All in all the real money was in the southern slave labor farms, and northern wage labor farms felt threaten by this fact. Slavery mixed with farms and the types of crops produced is what really began the domino effect that lead into the civil war. Southern slave labor farms seemed to have an upper hand in the production of crop. The slave labor farms were able to produce more crops and sell it for a higher profit than free labor farms. Therefore, slave labor farms were able to bring in larger amounts of income which, in turn, led to a drastic change in there social structure when compared to free labor farms in the north.
At this time there was a need for a labour force to work the lucrative plantations and so this was the basis on which the slave trade was formed. When Britain won the Asiento contract in 1713 to supply Spanish colonies with slaves they gained total dominance of the West African slave trade to the Caribbean and the West Indies. Planters in the West Indies and Caribbean needed a labour force
While many disregard this system as cruel and unfair, in reality it helped to shape America as it is today. Without the help of this system, economies would not be as developed as they are now. Unfree labor played a very important role in shaping the economy and society of colonial American through the use of indentured servants and slavery. The system of temporary servitude in the New World was established out of practices used in New England. In short, indentured servants were mainly poor British people without jobs.
Consisting of modern day N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia, the southern colonies had a climate well suited to the production of tobacco which was rapidly becoming a necessity for Europeans. With the demand nearly limitless the amount of land and workers need to work the land grew rapidly. With the need of workers for the plantations that existed in this region, a law was passed, which gave farmers 50 acres for every person who they helped pay passage for. This quickly gave rise to a social elite who controlled most of the states. Also this created a huge population of poor indentured servants who would come across seeking their fortunes and be spending most of a decade working on a plantation.
Slaves were the support system of their owners. Some believe the evolution of slavery in the US was divided into three stages: development, high profit, and decadent. In the developmental stage the slaves cleared the land for planting and built the roads and dams essential for plantations. In the second, high profit stage, slaves were driven to plant, cultivate and harvest for market. The plantations masters thought it was “cheaper to buy than to breed” meaning it was cheaper to buy a new slave and work him to death than it was to allow a slave to live long enough and bear children to increase numbers.
Slaves were used to aid in the production of such lucrative crops as tobacco. Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new nation. This is an important piece of history due to the fact that slavery was created and evolved from this purchase. If slavery had not existed, the Civil War likely would not have been fought. There were other pressing issues between the North and
Aricka Reyes Professor Marshall History 109 28 October 2008 The Life of a Slave During the 1800’s Slavery was a very important effect during the 1800’s. Many slave owners believed that slavery was the main source of obtaining more wealth. Slave owners also had in mind that with the more slaves they posses the further they would be able to plant and grow. Which in fact slave owners were not wrong, the more slaves they had on their plantations the extra they will be able cultivate each year. However, at one point slavery was abolished in one side were as in the other side it was still approve.
Cotton was creating an insatiable appetite for slave labor; congress abolished the importation of slaves from Africa. "Now an already vibrant domestic slave-trade would flourish. In the upper South the selling of slaves became more profitable than the growing of tobacco5. By 1840 the value of cotton exports was greater than everything else the nation exported to the world combined! And that made slaves the most valuable thing in the nation beside the land itself.
The South’s money was based off cotton and tobacco. Cotton was the most profitable. A machine was invented to speed up the time. Thus, meaning they needed cheap laborers to make bigger profit. On the other hand, the North’s economy was more industrial based.
According to Wood (1990) he states that “slavery was an essential part of the earliest multinational systems of credit and trade which arose in the 15th and 16th centuries” (p.96). The African slave trade also stimulated European shipping, manufacturing, and gun making. Slavery played an essential role in the growth of commercial capitalism in the colonies; slavery was the essential to creating wealth. Slaves where very important because it meant that plantations could plant large amounts of crops and own workers without having to pay them. “Slavery was important to the southeast regain, because of slaves, most of the southeast made money off cash crops which helped them but more slaves, and also more land”