A Conversation with John Bezis-Selfa

Stacks of stone preside over many bucolic and wooded landscapes in the mid-Atlantic states. Initially constructed more than two hundred years ago, they housed blast furnaces that converted rock and wood into the iron that enabled the United States to secure its national independence. In Forging America (Cornell University Press, 2003), John Bezís-Selfa argues that the iron industry, with its early concentrations of capital and labor, reveals the close links between industrial and political revolution. He recently spoke with the Quarterly about the importance of slave labor to early American development.

How did the concept of work shape personal identity in early America?

By necessity most early Anglo-Americans spent most of their lives working. Work also mattered to them (as it does to most of us today) because what they did shaped and reflected who they were. But they regarded work in ways that most Americans abandoned over a century ago. They believed that work should lead to and preserve economic independence for men. To them a "real" man was his own boss and he could provide his dependents with some material comfort. These goals were what principally drove Anglo-America's industrious revolution. To colonists most of us would be losers because we work for someone else nearly our entire lives. Employees were dependent—little better than women, children, servants or slaves.

What makes ironworks especially interesting to the development of labor identity and, to use your term, the "industrious revolution"?

Ironworks had a tenuous relationship to the industrious revolution. They depended on it and its ideals for capital, for markets, and for labor. Without a dynamic economy, the colonies would not have become the world's third-largest iron producer by 1775. But the iron industry, ironmasters (also known to colonists as "adventurers") believed, could not have grown so rapidly had it adhered to the principles of the industrious revolution. Ironworks were too big, too complex, and too dependent on scarce and expensive skilled labor. Ironmasters had to control costs and discipline labor to stay in business, so they sought to supervise ironworkers as closely as possible while regulating turnover. This led ironmasters to enslave thousands. They quickly learned, though, that slavery and industrial production would not mesh unless slaves had incentives to be productive, including pay for "extra" work so that slave men could become providers to their families. All ironworkers, slave or free, struggled for much autonomy as they could get. Many knew that independence was a pipe dream for them. Few could hope to become ironmasters themselves; they couldn't afford it.

When we think of the Industrial Revolution in America, the textile mills of New England generally come to mind. Why do we know so little about the role of ironworks in the formation of America?

Most historians have traditionally associated industrialization with textile mills, whether in England or in New England, largely because textile mills harnessed humans to machines. But so did ironworks, long before textile mills appeared. I also fi nd persuasive the argument that conflating textile mills and industrialization served the ideological purposes of wealthier nineteenth-century Americans. In their eyes the mills took cloth production, a "feminine" pursuit in New England by the American Revolution, out of homes, thereby helping to transform "productive" women into nurturing mothers and "ladies."

Forging America tells many personal stories. What was your favorite account?

Juan Domingo López. First and least, I seldom encounter other Latinos in documents I read in archives. What's better, I did not initially know that he was Dominican. I met him as "Negro Mingo," the name his masters called him in an account book after he had run away to sue for his freedom. On a visit to the Maryland State Archives I decided to look for the record of his case. I nearly overlooked it, for in court "Negro Mingo," slave of the Principio Company, had become Juan Domingo López. There he explained how he had become enslaved and why he believed that he deserved freedom. Did López ultimately win? I have no idea.

In the text, you argue that slavery was as important as any other factor in the development of industrialized America. What does that mean for us as a nation today?

We should ponder our past before prescribing it for others to follow. Our leaders tell poorer nations that economic development automatically means more freedom; U.S. history "proves" it. But the colonial iron industry's explosive growth was owed largely to slaves. We should remember that when we consider how to address slavery's legacies, whether by recognizing that slavery is inseparable from "real" American history or by finally according claims for reparations serious attention.