Did you see the condition that plantation was in?? It was in shambles!! ..The lawn, the dirty paint cracked walls and floors, AND WHERE WAS THE COTTON??? Geez!!! You've got slaves for crying out loud... USE THEM!! :^)
shareI think their plantation was intended to breed slaves for sale to other planters, so maybe planting crops and tidying-up was not a priority for them. Although a bit of labour would have kept their slaves in trim, and so more attractive to buyers.
shareThe land was wasted and could not be used for cotton except to a small extent. The Maxwells instead raised blacks. They bred them, they done raised them, and then dey done sol them.
shareYou tell em, boy. The Maxwells wer smart. Other landowners went broke as they tried to make a living from cotton in washed up fields. On the book, the Mazwells raised just enough cotton to keep the slaves bsuy. They made huge amounts of money raising slaves to sell them. And they'd sell them to anyone, including Louisiana sugar cane plantation owners who literally worked the slaves to death in back breaking labor in which weven the strongest slave lasted no more thann 5 or 6 years.
The Maxwells treated the slaves well as they were raising them. And somehow they managed to keep secret from the slaves that some of them would be sold into certain death whne they were auctioned at the vendue table in New Orleans or at the Forks of the Road in Mississippi.
So in reality, the Maxwells were smart slave owners.
they were too busy trying to *beep* & breed the slaves.
blanche's reaction:"this it?"
but they had plenty of $. couldn't tell looking at that dump.
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humina
You apparently missed the point, boy. The cotton and land of most of the plantations was all burned out. Unlike other "genteel" planation owners who mortgaged their homes, furniture, livestock and even slaves, the Maxwells shifted to the business of raising slaves. Because of the law restricting the importation of slaves from Africa, plantations (and there were many which still had good land) had a big, continuing demand for slaves. Warren Maxwell and his son Hammond filled that demand by raisng slaves from birth, mating them scientifically and became very wealthy.
They only raised enough cotton to keep the slaves busy. You need to read the book, boy.