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In a recent opinion piece in the Guardian, historian David Olusoga makes this shocking claim about slavery in the 17th Century British Empire:

The system [Hans Sloane] witnessed and wrote about was one in which human beings were worked to death. One in which enslaved people suffered and even died from malnutrition, as the economics of the slave trade meant that it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them than it was to provide them with food.

It seems not only shocking but somewhat counter-intuitive that replacing a slave could be cheaper than feeding them, but trade is not always rational. Were there circumstances during this period where this was true?

IMSoP
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  • I've actually read the same claim about galley prisoners/slaves in the fairly well-regarded book of Guilmartin https://books.google.com/books/about/Gunpowder_Galleys.html?id=SYnfAAAAMAAJ . So in some circumstances it might be true. – Fizz Sep 01 '20 at 11:56
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    @IMSoP The claim definitely has some weasel words while flat out calling it a widespread practice of "the system". Then you ask for "sometimes". Either way, answers should be thorough as well as accurate. –  Sep 01 '20 at 14:40
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    @fredsbend The quote makes a blanket statement about the system working people to death, but that's not the claim I'm asking about. I read the second quoted sentence as a separate, more specific assertion qualified by "and even ... at times". It wouldn't be particularly enlightening to ask if that was always the case, and receive an answer demonstrating a single counter-example. – IMSoP Sep 01 '20 at 14:49
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    Not a full answer, but food prices are not constant but are subject to boom and bust cycles, particularly in places like an island that raises inedible cash crops. (See also the Potato Famine, when Ireland was exporting food in the midst of widespread starvation.) It's quite possible that starving the enslaved people wasn't a routine plan, but that there were periods of local food shortage in which slaveholders found it more profitable not to feed the humans they enslaved. A "yes" answer doesn't necessarily imply a continuous approach throughout the 300-year history of slavery. – Tiercelet Sep 01 '20 at 19:51
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    "Starving" doesn't necessarily mean completely withholding food. It can also mean severely reduced portions. A person can survive quite a long time, even doing hard labor, on minimal rations. And because they aren't eating enough food to maintain their energy, will die of starvation, just slower. – computercarguy Sep 01 '20 at 20:43
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    If food is more expensive than slaves then wouldn't it be more profitable for slave traders to trade food instead? – user3528438 Sep 01 '20 at 20:51
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    @user3528438 Only if the difference in price is realisable as profit. – IMSoP Sep 01 '20 at 21:06
  • If we're discussing famine situations, what about feeding some of the slaves to others? Did that ever happen? – Ken Y-N Sep 02 '20 at 01:17
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    WRT malnutrition, it needs to be remembered that one can eat plenty of "food", yet suffer from malnutrition if the diet doesn't contain the required amounts of vitamins, minerals, and so on. This was about the time that the British Navy discovered that citrus fruit prevented scurvy. Even today, in some western countries we have people who are simultaneously obese and malnourished, due to a fast food diet. – jamesqf Sep 02 '20 at 03:54
  • @user3528438 Such situations, if they ever existed, are likely a supply and demand problem. You might make more money per unit of food, but there's not enough units of food to make the same net total as you would on slaves. –  Sep 02 '20 at 14:53
  • @fredsbend Or you have a way to acquire the slaves for free (at someone else's expense) but you'd have to pay for the food. – user253751 Sep 02 '20 at 18:04
  • That quote is probably specifically about slave *trade* from Africa to the colonies, not about slave *labor*. On these slave ships space was at a premium, the duration of the passage to the colonies was uncertain, as was how much of the food would go bad. So to keep all passenger alive on such a passage under these uncertainties you'd need to transport a lot of food that you *usually* wouldn't need. The quote probably specifically refers to those situations where slave traders then decided to transport less food and more slaves, at let slave starve on board when the passage took longer. – Dreamer Sep 03 '20 at 13:39
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    @Dreamer If you can provide some reputable sources talking about that, it would make a great answer. Although the ones on this page are rather "chatty", comments should really be for improving the question or existing answers, rather than posting partial answers. – IMSoP Sep 03 '20 at 13:45

3 Answers3

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Strictly speaking, the quoted claim is most immediately one about Hans Sloane's writings. So if this is an accurate description of what Sloane wrote, Olusoga is telling the truth. Olusoga is not specific about which writings he is referring to. At least some of Sloane's writings are relatively easy to find online, but so far, I'm not able to pinpoint quotes that fit what Olusoga attributes to him. In this sense, I would say the claim is unconfirmed, until we can identify the sources of specific quotes consistent with Olusoga's representation.

