CRI215H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Informal Sector
17 Dec 2017
School
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Task system vs gang system - some flexibility; some days off. Task system: if a person completed a task, they can take a break. Gang system: traditional work system: slave may get breaks during work day, late at night and early in the morning. Land set aside, either gardens or larger fields. Access to markets (women especially, sex trade) or steamboats. Reasons for informal property regime in the antebellum south: By 1850s, enslaved people had little access to land, time or opportunities to self-hire. Conflicts among whites about enslaved people"s access to public spaces and profits. Property ownership = common, but enslaved people were still very poor. Important to keep benefits to slaveholders in mind - not altruism. Slave-owners who allowed more economic freedom not necessarily any less brutal. Still, important not to take formal law as reflection of social, or legal, reality. Multiplicity of langes and especially of creoles in 18th century suriname.
