Economic Effects Of The Slave Revolution

When the first nineteen slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, an institution that would last more than two hundred years was created. These first slaves were treated more like how the indentured servants that came to the New World from England were. However, as time passed and the colonies grew larger, so did the institution of slavery. Even after the importing slaves internationally was banned in 1807 by Congress, the internal slave trade expanded exponentially. The growth and durability of slavery persisted until the end of the Civil War, a time period greater than the entire existence of the United States. The institution of slavery was not only able to endure through two hundred fifty of turbulent change in America, but it was able to advance. This is due to the mindsets of slavery as a “necessary evil” and a “positive good” coupled with the dependence on them for such a large portion of the economy. These factors can be observed in the narratives written by Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

In the essay "The Evolution of Slavery in Colonial America," author Jon Butler examines the growth of the slave practice in the land which would become the United States. As the European nations began exploring North America, they overtook the native populations of the areas and turned them into unpaid laborers. However, these people were not enough to supply landholders with sufficient aid. To make up the necessary numbers, plantation owners utilized indentured servants and then a number of slaves imported from Africa. Indentured servants were people who would be taken from the Old World to the New in order to start a new life. However, since they would not have the necessary funds to pay for their transportation, their journey would be funded by either a manufacturer or a plantation owner and their debt would be paid off by working for their benefactor. Slaves were not given this opportunity. These were people who were taken from their homes and families and forced into labor by threat of violence or death. This practice did not begin in the United States, but America was still allowing slavery well into the 19th century, long after other nations had come to the conclusion that slavery was inhumane and brutal.

In colonies, such as the ones in Chesapeake Bay, their entire economy was based on the production of cash crops. The plantations had a huge quota for cheap labor. As their own southern labor supply was scarce, the plantation owners often used black servants to get cheap labor. As the economy grew, so did the slave trade, and by the late 17th century, the supply of African laborers in North America was plentiful and extensive. Another way that economics had a huge impact on the development of slavery is through the Atlantic slave trade. The first slaves arrived before 1620, but until the mid-1690s there were a small group. This was because of the monopoly that the Royal African Company of England had, which allowed them to keep the prices high and the supplies low. However, when the monopoly was broken, prices fell and the amount of slaves arriving in North America grew exponentially. The need for labor to sustain their plantation-centric economy led to the origin of slavery, and the prices and monopoly of African slaves helped develop slavery into the basis of the southern work

The earliest form of slavery in North America can be traced back to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. There, they were called the “Twenty and Odd” and considered servants rather than slaves. Though little is known about this infamous event, this ‘trade’ continued of capturing Africans from Africa and bringing them to the colonies of Britain. The usage of slaves increased and were often used as field laborers on plantations, house workers, blacksmiths

The slave trade in the North American colonies began to grow in the 1600s. The African slave trade sourced their slaves from many different West African villages and countries. The business of slavery was a growing and profitable field, not only for the slavers, but also for the slaveholders. With the decrease of indentured servants, settlers in the English colonies looked for a new source of labor to satisfy their growing labor demands. The next source was Africa. “By the 1690s slaves outnumbered indentured servants four to one” (45). Europeans largely disregarded the ethical dilemma posed by slavery due to the European view of Africans and their culture as uncivilized, foreign, and heathen (44). The largest forced migration in history (44)

From 1450 to 1750, slavery continued to be an important system of labor. The institution of slavery expanded dramatically across the Atlantic Ocean as enslaved Africans were brought over to the New World.Slavery existed in many parts of the world, such as Africa,the Middle East, and other areas of the world throughout this period. In many places of the world, people would trade enslaved people through out the world. Because Europeans were looking for a large labor supply,they started a transatlantic slave trade. The enslaved men and women grew sugarcane and cash crops on plantations.Because of slavery, after a while, slavery became "the norm". Ever since then, slavery had a whole new meaning to it. When the Spanish and the Portuguese came to

