Importance of Slavery to the Southern Way of Life

Importance of Slavery to the Southern Way of Life

America almost from the beginning was heavily dependent on forced

labour. In 1619, John Rolfe in Virgina reported 'about the last day of

August came in a butch man-of-war that sold us 20 negers'. This is the

first record of Africans 'settling' in America. The Southern colonies

were more dependent on labour then the North, as the climate in the

South was ideal for plantation agricultural. In the 17th century the

basis of the work force, in mainly the Southern colonies were

Europeans labourers, who as indentured servants, offered landowners a

solution to their labour shortage. Beginning in the 1680s, the

mainland colonies underwent a massive shift, from indentured servants

to slave labour, due to requirement of labour in the South. From the

early 17th century Africans were shipped to North America to be sold

as slaves, against their freewill. Slavery continued to expand even

after 1808, when it was declared illegal. African slave trading became

the main problem dividing Americans, and could even of been a factor

of many, which led to the American Civil War. Why did the South not

abolish slavery altogether? It wasn't as simple as that; slavery was

crucial for economical, political, social and even religious reasons;

of which the greatest was economical.

Slavery was vital to the Southern colony's continuation of economic

profit, and therefore was chiefly economically based. The conditions

of the Southern colonies were much suited to plantation agriculture,

which provided the basis of the South's wealth. But cultivating the

crops of plantations required labour, and as the South was a plac...

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believed that their society would collapse without slave labour- this

obviously wasn't the case. Also the Southerners benefited from the

slave population, which allowed more politicians into the Lower House

of Representatives. The colonists of the South saw Africans as

'savage' and 'uncivilised', they thought that the Africans were better

off enslaved in American, than a freeman in their country of origin.

So basically American Southerners thought they were helping Africans,

as well as helping themselves. I believe that there was really no need

for slavery to exist at all. I'm sure that the early settlers would

have been able to survive without slavery or forced labour. I think

slavery was an excuse to show racial dominance, and power. What if

slavery hadn't existed would America still be the same as it is today?