Ultimately the more germane question though is about British 17th-century slave plantations in general. It is easy to find systematic studies of mortality patterns on slave plantations such as this one about the US South and this one on Trinidad. These generally apply to the 18th and 19th centuries, rather than the 17th. They do show periods of high mortality, and some evidence to suggest malnutrition was at least a contributing cause.

An article about Sloane's "Natural History of Jamaica" has an interesting footnote:

Dunn states that while an estimated 12,000 Englishmen came to Jamaica in the first 6 years (1655-1661) of its settlement, by the end of that time the colony's population was only 3,470. Tropical fevers and starvation accounted for most of the deaths. Although the mortality rate had improved by the time Sloane came to Jamaica, the island still had the reputation of being a tropical hell.

If even a small number of white British settlers were starving, it would hardly be surprising if their slaves were too. In any event, here is a more directly relevant quote from Dunn's book, describing Barbados c. 1680:

In only one generation these planters had turned their small island into an amazingly effective sugar-production machine and had built a social structure to rival the tradition-encrusted hierarchy of old England. But the irony is that in accomplishing all this they had made their tropical paradise almost uninhabitable. By crowding so many black and white laborers on to a few square miles they had aggravated health hazards and over-taxed the food supply, condemning most inhabitants of the island to a semistarvation diet. Those who had money squandered it by overdressing, overeating, and overdrinking and by living in ornate English-style houses unsuited to the climate. Even the rich were unhappy in Barbados, for they suffered from claustrophobia, heat, and tropical fevers and longed for the dank, chill weather they were used to at home. Most of all they hated and feared the hordes of restive black captives they had surrounded themselves with. The mark of a successful Barbados planter was his ability to escape from the island and retire grandly to England. (p. 116)

Dunn gives various pieces of historical evidence to support his description. He cites a contemporary witness who described a particular planter (Edward Atcherley) as "an irresponsible drunkard who idled away his time at Port Royal while the neglected slaves and servants at Bybrook starved, stole, plotted, or ran away (p. 217)." Dunn points out that the a 1688 update to the Barbados Slave Act, "admitted that some Negroes stole food because they were starving." (p. 242) He clearly shows that the plantation called Bybrook had periods of high mortality and that an underfeeding of the slaves was a contributing factor.

Based on this I would say that yes, there is considerable historical basis for the statement, if we do not insist on taking it too literally. We don't know based on the above that it was cheaper to replace slaves then feed them because planters were clearly cruel and incompetent and may not have been making economically rational decisions. There may also be room to argue that death due to malnutrition in conjunction with other causes may not literally equal "starvation" but I think that point is rather trivial in this context.

EDIT: Several comments have pushed for direct data on the question of relative prices. According to Galenson in late 17th century Barbados, an adult male slave cost around £20 while a young girl might be closer to £10, sometimes less. Meanwhile, Eltis discusses some relevant estimates of yearly provisions for slaves and servants for around the same time, mostly in the range of £1 to £5 per year. Whether this data shows that underfeeding slaves fit some kind of rational cost-benefit analysis for some planters or not, I have absolutely no idea. Particularly on the lower end of food cost estimates, this is assuming slaves grow some significant portion of their own food. So to try to make such a cost-benefit analysis would require an understanding of the opportunity costs involved in taking slaves away from sugar production. I'm not sure if anyone with relevant expertise has looked at this in any detail. Unless someone can find such an analysis, I think the best resolution to this question would be to simply prove whether or not Olusoga accurately represents something Sloane wrote or not.

