Slavery In British North America

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Throughout the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century, the strengthening of the New World colonies in British North America and Barbados by the British Empire was a result of the usage of slavery to jumpstart the New World colonies economy and grow their own. The reason that slavery was appealing towards the British and the settlers was due to the strenuous labour and long hours necessary to grow cash crops on plantations. It takes time and effort to grow these crops, and the main crops we will be focusing on are sugar, tobacco, and rice. Since running a plantation is costly and a lengthy process, settlers and the elite in Britain attempted to achieve maximum profits with no form of payment to the workers. By importing slaves into the colonies; …show more content…

“The slave trade and slavery were central to the settler societies established in the New World and to the production of staple crops for European consumption.” Hours were long and gruesome, and these labourers were greatly mistreated by the Plantation owners. “The vast majority of a plantation slave’s waking hours was spent working, and new forms of labor discipline and supervision in the eighteenth century enabled planters to extract more working hours and greater physical efforts on a wider variety of tasks from their slaves." Without the hard work that was forced upon and completed by slaves, there would have been food shortages for the settlers as well as for Europeans. Another complication that the British found with running a plantation in British North America without slaves was that it was very expensive. General plantation labourers would demand high wages for the lengthy work that was required, and owning slaves would make that work less costly and mandatory. “Most of the waking hours of slaves, on at least six days of the week, were spent toiling for their owners without any wages.” The British took full advantage of slavery to better their own economic …show more content…

Three of the main crops; also known as cash crops, were sugar, tobacco, and rice. Beginning with sugar; which was a main export to Britain throughout the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. The use of slavery was crucial to their success with the crop. “Sugar was the most lucrative import brought into Britain between about 1670 and 1820, when it was exceeded in value by supplies of raw cotton imported for the textile industry.” With such a large demand for the product, the British turned to Barbados to get the good. The population of planters from the British colonies grew tremendously in Barbados in the late seventeenth century due to the demand of sugar. The outcome was an increase of four hundred and forty-three percent. With the large demand came investment opportunities and increasingly needed slaves working their plantations. Britain was a far larger importer of sugar than the colonies in British North America were, however, they were still trading for sugar and participating in the slave trade from Barbados. The people in British North America found use of the sugar to make rum, and a large importer was Carolina. Barbadians could also be purchased as slaves to bring to Carolina, making Barbados an economic investment for the British. Again we see that the British were prioritizing their economy over the well-being of people who were

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