Slavery became of fundamental importance in the early modern Atlantic world when Europeans decided to transport thousands of Africans to the Western Hemisphere to provide labor in place of indentured servants and with the rapid expansion of new lands in the mid-west there was increasing need for more laborers. The first Africans to have been imported as laborers to the first thirteen colonies were purchased by English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 from a Dutch warship. Later in 1624, the Dutch East India Company brought the first enslaved Africans in Dutch New Amsterdam. Early English settlers in the lower Chesapeake Bay region learned to cultivate tobacco from the Native Americans and it would prove to have profound influence in the development of Chesapeake society and the colonies of Virginia and Maryland as a whole. Between 1627 and 1669, annual tobacco exports climbed from 250,000 pounds to more than 15 million pounds. (p39. The American Journey). The Chesapeake region became the New World’s largest producer of tobacco. Since tobacco was a labour intensive crop to cultivate, the planters sought indentured servants from England as a source of cheap labour. However many servants died in alarming numbers from disease as a result from the supply of indentured servants declined, and larger planters who were wealthy managed to buy slaves. Slave population increased rapidly from 1,708 in 1660 to 189,000 in 1760. (Smith, Billy G., and Nash. Encyclopedia of American History). Rice was another cash crop that required a substantial investment in land, labor, and equipment. It was among the most intensive and extensive crops developed in colonial North America. Its cultivation helped shape the development of societies in South... ... middle of paper ... ... market, but demand in continental Europe and the United States grew even faster after 1840. The profitability of slavery ultimately rested on the enormous demand for cotton outside the South. This made slaves the most valuable commodity at the time and most of the profits from slave labor and sales went into purchasing more land and slaves. At the heart of Anglo-American trade lay the highly profitable commerce in cash crops, from tobacco in the Chesapeake colonies to rice and indigo in South Carolina, wheat from the middle colonies to cotton in the South; an extensive textile industry in the North, Insurance companies that insured slaves as property, to many wall street firms that got their start as middle men in the cotton trade, I think it would be logical to conclude that the foundation of American economy lay in the back breaking toil and sweat of Slave labor.
The seventeenth century marked the start of great colonization and immigration to the New World that was North America. Mainly in on the eastern coast of what is now the United States, England established colonies on this new land to thrive socially and economically. The English government readily sent its citizens to America to exploit its abundant source of raw materials and the English people exponentially came to the colonies to start a new life for themselves and to thrive socially. In Virginia during the seventeenth century, the geographical attributes in this region allowed the establishment of the cash crop tobacco to rapidly transform the colony socially and economically. Particularly in the Chesapeake Bay, the goal of social and economical development was achieved.
Looking at the early English colonies in the Chesapeake Bay region, it’s clear that the English had not learned any lessons from their experiences at Roanoke. Poor planning, a bad location, unrealistic expectations, flawed leadership, unsuccessful relations with the local Indians, and no hope of finding the mineral wealth the Spanish found in Mexico, all contributed to failure. The first colonists in the Chesapeake region were not only ignorant, lazy and unambitious, but their attempts were hampered before they had begun. However, a solution to these problems was found in a single plant: tobacco. Nevertheless, this cash crop ultimately created numerous problems for the colonists. The ignorance and indolent acts of the Chesapeake colonists to unsuccessfully restore the colony by themselves led to the demise of the colony as a whole especially regarding the planting of agricultural goods for food.
The use of labor came in two forms; indenture servitude and Slavery used on plantations in the south particularly in Virginia. The southern colonies such as Virginia were based on a plantation economy due to factors such as fertile soil and arable land that can be used to grow important crops, the plantations in the south demanded rigorous amounts of labor and required large amounts of time, the plantation owners had to employ laborers in order to grow crops and sell them to make a profit. Labor had become needed on the plantation system and in order to extract cheap labor slaves were brought to the south in order to work on the plantations. The shift from indentured servitude to slavery was an important time as well as the factors that contributed to that shift, this shift affected the future generations of African American descent. The history of colonial settlements involved altercations and many compromises, such as Bacons Rebellion, and slavery one of the most debated topics in the history of the United States of America. The different problems that occurred in the past has molded into what is the United States of America, the reflection in the past provides the vast amount of effort made by the settlers to make a place that was worth living on and worth exploring.