Brian Z
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    How much would a typical slave cost to buy? The question asks whether it was *ever* cheaper to let slaves die of starvation and replace them with other human beings. – Mari-Lou A Sep 01 '20 at 17:13
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    I have little doubt that slave owners mistreated them, and preferred to let them die of diseases rather than invest in caring for them. But I doubt it was "cheaper" to buy another slave than feeding the ones who were already young, strong, and healthy in their possession. – Mari-Lou A Sep 01 '20 at 17:19
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    @Mari-LouA The quote in the question uses the word "malnutrition", so my guess would be the ones dying and being replaced aren't "strong and healthy". – Izkata Sep 01 '20 at 18:55
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    "yes, there is considerable historical basis for the statement, if we [interpret the claim to mean something completely different]" – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Sep 01 '20 at 18:59
  • @Izkata even the strongest and healthiest can die of starvation. – Mari-Lou A Sep 01 '20 at 19:02
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    Information on the cost of replacing slaves would definitely strengthen this answer considerably. – IMSoP Sep 01 '20 at 19:24
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    @IMSoP I disagree, but see my edit. – Brian Z Sep 01 '20 at 20:15
  • Information on the cost of replacing slaves would indeed strengthen the answer, and your edit appears to invalidate the claim by David Olusoga. There's nothing wrong with that, humans make hyperbolic statements all the time, and a newspaper report is *not* held to the same standard as a research paper or history book. It's important to know if the statement is based on fact or on emotion. – Mari-Lou A Sep 02 '20 at 08:55
  • @Mari-LouA the costs quoted for food are presumably averages. I wonder if there's any information on how high the cost would go after a bad harvest of staple foods, or if the slaves' own food production failed. That might tip the balance in favour of *risking* starvation of some – Chris H Sep 02 '20 at 09:17
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    @ChrisH (and BrianZ) To spell out the horrific economics beyond "I have absolutely no idea": An unfed person cannot work more than a month at the very most. The highest food cost given is less than £0.5 per month. So, to be very conservative, it would typically cost >20 times as much to starve and replace enslaved people as to feed them. And so it would take a quite large anomalous surplus of enslaved people and shortage of food to reverse this. – nanoman Sep 02 '20 at 09:36
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    I read the claim as: "it was cheaper to underfeed slaves over a longer period of time and to buy a new one if they eventually died, than to keep slaves well fed during the same time." Many of the comments go for the most extreme interpretation: that the food required to sustain a person for a week or two was cheaper than the cost of buying a new slave. – Jordy Sep 02 '20 at 10:04
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    I don't know how valuable it is to clarify something like "malnutrition was at least a contributing cause [in many slave deaths]". I would bet before the modern age malnutrition was a contributing cause in nearly all premature deaths. –  Sep 02 '20 at 14:56
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    @nanoman If you have sources for that, you have the start of a great answer. At its heart, this claim is one of economics, not slave treatment. –  Sep 02 '20 at 14:58
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    @nanoman As Jordy points out, that's taking the extreme of providing no food at all. If you can save £4 per year by _underfeeding_ your slaves, and a new slave costs £20, they only need to survive for 5 years. – IMSoP Sep 02 '20 at 15:07
