[parineum]

Reading this post made me wonder if there were "temp agency" type businesses for slaves. Having to own the labor would make your it very difficult to expand and contract your workforce.

Morality aside, it really doesn't seem like a great system.

[Breza]

This was incredibly common here in Washington DC. Think about construction. Building the Capitol required a ton of temporary labor, for example, so Congress contracted for both free and enslaved labor for its construction.

[xhkkffbf]

Yup. This is why it failed.

I think it was fairly common for plantations to loan, rent, or trade slaves just as they treated any other asset.