Accounting for the Business of Suffering: A Study of the Antebellum Richmond, Virginia, Slave Trade

Nash C.Y., Flesher † D.L.

Fleischman R.K., Tyson T.N.

The contemporary scene in accounting history features a growing interest in the “suppressed voices” that have been systematically excluded from the processes of accounting. Notwithstanding, the bulk of critical studies on disenfranchised groups has focused on gender issues, suppressed economic classes, and the roadblocks encountered by ethnic minorities attempting to enter the accounting profession. The few papers that have chronicled the use of accounting on slave plantations have viewed these techniques as essentially unproblematic, neutral conveyances of information needed by decision makers. This paper adopts a more critical perspective of accounting’s past and uses plantation records to examine its particular role in the commoditization, objectification, and dehumanization of an entire class of people. Its overriding purpose is not to examine the economics (i.e., viability or profitability) of slavery, but rather to illustrate how accounting practices of measurement, valuation, and classification served slave owners and sustained slavery’s institutions. We readily acknowledge that neither accounting nor accountants constructed slavery, but we do believe that accounting practices reinforced racially based social relationships by converting slave exchanges, holdings, and outputs into monetary terms while completely ignoring the qualitative, human dimension of slavery.

Vollmers G.

Samson W.D., Flesher D.L., Previts G.J.

The antebellum expansion of the corporate form of business to support the development of a railroad transportation network in the United States is a precursor to the types of reporting problems identified in the principal-agent literature of recent years. The case of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, a major interstate carrier of the mid-19th century, demonstrates financial accounting and reporting issues that management and capital providers faced in evaluating company performance, especially in times of complex political and economic change, rapid technological advancement, and the hostilities of war. Quality of earnings issues, studied in this early corporate circumstance, afford a rich comparative setting for discussion of similar contemporary situations. This case, complete with original data sets and information, supports instructional objectives that seek to increase your experiential base and understanding. This experiential approach serves to improve your abilities to identify and critically examine similar aspects of contemporary 21st century accounting challenges, including earnings management and the application of cash-flow-based performance measures, such as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (“EBITDA”).

Barney D., Flesher D.L.

Pritchett J.B., Chamberlain R.M.

Greenwald and Glasspiegel argue that adverse selection depressed the market prices of slaves, causing current researchers to overestimate the rate of return from slavery. In this paper we test for the presence of adverse selection by comparing the prices of local slaves with the prices of slaves sold from estate sales. We find no difference in the prices of these slaves, from which we conclude that there was no significant adverse selection in the market. Instead, we propose an alternative explanation for the observed pattern of slave prices based on the costs of shipping slaves to the New Orleans market.

Heier J.R.

During the antebellum period of United States history, the southern states generated an unprecedented amount of wealth through a well developed plantation system that produced vast quantities of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. To date, very little has been written on the methods used by the planters to account for this wealth. This paper reviews plantation accounting methods as outlined by the southern agricultural reformer Thomas Affleck in his book The Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book. The paper also presents a statistical study of surviving plantation records which determined that these very unique and sophisticated procedures of Affleck's became widely used among planters.

Razek J.R.

Very little information exists on the accounting methods and procedures of the great cotton and sugar plantations in the Southeastern United States during the period preceding the Civil War. Fortunately, one sugar planter, William J. Minor of Natchez, Mississippi and Houma, Louisiana, maintained a detailed set of records, among which are two ledgers. From these we learn that a hybrid accounting system, using elements of cash and accrual and single and double-entry bookkeeping, was in use. While such a system might seem strange today, it appears to have served its purpose in its particular operating environment.

Miller R.M.

The factory system in one of its earliest forms—the textile mill—made limited strides in the American South during the closing decades of the slave era. While bondsmen were put to work in mills almost from the beginning, the problem of adapting an agricultural work force to the factory system was one that had to be solved simultaneously with the development of the factory system itself. Since then, historians have wondered whether the use of slaves in early industry was an intensification of the human aspects of bondage or whether it represented a marginal improvement in their physical and spiritual welfare. Professor Miller offers no answer to these questions, nor to those of how widespread or how successful was the use of slaves as factory operatives. He demonstrates, however, that apart from the fact that bondsmen took to factory work more readily than poor whites, the problems to be solved by managers, before a successful degree of efficiency could be achieved, were common to all new industrial systems; clearly, the development of an intelligent disciplinary system, enlightened motivation, and good working conditions were as important in using slaves as in using free labor.

Ufodike A.

ABSTRACTThe ways in which accountancy (accounting, accountability, and accountants) has been a device of imperialism, colonialism, and postcolonialism, and therefore has had deleterious effects on Indigenous peoples in former colonies and continues to negatively impact immigrants in postcolonial OECD countries, is under‐researched. This structured literature review synthesizes studies in the accounting literature that have investigated imperialism, colonialism, and postcolonialism and identifies opportunities for future research. This study is part of a broader research project that reviewed 161 articles on accounting and discrimination. This article, based on 65 of the articles reviewed for the broader project, discusses existing knowledge on imperialism, colonialism, and postcolonialism. The author finds that the exclusion of Indigenous peoples in colonial times is shaped by perpetual oppressive relations. In the postcolonial United States and Old Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), these power relations are sustained by professions through the continuing exclusion of racialized people and immigrants, many from previous colonies. This study proposes future research directions to advance the decolonization of accounting research by foregrounding alternative perspectives of Indigeneity—such as Black Indigeneity—and enabling accounting scholars to confront the various subthemes of imperialism and postcolonialism in accounting, including Western accounting and accountability, professionalization, emancipatory accounting, and Indigenous knowledge and accounts.