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    Many of the comments seem to be assuming that both income and expenditure are constant week by week over the year. If slaves are used in agriculture, they will be greatly required for planting and harvest, but not much for the rest of the year. In such circumstances it might make sense to not feed slaves in quiet times but get new ones when there is work to be done (seasonal labour is common in most non-slave-based agricultural societies). – Stuart F Sep 02 '20 at 15:23
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    @StuartF also harvests can be good or bad and sugar and tobacco prices fluctuate. Even if it didn't make economic sense in the long run, it could be very tempting in the short term. – Bob says reinstate Monica Sep 02 '20 at 16:48
  • @Jordy And I thought they might be eating crappy food that is lacking in some essential nutrients that cause them to die slowly over the course of a year or so. – user253751 Sep 02 '20 at 18:05
  • Also, if many slaves died of tropical diseases within the first year the slave owners may not have seen the point in feeding them well enough to last much longer than that. – AncientSwordRage Sep 03 '20 at 11:31
  • FYI: While I see the advantages of the Sci-Hub links, I'm a bit concerned about the legal status of the website, and the consequences for SO if it hosts links to Sci-Hub. Accordingly, I've [opened a question on meta](https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4623/are-sci-hub-links-to-references-in-answers-welcome) about this. – Schmuddi Sep 03 '20 at 15:41
  • I'm down voting because the prices you used in your calculations are prices in Barbados, which would be much higher than those in West Africa. The atrocities in Congo at the turn of the 20th century make the claim seem plausible. – ventsyv Sep 14 '20 at 21:47
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    @ventsyv The context of the original claim was a slave-owner in 17th-Century Jamaica, so while an alternative source referencing 20th-Century Africa would be interesting (and I'd welcome a new answer addressing it with appropriate references), it seems harsh to downvote an answer that's addressing the claim fairly directly. – IMSoP Sep 15 '20 at 11:46
  • @IMSoP Hmm, I read that as a criticism of the system of slavery, not just slavery in Jamaica The slave trade was very deadly - 30% of slaves died within a year due to tropical disease, so a slave in Africa would've been much cheaper there. Another thing to consider is what would've happened if a someone got seriously sick? Would the slave owner keep feeding them or would they just write them off as a loss and stop giving them food? I would think looking at historical sources would be much more reliable than just doing a back of the envelope calculation. – ventsyv Sep 16 '20 at 17:23
  • @ventsyv As I say, the context is an article specifically about Hans Sloane, who died in 1753, so "the system he witnessed" can't reasonably include developments to that system 150 years later. Again, I would welcome an answer that found better sources but needed to widen the timeframe slightly, but the possibility of that better answer doesn't make this a bad one, and nor does the fact that it focuses on the timeframe referenced in the quoted claim. – IMSoP Sep 17 '20 at 09:53
  • @IMSoP As I commented on a different answer, if you want people to understand what you're actually asking, I really think a more precise title like "Was it ever cheaper for 17th c. British planters to starve slaves and replace them than to provide them with food?" would be helpful. Otherwise you may continue to find yourself explain this over again in the comments. – Brian Z Sep 17 '20 at 11:33
  • @BrianZ The last sentence of the question is now (and has been for over two weeks) "Were there circumstances during this period where this was true?" with "this period" established as the 17th Century. If people don't read beyond the title of the question, I would question their ability to give enough attention to other sources to produce a well-researched answer. Also, I just said that I *wouldn't* rule out an answering widening the timeframe, if it produced good evidence; but this answer focuses on the timeframe given, and that is *also* fine. – IMSoP Sep 17 '20 at 11:38
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Was it cheaper to starve a slave to death and to replace him than it was to provide him with food? It depends on what you mean with "starve".

