John: Thanks for bringing this up -- a clarification is in order.  When I
said there were no mechanisms for manumission in the south, I meant that
there were none that could be accessed by blacks seeking freedom.  If a
slave wanted to purchase freedom, it was up to the master to accept or
refuse the offer.  No slave had the legal right to purchase freedom.

The point about industrialization is interesting.  A lot of new
scholarship points to the increased use of slave labor in industry -- in
Richmond, for example, at the Tredegar iron works.  I'm sure that
opportunities to work for wages were created by economic diversification
in the south (especially in Virginia), but still, law gave a slave's
wages to the master.  It was still up to the master to determine what, if
anything, the actual enslaved wage earner might keep.

David Kiracofe

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