one produced in 1859.

8 The 1860 manuscript schedules for agriculture show the Durnford plantation valued at $30,000 with $2,000 worth of implements and machinery and $15,000 worth of livestock. I assumed that the implements and machinery figure was in error since the total real value of the estate was placed at $50,000, usually the sum of farm value and implements and machinery value. I employed $30,000 as the farm value and $20,000 as the value of implements and machinery. In addition, the livestock value shown in the manuscript schedules is $15,000, a figure greatly out of line with Durnford's 1850 livestock value and much greater than the livestock values given for much larger plantations. With no indication that Durnford had shifted his operations to livestock breeding, I employed $1,500 as the estimated value of the livestock on the estate in 1860.

9 Conrad, Alfred H. and Meyer, John R., The Economics of Slavery and Other Studies in Econometric History (Chicago, 1964), 50–53Google Scholar, 85–92.

10 “Other Charges incident to the sale of sugar included small amounts for cooperage, weighing, tarpaulin, and drayage. These were, of course, in addition to the factor's commission of 2.5 percent (set in 1805 and remaining throughout the period), the insurance premium of ½ to 1 percent on sugar in transit, and the transportation charges. While total marketing costs varied from time to time, by the 1840's and 1850's they generally approximated 10 percent of the gross return on a hogshead of sugar.” Sitterson, J. Carlyle, Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry in the South, 1753–1950 (Lexington, Ky., 1953), 190–91Google Scholar.

11 Rillieux, Norbert, “Sugar Making in Louisiana,” DeBow's Review, V (1848), 285–88.Google Scholar

12 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, 1960)Google Scholar, Series E 96, 122.

13 These estimates are, of course, influenced by the size of the cumulative profits earned in the first period and would be much lower without the earning power of those profits.

14 See Whitten, David O., ‘Tariff and Profit in the Antebellum Louisiana Sugar Industry,” Business History Review, XLIV (Summer, 1970), 226–233CrossRefGoogle Scholar.