Starve has two meanings according to Merriam-Webster:

1a : to perish from lack of food - b : to suffer extreme hunger

Definition #1

If we were to take the first definition, the claim would come down to:

A slave was at some point in time cheaper than the food required to keep him alive.

How expensive was a slave? Seeing as the context of the claim referred to the slave trade in Jamaica, we will use the slave trade in Barbados as reference. Galenson (1982) calculated that the cheapest point in time to buy a slave was in 1681, where £6,51 could get you a slave girl (see image).

enter image description here

Using this currency converter I found online, £6,51 in 1681 was worth almost $1.600 in today's money. Assuming this currency converter is half decent, I consider it to be highly improbable that there was a point in time in Barbados where a slave was cheaper than the food required to keep him alive.

EDIT: I did a little more digging and found the following table by Eltis et al.

enter image description here

This table shows that at the lowest point a slave was worth about 420KG* of sugar. I assume sugar was a relative expensive product in those days, meaning that they were probably worth a lot more than 420kg of "normal" food.

*1710-1714 sugar prices were 54,64s/cwt = £2,73. Slave prices in 1710-1714 were £22,55, so 1 slave was worth 8,25cwt = 420KG of sugar.

What about the second definition by Merriam-Webster?

Definition #2

If we were to take the second definition, the claim would come down to:

It was cheaper to keep a slave malnourished and to replace him when he prematurely dies, than to keep the same slave well fed during the same period of time.

Handler and Corruccini (1983) wrote about the plantation live in Barbados (emphasize mine):

Dirks calculates caloric levels and protein intake. He concludes that plantation food allowances were clearly inadequate "to the total energy required by the average field laborer," and that protein rations were also "marginal at best and more likely inadequate to the extraordinary demands of life and labor on a West Indian estate." Moreover, the foods that the slaves provided for themselves did not augment plantation food allowances sufficiently to produce "an overall level of nutritional adequacy." Dirks's findings can be extended to Barbados, where the historical and physical anthropological evidence support a view of a malnourished slave population.16

Regarding the reason for the malnutrition, they write (emphasize mine):

Plantation allocations varied as a result of a variety of factors within the control of individual managements: for example, what they were willing to spend on food in their efforts to maximize profits and reduce costs and how much acreage they were prepared to plant in food crops. Factors beyond their control also affected food allocations as, for example, when a disruption in trade patterns caused an increase in imported food prices with a concomitant skimping on slave rations, and when droughts, storms, and hurricanes affected the supply of locally grown foods and severely reduced the slaves' diet, sometimes to the point of producing famine conditions.

I couldn't find a source that actually did the cost-benefit analysis of slave malnutrition, but Handler and Corruccini write there were plantation owners who at least acted like it was good economics.

Conclusion

Based on what I could find, I consider it highly unlikely (but your mileage may very) that there was a culmination of circumstances that led to slaves being cheaper than the food required to keep them alive. However, according to Handler and Corruccini (1983) slaves were routinely malnourished in order to "maximize profits and reduce costs". So the claim is true from at least one perspective. Seeing as the first definition is a very extreme interpretation (IMHO), and considering the Principle of Charity, I am comfortable with saying that the claim is true.

Edit: some final notes. The answers to this question depend on how the claim is interpreted. During my research for this answer I found an anecdote, I can't find it anymore but I believe it was by Frederick Douglass, where a lame female slave was flogged and send away because she was useless to her master. The anecdote concluded that she likely starved to death. Does that mean that the claim is true? In this specific case her owner decided that she was worth absolutely nothing, does that verify the claim? Or is the claim about the widespread use of this practice during economic hard times? The ambiguity makes the question hard to answer, but I hope this answer brought some perspectives that are helpful.

References

Galenson, D. W. (1982). The atlantic slave trade and the Barbados market, 1673-1723. *Journal of Economic History*, 491-511.

Eltis, D., Lewis, F. D., & Richardson, D. (2005). Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674–1807 1. The Economic History Review, 58(4), 673-700.

Handler, J. S., & Corruccini, R. S. (1983). Plantation slave life in Barbados: A physical anthropological analysis. The Journal of interdisciplinary history, 14(1), 65-90.

