Welcome to a very old and well-trodden debate on the connection between capitalism, slavery, and industry. Before I begin, I’d recommend seeing these closely related posts: /u/Zacanassian on slavery and skilled profession, /u/mthrowaway11 on the rise of the energy industry and slavery, and /u/luker093287h on Baptist’s Book, which I reference.

Let’s begin:

Scholars turned their attention to the connection between Atlantic slavery and capitalism as Marxist history became more popular in the early 20th century. Not to be too simplistic about it and offend anyone, (which I’m sure will happen nonetheless), but in very simple terms, early Marxist historians saw the world in terms of Marx’s views on the cyclical nature of history, the proletariat and bourgeois classes, and industrial society. English historians in particular began to view the history of the English Empire in terms of this Marxis structuralism and is perhaps most apparent in E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1963). Thompson work, however, was only the culmination of more than half-century of study and debate on the rise of industry and its connection to class in England. In the 1930s a talented young scholar from Trinidad attended Oxford University and, in 1938, obtained a D.Phil in history. While at Oxford, Eric Williams, himself of African descent, criticized his fellow classmates who studied the rise of industry in England for ignoring the British colonies and their impact on manufacturing at home. Ultimately, this critique led to his landmark work Slavery and Capitalism (1944). In the work, Williams posited that plantation agriculture in the Caribbean generated tremendous financial gains for their absentee plantation owners, which was reinvested in England in industry. Williams rightly argues that slavery was essential in the production of plantation products like sugar and that the tremendous profits earned from plantation agriculture were transferred to Britain rather than reinvested in the islands. Finally, he also argues that as industry became more profitable than plantation agriculture, the new economy eventually made plantations unprofitable and, therefore, led to abolition in the 1830s, which destroyed slavery in the British Empire.

There are a few problems with the Williams thesis that modern historians have seized upon. For a very good summary, I would recommend both Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told, Johnson’s River of Dark Deams, and Mintz Sweetness and Power. Both Baptist and Johnson demonstrate that in the United States, slavery and capitalism were not incompatible, in fact, in many ways industrialization only served to strengthen the grip of slave holders, especially in the “Cotton Kingdom.” In what is called “The Alliance of the Lash and the Loom” as textile manufacturing became profitable in the UK and US, manufactures relied on massive amounts of southern grown cotton. Slave labor was not replaced by machinery; rather, machinery expedited what a slave could produce. The cotton gin, steamboats, railroads, etc. all made producing and shipping cotton faster, cheaper, and more profitable. They overturn Williams’ idea that industry would destroy capitalism. Mintz demonstrates that sugar too grew in demand during the industrial revolution as cheap sucrose was consumed by working women, children, and men. Collectively these works show that industry, capitalism, and slavery could coexist.

Now, that is not exactly your question, and to more fully answer it we need to also look at abolition. Some of the most convincing arguments demonstrate that the real power behind abolition was not the growth of industry, but the growth of moral sentiment against the peculiar institution. Though the work is not without its faults, especially in overlooking to role of Atlantic Africans in bringing about abolition in the Americas, Christopher Leslie Brown’s Moral Capital, demonstrates that British abolition was largely due to the loss of the thirteen American colonies and the growing influence of the British Empire in the nineteenth century. Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams also demonstrates that abolitionists in the United States recognized the connection between the growth of slavery and industry. In the US, the major fear of abolitionists was the continual spread of slavery as the country moved west. While men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington imagined that slavery would naturally die out as tobacco became less popular, the rise of industry and the demand for cotton only spread slavery west and continued its existence and growth even after the abolition of the international trade. Therefore, the abolitionist movement needed to argue the slavery was morally unjust, even if economically viable. Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton demonstrates that during the Civil War, unemployed textile workers in England rioted over the Union’s blockade of cotton and Don Doyle’s The Cause of All Nations shows that England came close to supporting the Confederacy. Only British abolition and Confederate support of slavery prevented England from recognizing the Confederacy and possibly changing the outcome.

TL;DR: The debate continues; however, many historians argue that industry actually helped slavery grow. “King Cotton” and the “Alliance of the Lash and the Loom” meant that textile manufacturers relied on cheap southern cotton to produce textiles demanded during the industrial revolution. Hope it helps!