This paper examines specifically a frequently employed purpose of accounting on slave plantations in the antebellum US and the pre-emancipation British West Indies (BWI) -the evaluation of slaves as assets. We attempt to explain why this exercise was undertaken and the processes involved. Slaves were paraded past plantation managers and overseers, often in the company of appraisers and bookkeepers, where narrow distinctions were made on the basis of qualitative information such as physical characteristics and productive efficiency. The paper considers certain comparative features between the two slave environments, such as the greater concern in the BWI with linking valuations to the skill sets of slaves and a valuation premium on male slaves in the US which did not exist in the Caribbean. The paper concludes with a consideration of certain moral issues of slavery, such as the potential implication of accounting and accountants in a repressive regime and the attribution of contemporary morality to an historical epoch long past.

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This article examines comparatively the slavery systems of the US and the British West Indies before and after their respective emancipations. The primary focus is on how differential factors in the two plantation economies, such as racial control, labour structures, and governmental mandates, impacted the development of accounting and those performing accounting functions. Other factors, such as plantation size and ownership structure, not only influenced accounting practices but management issues as well. These factors resulted in the substantially greater development of accounting in the British Caribbean, both in terms of the number of practitioners and the volume and uniformity of accounting records.e hr_548 765..797 T his article examines comparatively the slavery systems of the US and the British West Indies (BWI) before and after their respective emancipations, with particular reference to how a variety of distinctive factors in each venue influenced the development of accounting and management practice. While economic historians have sliced and diced New World slavery from almost every conceivable angle, the accounting implications have tended to go unnoticed even among specialists in the field of accounting. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in undertaking any major project related to slavery is the vastness of surviving archival materials and, thus, an inability to form definitive conclusions. Plantation records, probate returns, slave narratives, census information, demographic data, and slave-market documents do not always provide a consistent story. For the purposes of this project, plantation records have been selected as the archival sources of choice since their wider geographical dispersion has made them the most understudied primary source. 2 In order to limit the project to a more manageable size, we placed both geographical and chronological constraints on our archival research. Generally, but not entirely, we have focused on the periods immediately before and after their respective emancipations

The paper focuses on accounting for slave workers during one of the most morally culpable periods in Western civilization and is concerned with issues central to labor -modes of production, labor control, and labor productivity. It incorporates secondary sources and examination of records from over 150 different US and BWI plantations to identify contextual factors that motivated planters to organize their workforce in a particular way. The paper specifically describes the ganging and tasking methods of extracting surplus value and indicates how these methods fit within three common paradigmatic interpretations of accounting historylabor process, power/knowledge/discipline, and economic rationalism. In summary, ganging exemplified a pre-modern approach to organizing labor in which planters relied primarily on physical power to compel work effort and increase output. Tasking incorporated individual work rates and included more sophisticated practices of surveillance, measurement, normalization, and socialization. Tasking became economically rational by responding to changing market conditions and by incorporating procedures and incentives to spur greater productivity. Therefore, tasking may be perceived as a thematic precursor to accounting-based disciplinary controls like standard costing and a transitionary element from pre-modern to modern control systems.

The paper describes the nature and role of accounting during apprenticeship – the transition period from slavery to waged labor in the British West Indies. Planters, colonial legislators, and Parliamentary leaders all feared that freed slaves would flee to open lands unless they were bound to plantations. Thus, rather than relying entirely on economic incentives to maintain viable plantations, the Abolition Act and subsequent local ordinances embodied a complex synthesis of paternalism, categorization, penalties, punishments, and social controls that were collectively intended to create a class of willing waged laborers. The primary role of accounting within this structure was to police work arrangements rather than to induce apprentices to become willing workers. This post-emancipation, pre-industrial formalization of punishment, valuation, and task systems furnish powerful insights into the extent of accountancy's role in sustaining Caribbean slave regimes.

This article discusses Enlightenment principles and describes how they were manifested in the debates on slavery. It then analyzes the role of accounting during the slave era in the United States and British West Indies. The key areas discussed are property rights, the humanity of slaves, economic incentives, and self-improvement. The article finds that belief in progress through reason, the common denominator of Enlightenment thinking, was not generally evident in the management and accounting practices on plantations and that the utility of accounting to slaveholders was limited. These practices were not geared toward improving productivity. Instead, short-term gains were achieved by driving the slaves harder, or longer term ones by treating slaves more benevolently to extend life spans or acquiring new plantations to expand capacity. The rate of productivity on plantations tended to be governed by established social norms and was not susceptible to change nor was it noticeably impacted by accounting.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the Victorian attitude to the poor by focussing on the health care provided at a large provincial hospital, the Newcastle Infirmary.Design/methodology/approachThe archives of the Newcastle Infirmary are reviewed alongside the local trade directories. These primary sources are examined in conjunction with the writings of contemporary social theorists on poverty.FindingsAt a time when poverty was seen as a sin, an act against God, it would be easy to assume that the Victorians faced no moral dilemma in dismissing the poor, particularly what were seen as the “undeserving poor”, out of hand. Yet, the paper observes how accounting was used both to persuade the wealthier citizens to contribute funds and to enable the hospital to exercise compassion in treating paupers despite this being prohibited under the hospital's rules. Such a policy conflicted with the dominant utilitarian view of society, which emphasised the twin pillars of economic expediency and self‐help.Research limitations/implicationsMore case studies are needed of other hospitals to ascertain how typical the Newcastle Infirmary was of the voluntary hospital sector as a whole.Originality/valueAlthough many histories of British hospitals exist and some have examined how accounting was used to manage within these institutions, the concern has not been with accounting as a moral practice.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to focus on the transition from slavery to wage workers in the American South and British West Indies, and the corresponding nature of the reporting and control procedures that were established in both venues, in order to create a disciplined workforce, and establish regular relations between employees and employers. It seeks to explain the differences in labour control practices between the two regions and to discuss the impact on these practices of accounting and other quantitative techniques c.1760-1870. In particular, it aims to consider the central role played by government in the process. Design/methodology/approach – The study forms part of an archival research project, in which the authors have consulted archives in four Southern States (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina), three Caribbean island nations, formerly British colonies (Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica), and record repositories the length and breadth of Great Britain. The records of the Freedmen ' s Bureau (FB), located in the National Archives, Washington, DC, have been likewise visited. These primary sources have been supported by the extensive secondary literature on slavery and its aftermath. Findings – In the USA, accounting for labour in the transition from slavery was typically ad hoc and inconsistent, whereas in the BWI it was more organised, detailed, and displayed greater uniformity – both within and across colonies. The role of the British Colonial Office (BCO) was crucial here. A range of economic and political factors are advanced to explain the differences between the two locations. The paper highlights the limitations of accounting controls and economic incentives in disciplining labour without the presence of physical coercion in situations where there is a refusal on the part of the workers to cooperate. Originality/value – There is a relatively small volume of secondary literature comparing US and BWI slavery and its legacy. Likewise, the accounting implications of labour-control practices, during the transition from slavery to freedom, are largely understudied. The research also points to a need to assess the decision-influencing capabilities of management accounting systems in other transitional labour settings.