Further Reading

Aworawo, D. (2010). Bitterness on a Sugar Island: British colonialism and the socio-economic development of Jamaica (1655-1750). *Lagos Notes and Records, 16(1)*, 189-214.
Jordy
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  • @IMSoP, for most of history, the price of feeding someone for a day was a few pence. If the cheapest available slave goes for an average of 1560 pence, you don't need to look up exact prices -- it's self-evident that starving slaves and replacing them costs at least two orders of magnitude more than feeding them. – Mark Sep 04 '20 at 02:14
  • @Jordy That Table 2 from Galenson says underneath: "The unit of the price estimates is local Barbados currency", so the conversion you give (for pounds Sterling) is probably not relevant. – Brian Z Sep 04 '20 at 15:54
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    @BrianZ, nice find, I spotted that too. But after that I found Eltis, et al. (added to further reading for your convenience) which has the same info with sterling pound (see table 2). The numbers are very similar. – Jordy Sep 04 '20 at 16:51
  • Now that look closer, I could use extra info from that article in the answer. Thanks @BrianZ! – Jordy Sep 04 '20 at 17:12
  • Jordy, @IMSoP: Your exchange is an exellent example why [theoretical answers are problematic](https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2929/faq-what-are-theoretical-answers/2930#2930) on skeptics.SE. – Schmuddi Sep 05 '20 at 07:50
  • I don't follow your arithmetic from that chart to "a slave was worth about 20 kg of sugar." It seems that you may have overlooked the units in which sugar prices are given, namely shillings per hundredweight. A hundredweight is roughly 45.36 kilograms, and the prices in the table are between roughly 20 and 40 s. (£1 and £2) per hundredweight, so between roughly £0.45 and £0.9 per 20 kg. In 1700-04, with the lowest ratio in the last column, sugar was roughly one shilling per kilo, and a slave cost roughly 470 shillings, so a slave cost roughly as much as 470 kg of sugar. – phoog Sep 05 '20 at 16:06
  • "survival time of slaves is influenced by multiple factors": this may be the key. Look at the death rate of white settlers. Slaves would surely be done at a higher rate even if well fed. If they were expected to die in short order regardless, there may well have been some slave owners who reduced rations somewhat in some economic climates, giving credence to the claim, even if the practice was not universal across all slave owners at all times and even if nobody withheld food completely. One can imagine a businessman under pressure making repeated incremental reductions in rations. – phoog Sep 05 '20 at 16:19
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    My figures are off because this would have been a "long" hundredweight of 112 pounds (8 stone), so it's actually more like 550 times. – phoog Sep 05 '20 at 17:54
  • @phoog, thank you! I indeed misread it as pounds/cwt. My calculations show that a slave was worth 420KG, but I think we can both agree that is more than enough to make the first interpretation implausible. – Jordy Sep 06 '20 at 08:21
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    I've deleted my previous comments and accepted this answer. While I still think it would be interesting to have a source discussing the costs of food for the slaves, I agree that would be difficult to pin down, and this answer makes a clear argument for its position. – IMSoP Sep 07 '20 at 08:11
  • It seems that we have a shy down-voter, I sure wish he or she explained his or her actions so that I can improve my post. – Jordy Sep 11 '20 at 09:02
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Your starting point is the 17th century slave trade, but your actual question appears to be more general - was this ever true for slavery? In that case we have to say definitely yes.

In WWII, prisoners of war were used fairly extensively as slave labour by both Germany and Japan - and a key feature of prisoners of war is that they cost nothing to acquire. The Germans mostly treated West European prisoners of war reasonably but mostly worked Soviet prisoners to death. The Germans of course also used Jews as slave labour too, in companies such as IG Farben. And of course the Japanese treatment of prisoners of war on the railways was infamous; as the link says, prisoners were fed less than a cup of rice a day.

Further back, it was not uncommon for convicts to be worked on limited rations until they died, and again there are always more convicts. This was used in recent history by the USSR, but penal labour was historically used by most European countries. The intent was not always to literally work the convicts to death, but it was certainly to work them in excess of the rations supplied.