Africans first arrived in the area that later became the United States of America in around 1619 in the Chesapeake area. The large amount of fertile land in the area gave the settlers their biggest cash crop, which was tobacco. As time went by, more and more tobacco was being exported to England. Because of this, more labor was needed. This need for more labor was not only in the north, but in the south as well due to their mass production of cotton. This movement started the institution of slavery in America. Then, the colonies and other countries started to trade slaves and it became a business. The Royal African Company was the first slave trading company, which was started in 1672. The slaves were transported by the Middle

After the War of 1812, three historical processes unleashed by the Revolution, which were the following: the spread of market relations, the westward movement of the population, and the rise of a vigorous political democracy. The same steamboats and canals that were used by millions of farmers to send their goods to the markets also facilitated the growth of the slave-based cotton plantations in the South. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the market revolution swept over the United States. Both the westward expansion and the market

Slavery in america began in the 17th century in Virginia. Slaves were being transported to america through the triangular trade. The triangular trade was a process in which africans were captured and traded for rum and other goods from england to africa. Slaves were packed in an unsanitary and crowded ship, they were treated poorly. The 18th century was the busiest period for the slave trade. More than 6 million africans were enslaved and transported to the new world. Document C illustrates how slavery spread throughout the united states, document c also shows that slavery in the north had decreased, it was mostly due to the fact that they were industrializing and they didn’t need slaves. The south, however used slaves because they were agricultural. they produced a lot of cotton, and many other cash crops and needed slaves to work their farms.

Starting with the Atlantic slave trade in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, in which slaves were brutally transported in the middle passage from Africa to America, slavery had an important role in the American economy, but differed in volume by region. However, as the colonies declared their independence in 1776, a gradual anti-slavery movement began in the North as many formed negative opinions about the Southern “Peculiar Institution” of a slavery-based economy. Various issues and ideas from 1776 to 1852 caused this gradual Northern abolitionist movement: political intervention, economic inabilities and threats, social anxieties and intervention, and fundamental moral ideas respectively reflect the thesis.

Ratified by the states in the winter of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was put into play. It declared, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (Primary Documents). Officially, this amendment outlawed the practice of slavery, there was, however, an exception. That exception was the use of involuntary servitude, or slavery, as a form of punishment. More than four million African Americans walked free in 1865, this had a rather negative impact on the Southern economy. And so came the Convict-lease system. Many white Southerners saw this system as a solution to their economic hardships; nonetheless, it was often seen as being worse than slavery. In addition to the convict lease system was the practice of Sharecropping and Peonage. These forms of subjugation brought even greater distress to the newly freed African Americans. Despite the ratifying of the Thirteenth Amendment the abhorrent treatment of this newly freed race did not change significantly thanks to programs like the Convict Lease system, Peonage, and Sharecropping.

Slavery became an established activity in America by 1600’s. The slaves were mostly to provide free and cheap labor. Apart from America, slavery was practiced in other parts of the world throughout history, and in fact it can be traced back to the time of the ancient civilization. With industrial revolution especially with the rise of sugar plantations, the slaves were used to grow sugar in the periods from 1100. This intensified between 1400 and 1500 when Portugal and Spain ventured into sugar growing in the eastern Atlantic regions. The growth of the plantations required labor, hence African slaves were bought from Africa, to provide labor.

“It was otherwise in the Chesapeake, the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. There, the legal institution of slavery grew out of economic opportunism and evolving social custom.” However, racism was involved as well in these areas. The British North Americans again resorted to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, bringing in the labourers necessary to grow their crops; no matter how inhumane. “Economic need drove the tobacco planters to import large numbers of enslaved Africans in the late seventeenth century.” Working on these plantations was not an easy life, and the travelling conditions that these people went through were

American slavery started in colonial times. Northern ships would sail tobacco grown in the south to England, trading for guns, textiles, among other things. From there they’d set sail to Africa, trading what goods they had for the bondage of some of the black population, even women and children. Finally, the ships would sail back to the south of America to sell the slaves. The conditions on these ships