New Books in Law Anthony C. Infanti, "The Human Toll: Taxation and Slavery in Colonial America" (NYU Press, 2025)
Jun 3, 2025
In this engaging discussion, law professor Anthony C. Infanti delves into the dark history of taxation and slavery in colonial America. He reveals how tax law was weaponized to dehumanize enslaved individuals and sustain the institution of slavery. Infanti also explores the contradictions of tax mechanisms, showing how some colonies used taxation as a means to curtail the slave trade. The conversation highlights historical insights that connect past injustices to contemporary debates on reparations, providing thought-provoking lessons on taxation and social equity.
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South Carolina As A Tax Laboratory
- South Carolina became the clearest example of tax law used to entrench slavery because it was a majority-Black colony with pervasive slaveholder power.
- Tax rules there reflected deliberate strategies to control population, secure cooperation, and normalize enslaving people as property.
Tax As Control And Population Lever
- Colonies used taxation not only to label enslaved people as property but to influence slaveholder behavior and population composition.
- Tax mechanisms funded compensation for executed enslaved people and turned import taxes into levers to slow or promote the slave trade.
Buying Slaveholder Cooperation
- Early compensation schemes bought slaveholder cooperation for administering brutal punishments that destroyed 'property.'
- Legislatures experimented with funding methods, shifting burdens from general revenue to local slaveholders to broader property taxpayers as policy evolved.