Graham
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    I appreciate that this meets the literal wording of the question, but I think it takes us too far away from the original claim. You also haven't actually provided any references, as is required for a high-quality answer on this site. – IMSoP Sep 01 '20 at 20:42
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    @IMSoP Fair point on the references. I'm on a phone and it's a little harder. I don't believe they should be obscure to anyone, but it would improve the answer, so I'll backfill links shortly. Re the claim, I do appreciate it's some distance from the OP's example, so I don't expect it to get high votes. :) But as a sceptic, I think it does put useful bounds on the result. – Graham Sep 01 '20 at 21:02
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    "cost nothing to acquire" may have been somewhat true. But it did cost to move them around by train etc. I'm pretty sure some Eichmann did the math. – Fizz Sep 02 '20 at 02:17
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    -1 As pointed out, answers here need to be sourced, and this isn't really addressing the claim (which is about slavery in the 17th century). To prevent the answer from deletion, I'd suggest to add sources. Note also that "Germans mostly treated prisoners of war reasonably" is [false](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsgefangene_des_Zweiten_Weltkrieges) in general. 66% of sowjet POW died in German camps (compared to 35% of German prisoners in the UdSSR). In the case of Germany, this was very much by design (see Hungerplan & Vernichtung durch Arbeit). – tim Sep 02 '20 at 08:02
  • @tim Thanks. I've added links, and clarified that Soviet prisoners did not get the same treatment as other countries. – Graham Sep 02 '20 at 09:10
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    Did either the USSR and Germany purchase their prisoners? Linking POW to enslavement where a purchased human being becomes your property, and is listed as such, is not the same. – Mari-Lou A Sep 02 '20 at 09:38
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    @Mari-LouA slaves do no require to be purchased to be counted as ones. If we go back further back in time, the practice of enslaving people on a captured territory is quite common. – Dan M. Sep 02 '20 at 11:11
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    "a key feature of prisoners of war is that they cost nothing to acquire" I dispute that. Prisoners of war are not magically teleported to barracks. They require guarded transportation. Depending on volumes and enemy disruption of transport, there may be a zero-sum-game where it's a choice between moving prisoners or moving vital supplies. – Andy Dent Sep 02 '20 at 12:42
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    @IMSoP If you feel this answer doesn't address your question, I would encourage you to update the headline question to make that more clear. – Brian Z Sep 02 '20 at 12:57
  • @AndyDent Why do you think that all those costs did not apply to other slaves? Do you think that plantation slaves stayed there voluntarily? Clearly that's not the case. So like I said, everything else in how you treat slaves can be consistent, but PoWs do not need to be paid for as a capital expense. – Graham Sep 02 '20 at 14:20
  • You seem to be answering a different question ... –  Sep 02 '20 at 14:59
  • @BrianZ I have [made a small edit](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/posts/48399/revisions) to make it more explicit that I'm not asking about the period referenced by Olusoga, not across the broad sweep of history. This answer is an interesting observation, but doesn't really address the claim. – IMSoP Sep 02 '20 at 15:10
  • @IMSoP I think the headline/title specifically is the part that's potentially misleading. – Brian Z Sep 02 '20 at 15:14
  • @BrianZ Titles by their nature will always miss some of the nuances of the question. I think it's better to encourage readers to actually read the question, than to spend hours carefully stuffing keywords into the title so that they don't have to. – IMSoP Sep 02 '20 at 15:18
  • You would object to "Was it ever cheaper for 17th c. British planters to starve slaves and replace them than to provide them with food?" Because to me that makes it very clear that this answer is off topic. – Brian Z Sep 02 '20 at 15:23
  • @IMSoP It's not really about the title. Your original question was "Was there ever a time..." and you've changed it to "Was there a time during this period...". Maybe the second version reflects what you intended to write, but it wasn't what you originally asked. – Graham Sep 02 '20 at 15:23
  • @fredsbend That's because the question was changed after I answered it. :) – Graham Sep 02 '20 at 15:23
  • @Graham I only changed the question 20 minutes ago at BrianZ's suggestion, _after_ Fredsbend's comment (and long after tim said essentially the same thing). My understanding is that questions on this site are always _addressing a particular claim_, and the question is basically always the same: "is this claim true?" So if I had been asking "was this true at any point in history", that would have been off-topic, because that's clearly not the claim being examined. – IMSoP Sep 02 '20 at 15:31
  • @IMSoP Fair point about fredsbend's comment - my apologies. – Graham Sep 02 '20 at 19:52
  • @IMSoP Re the claim though, it's a claim that applies to the entire practise of slavery and which extends well beyond that particular period, as I've shown in my reply. At the risk of bad analogy, a question about a claim of "This specific triangle has three sides" could very well be answered with "We don't need to see the specific triangle, because all triangles have three sides." :) Like I said, I'm aware it doesn't answer for the specific period so I have no complaints about the votes either way, but it does answer for the concept generally at any point in history. – Graham Sep 02 '20 at 19:57
  • It is instructive to see how many calories hard, manual labour requires per day. The Navvies in Britain are a good example and consumed about 8000 calories (https://andrewskindred.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/navvy-army/). – DrMcCleod Sep 04 '20 at 12:18