Morgan ably describes how the weed saved the new colony of Virginia and gave rise to servitude and eventually led to racial slavery. The first colonists who planted tobacco exported their crop to England. As this practice became more and more profitable, the crop became the only thing Virginians wanted to plant. Even after the English government tried to control and limit the planting of tobacco to raise the price, wealthy Virginians continued to export the plant. However, these Virginians could not farm tobacco alone. Labor was required.
Within the economy a great development had been achieved when the upper south handed its power to the lower south all due to the rise of an agricultural production. This expansion was led by the excessive growth of cotton in the southern areas. It spread rapidly throughout America and especially in the South. During these times it gave another reason to keep the slavery at its all time high. Many wealthy planters started a ‘business’ by having their slaves work the cotton plantations, which this was one of a few ways slavery was still in full effect. Not only were there wealthy planters, at this time even if you were a small slave-holder you were still making money. While all of this had been put into the works, Americans had approximately 410,000 slaves move from the upper south to the ‘cotton states’. This in turn created a sale of slaves in the economy to boom throughout the Southwest. If there is a question as to ‘why’, then lets break it d...
John Rolfe played a major role in history in 1614 when he found a way to harvest tobacco. The tobacco crop is what restored Jamestown, Virginia and it would not exist today without this cash crop. Restoring Jamestown is not the only significance the tobacco crop holds; it is also responsible for the early stages of slavery. Since tobacco became the cash crop of Virginia, it was more in demand. There was a shortage of laborers to plant and harvest the tobacco crop and as a result settlers were unable to meet the European quota for tobacco. Since it was increasing in demand more laborers were needed to maintain these large plantations ; therefore more indentured servants were needed. The higher the demand for tobacco, the higher demand for laborers. Company agents advertised a few years of labor bondage and exchange would receive a new and better life in America. In 1619, the first Africans came to Jamestown. They came...
Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive...
Slavery was a practice in many countries in the 17th and 18th centuries, but its effects in human history was unique to the United States. Many factors played a part in the existence of slavery in colonial America; the most noticeable was the effect that it had on the personal and financial growth of the people and the nation. Capitalism, individualism and racism were the utmost noticeable factors during this most controversial period in American history. Other factors, although less discussed throughout history, also contributed to the economic rise of early American economy, such as, plantationism and urbanization. Individually, these factors led to an enormous economic growth for the early American colonies, but collectively, it left a social gap that we are still trying to bridge today.
Tobacco was a main crop in colonial America that helped stabilize the economy (Cotton 1). Despite the fact that tobacco took the place of the other crops in Virginia, as well as replacing the hunt for gold with tobacco cultivation. It proved to be a major cash crop, especially in Virginia and Maryland (Weeks 3). Tobacco left many people financially troubled because other occupations were disregarded or not as profitable as tobacco farmers (Randel 128). The unemployment that tobacco brought about made many colonists poor and homeless (128). After the tobacco boom started, many men signed themselves to indentured servitude hoping to be freed and given land along with other promised goods (Tunis 79). Three hundred and fifty thousand African slaves were also imported to labor on large tobacco plantations in the South (Weeks 1). The tobacco industry had a profound effect on colonial America, socially and economically.
The first arrivals of Africans in America were treated similarly to the indentured servants in Europe. Black servants were treated differently from the white servants and by 1740 the slavery system in colonial America was fully developed.
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Colonists started to import slaves from South America in hopes that they would live longer and be more manageable to control. The slaves that were imported were trained past their first year of slavery, so that they would not die as fast. The first imported slaves came to America in the early 17th century. When they received the slaves, they found out some of them were baptized, and were under the Christian religion. So they could not be treated as slaves under the religion, so they were turned into indentured servants.
The first traders to introduce slaves to the American colonies were the Portuguese who were later followed by the Spanish. Brought from Africa by way of different routes but in particular, the "Middle Passage" or directly from Africa to the Indies, slaves would travel in ships packed like sardines and under the most horrible conditions.
Black people were brought to America from Africa during 17th, 18th, and 19th century. They were forcibly transported to Atlantic in slave ships and sold to work on sugar and cotton farms in the southern states. Due to the demand increase for cotton in Europe in the first half of the 19th century, it resulted in the primary growth of cotton industry in Southern states. However, the demand for cotton in Europe increased the demand for slave labor that can be blamed for the failure of the Southern economy to adjust to changed economic levels. The South’s economic growth and standard of living were comparable to other countries who did well economically at the time, but it could not compare to the North in terms of industrialization. Southern states
As slave owners began to figure out which crop and products produces the most income they began selling crops in international markets to buy the newest furniture and lastest clothing fashion.