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Slavery In America

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Slavery is defined as the horrific forcing of a person to perform a task without being paid what can be considered fair for the work done. This definition applied on an international level is the transatlantic slave trade in which Africans were forcefully removed from their native lands and shipped in chains to North America to be used on plantations as a free source of labor Hellie (2018) mention that a slave is an asset or property and therefore belonged to someone else. Slaves are objects in the law and not the subjects just as a horse and therefore a slave is not ordinarily held responsible for any action he did. Slaves had no next of kin and no relatives recognized. Thus a slave can be separated from his or her family. Slaves had no rights …show more content…

These plantations required large amounts of labor. Slavery in the United States is believed to have stated in 1619 in Virginia. Earliest recordings identify the arrival of a Dutch ship with about 20 Africans on board at Jamestown in the state of Virginia. In the 17th century and the one after it (the 18TH century), the dominant trade in almost all the colonies was slavery (National Geography 2018). These were European settlers in North America. Their principal source of labor for the plantations was poor Europeans. The arrival of African slaves became a cheaper source of labor. The trade in African slaves continued for centuries and even for years when it was banned or made illegal. It is generally believed that approximately seven million able-bodied African slaves were forcibly shipped to North America in the 18th century alone leading to the shortest of men and women in West Africa (Slavery in …show more content…

During that time the main cash crops were rice, indigo, tobacco, and cotton. The predominant slave states were then Maryland and Virginia. Towards the end of the 18th century, the south was facing collapse economically as the overused lands were no longer productive. This event could have been a blessing for the slaves but fate did not smile on the slaves. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 by an American school teacher meant cotton seeds which notoriously difficult to remove were not removed so easily and so efficiently. This meant plantation owners could now engage in large-scale production (Slavery in

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