McDowell E., Hammond T.

Contributing to the expanding examination of the accounting policies that facilitated slavery's persistence in the United States, this study examines the Gradual Abolition Act of 1804 of New Jersey, the last Northern state to emancipate enslaved humans. New Jersey's Act included a provision for payments to white ‘masters’ for the care of children born after the Act to mothers who were – and remained – enslaved. These payments were considered a form of ‘compensated abolition’ and were included in the Act because prior efforts to persuade enslavers in New Jersey to agree to an eventual end to human enslavement had failed. With a focus on the children in Montgomery Township, this article investigates how the State of New Jersey disbursed the funds for this provision, and expands on previous research on the role of accounting for slavery by examining the crucial role states – including Northern states that are often overlooked in studies of United States' slavery – played in perpetuating this brutal system.

Mustafa H., Ibrahim M.I.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the governance structure in the ancient Melaka Kingdom (1401–1511 AD) using historical Hukum Kanun Melaka (the Land Law) and Undang-Undang Laut Melaka (the Maritime Law). The focus is on self-correction, control and accountability that were used to preserve the peace and well-being of society and the overall harmony of the community during the period.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs close readings to discover and identify implicit formal and thematic elements of the texts into a meaningful enactment. The study is based on historical archival research at the National Archives of Malaysia and at the National Library of Malaysia.FindingsThough classical, the underlying accounting practices were shown to consummate in an articulated model of measurement activities based on specific proportion of gold in tahil measurement, used for slaves, free men and stolen animal and property value. Controls were established through punishment and penalty. Accountability functioned in different levels and degrees hierarchically and horizontally.Research limitations/implicationsThe study excludes the improved sections of the laws that are based on the Islamic perspective. The discussion is limited to the indigenous adat sections of laws only although the sections may inseparable with the Hindu/Buddhist tradition.Originality/valueA study of these classical laws would be a reference for accounting publication in the Malay world which has been stationed in the gallery for many years, awaiting discovery.

ElKelish* W.W.

This paper examines previous literature on accounting for corporate human rights (AHR) to identify the main research themes and development, conduct critical evaluations and open up new pathways towards future research. A structured literature review was conducted using 164 relevant published journal articles. Data were from the Scopus database over the last 22 years. The majority of research on AHR focuses on strategy/management and non-discrimination themes, with little research in other areas such as child labour. Research in this field is at an early stage, with more focus on adoption and implementation issues. There is a need for more in-depth and grounding analysis on the power networks among participants in broader institutional systems to provide more understanding of the underlying mechanisms. This paper discusses several suggestions such as alternative accounting and networking models to support the field, debates possible remedies to overcome drawbacks and presents options for future research. Several useful practical implications are provided for academics, corporate managers and regulators to bridge the gap between accounting and human rights practices and to enhance corporate social responsibility.

Francis J.N.

This essay poses the question do Black Lives Matter to marketing? Putting the spotlight on research in marketing reveals the multiple ways in which the field has neglected a most pressing issue of our time—structural and systemic anti-Black racism. The global rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter protests alerts us to the urgency for transformative change in all spheres including the marketing academy. Macromarketing is particularly poised to lead this change given the commitment to justice in marketing systems and concerns with the bilateral impact of marketing on society. This essay issues a call to action to re-historize the role of transatlantic slavery, for researchers to be reflective in addressing systemic racism, and for the academy to adopt anti-racist strategies to propel this scholarship from the periphery of marketing thought to its core.

Clegg J.

Pinto O., West B.

This archive-based case study uses accounting and related records to uncover details of the everyday life of the captains, sailors and seamen who manned the ships that allowed Portuguese slave trading to flourish during the eighteenth century. By elaborating the lives of the crews of the ships of the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão, a Portuguese chartered company created in 1755 for the express purpose of slave trading, the study contributes to a growing body of literature that uses accounting documents as a source of social history and enables previously silent voices to be heard. Furthermore, the study brings together two notions which have previously remained separated in the accounting history literature: the everyday lives of participants within the setting of a ‘dark’ episode of human history.

Pinto O., West B.

Based on extensive archival research, this study documents and analyses the accounting techniques that the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão applied to its slave trading operations during the second half of the eighteenth century. The surviving accounting records of this Portuguese chartered company reveal – in meticulous detail – the integral role that accounting technology played in enabling the slave trade to flourish. However, and paradoxically, while evidencing this culpability the same accounting records also document the essential humanity of the slaves and preserve details of the bleak circumstances of their existence. Slaves are typically lamented as a lost people consigned to a tragic and an eternal anonymity, but it is from accounting records that many aspects of their lives can be reconstructed. In this way, the accounting records studied are also shown to provide a latent source of social history that constitutes a profound mea culpa.

Croucher R., Michel D.

AbstractThis article critiques the “legal at the time” argument used by states and companies which historically practised slavery to defend themselves against claims for restitution, examining the Mauritian case. Although slavery was largely legal there before its abolition by the British, torts were common under slavery and, during the years of historic rupture, 1794–1839, when the local élite defied first French and then English law, generated systemic unlawful activity. Most types of legal action for restitution for slavery face formidable difficulties; pursuing reparations supported by broad legal arguments may therefore be a more viable route. Slavery may be argued to have been an illegitimate endeavour in itself. While sympathetic to that view, this article does not pursue it but rather seeks to demonstrate that the “legal at the time” argument against reparations contains significant lacunae even within its restricted terms. It also shows that French constitutional law offers possibilities in the form of rights that are not time-bound.

Anderson M.

Below are listed 2010 publications, in English, within the general area of accounting history. The definition of what constitutes an accounting history article is not always a straightforward matte...