Quote Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good View Post
The situation there is quite different, as the confiscated farms were not given to people who had previously been working that land as slaves.
I don't think the results would be any different, at least for the big plantations. What happens to the livestock and farm equipment? Is that confiscated as well? How is it divvied up? Small farmers with 1 or 2 slaves probably imparted more knowledge, and had to trust their slaves more (and probably treated them better overall), so these slaves would have more success on their own. The big plantations? A few bad harvests and then dead soil.

Since we are talking 1788 in this little hypothetical and not 1850s deep South, what would happen to slaves working as blacksmith help, or as a dockworker, or any other non-plantation related work throughout the 13 colonies? Would the freed slaves get the business? What about the slave labor gangs that weren't tied to a plantation, but rented out across several?