11-3/4_d_. in Bermuda, L29 18_s_. 9-3/4_d_. in the
Bahamas, L47 1_s_. in Barbados and L44 15_s_. 2-1/4_d_. in Jamaica, to L105
4_s_., L114 11_s_. and L120 4_s_. 7-1/2_d_ respectively in the new and
buoyant settlements of Trinidad, Guiana and British Honduras.[93] If the
interstate transfer had been stopped, the Virginia, Maryland and Carolina
slave markets would have been glutted while the markets of every
southwestern state were swept bare. Slave prices in the former would have
fallen to such levels that masters would have eventually resorted to
manumission in self-defence, while in the latter all existing checks to the
inflation of prices would have been removed and all the evils consequent
upon the capitalization of labor intensified.
[Footnote 93: _Accounts and Papers_ [of the British Government], 1837-1838,
vol. 48, [p. 329].]
Another conceivable plan would have been to replace slavery at large by
serfdom. This would have attached the negroes to whatever lands they
chanced to occupy at the time of the legislation. By force of necessity it
would have checked the depletion of soils; but by preventing territorial
transfer it would have robbed the negroes and their masters of all
advantages afforded by the virginity of unoccupied lands.
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