The Economic Factors Of Slave Labor In The 1600s In America

Other Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans were the groups thought to be most suitable for the economic demand of labor. Many of the early views of West Africans were received through the bible until written accounts of encounters with these people were made. These written accounts of the encounters of West Africans led to the idea West Africans could be brought over and sold in the Americas to work in chattel slavery. This in turn made them the ultimate choice for the labor force of the English. However the famous sale of twenty Africans to the colonists at Jamestown in 1619 by Dutch slave traders did not equate to the introduction of chattel slavery just yet. Many early African slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants brought in from England. They could work the land for a set number of years then after their term was up be freed and given a piece of land. Indentured servitude was not hereditary but their contract could be sold, bartered, given away or gambled away. These contracts gave away the servant’s labor but it did not give away the servant’s person. Despite this African presence, slavery was slow to arrive in Virginia because the mortality rate for indentured servants was so high during the first decades of the Virginia colony. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until economic considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

Document F states, “The worst [among us were the gold seekers who] with their golden promises made all men their slaves in hope of recompenses.” This quote displays the major motive of emigrants to the Chesapeake region as gold seekers, or monetary prosperity. Documents G and H show that there were many indentured servants in the Chesapeake area. These indentured servants were often used for the tobacco farms. Since the soil was infertile in New England, the colonists there often focused on trade, small scale manufacturing, fishing, and other sea industries. The economy of each region impacted its social structure, which many indentured servants and slaves in the Chesapeake region while there was much more equality in New England.

Document F states, "The worst [among us were the gold seekers who] with their golden promises made all men their slaves in hope of recompenses." This quote displays the major motive of emigrants to the Chesapeake region as gold seekers, or monetary prosperity. Documents G and H show that there were many indentured servants in the Chesapeake area. These indentured servants were often used for the tobacco farms. Since the soil was infertile in New England, the colonists there often focused on trade, small scale manufacturing, fishing, and other sea industries. The economy of each region impacted its social structure, which many indentured servants and slaves in the Chesapeake region while there was much more equality in New England.

Breen and Innes do a great job suggesting that a person’s conduct, not necessarily their race, played the major role in early Virginia. They make an inadvertent argument that dominance and submission were the real issue when it came to owning property at the time, not race. The large plantation owners intimidated the smaller farmers and landowners. Blacks were on the same playing field when compared along with the small farmers and landowners. Sadly, this did not last with the entrance of racial mindsets as aforementioned. There is also an argument that even though the hardest working blacks could work their way out of slavery and into freedom, they could maintain the wealth it took to perpetuate that freedom. The growing plantation system and the growing black population is what brought an end to the equal status of the free, black

Additionally slavery stemmed from the need of a large labor force in the southern colonies. “Growing tobacco was labor intensive, and colonial planters soon found that immigration from Europe and natural population increases were unable to supply the numbers of laborers needed to work the tobacco fields... By 1700, Virginia was importing huge numbers of slaves to provide the labor“ (“Chesapeake Bay - Economy”. 2) The lowering of slaves rights and the increase of Chesapeake area’s dependence on slaves was due to this switch and all white classes forming closer

It was difficult for lower class Americans and immigrants to find work at the turn of century, and those who were able to find work were not much better off than those who could not. These people were completely dependent on every penny they earned, which is almost the exact definition of wage slavery. They also had to work in less than desirable conditions, which is also very similar to the definition of wage slavery. These people were trapped in this way of life because they could not earn enough extra money to do anything about their situation.

These slaves and indentured servants had been utilized to appease the massive boom in demand in Britain for raw goods giving rise to the upper class and further dropping the lower class. This upper class owned large areas in the Chesapeake region where they set up many plantations run by a subordinate uncanningly resembling the feudal

By the 1630s, about 1.5 million pounds of tobacco was hauled out of Chesapeake Bay (and almost 40 million towards the 1700s). The Chespeake was hospitable for tobacco cultivation and it blew up the tobacco economy.

Free and slave labor is different each other based on their characteristic of profitability in many different places. Slave labor gains more revenue from tasks that require less basic skill and flexibility in the production process. For example, if the landlord use slave labor to cultivate fresh land, it is more profitable instead of using free labour to cultivate desolated land. Moreover, the use of slave labor is based on a strict economic situation. Slavery made supplies free labors were not achieved, and the cultivation of crops such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco was possible to achieve by slave labour in the New World because the European population of the 19th century was limited. Free labor has not achieved the supply needed for large farms in the new land and they suited better for small-scale production of crops requiring professional skills which is an absolute fact that using slave labors are more advantageous to do the mass production. Therefore, slave labor was much better to stable because it was easier to control over ensuring proper production of crops (Eltis, 2000).

In the beginning Africans would be sold in the colonies as indentured servants. Unfortunately, the need for workers grew, assemblies began to pass laws making slavery legal. Later in time, slavery became a part of their life, in the colonies. In the mid-1700s, slavery was legal in all 13 colonies. These laws said that the children of enslaved people would also be slaves. Saddly, families were normally split up and sold to different owners. Slaves often did whatever they could to resist, act against slavery, brake tools, pretend to be sick, or work slowly. These action were dangerous, slaves had to be careful to avoid punishment.

In some ways, indentured servants in Virginia had lives just as bad as the African slaves in the West Indies had. They had less value for masters, because the masters did not have to buy the indentured servants. For this reason, indentured servant masters could work their temporary slaves so hard that they would not live to receive their freedom dues. The indentured

Slavery was caused by economic factors of the English settlers in the late 17th century. Planters primarily relied on indentured servitude, in order to facilitate their need for labor. Before the 1680's, Indentured Servitude was the primary source of labor in the newly developed colonies but after the 1680's, the population of the Indentured Servants decreased, exponentially. The Seventeenth century in Virginia was an unruly and rebellious time as the labour force, being both white and some black servants, was becoming more and more disloyal.

The heavy scarcities that the Colonial Era faced was relieved with the foundation and development of human labor which, depending on a person’s distinct appearance and social backgrounds, progressed differently throughout the regions of Colonial America. Three individuals have been highlighted to differentiate between the attributes of human labor upbringing: Mary Jemison, Olaudah Equiano and Gottlieb Mittelberger. Each individual had been transported to separate regions of Colonial America from their origin countries to participate either willingly or unwillingly, in agricultural-based labor. With completely discrete, formative years, each person had acquired a different assimilation both culturally and through physical toil which accentuates

Organizational value of the slavery was an essential part of the Virginia and Chesapeake during the eighteenth century. The social practices and attitudes that accompanied the skin color based slavery system affected fundamentally all the fields of life. The slave system originated in early seventeen century and slowly prospers with increasing family based servitude system in African Blacks. Over the period of hundred years this slavery system became the critical component of the Virginia society due to obstructive legal system and social practices. The basic reasons of progression in slavery system in Chesapeake are fast growing agriculture system and need of extensive labor in this proliferating endeavor. The initial purpose of using slaves is the increasing demand of tobacco for export purposes but with time as slavery system entrenched in the society; the African slaves were used extensively in expanding farming and agriculture industry.

The question that may naturally arise at this point, especially since we've just mentioned free wage labor above, is why was captive labor the main mode of labor in Atlantic plantation capitalism? Why could the plantation system not have operated on the basis of free wage labor? The answer is that at this stage of capitalist development, particularly at such large scale, captive labor was not an option but economically a necessity. Prior to 1750, Atlantic capitalism was in its pre-industrial phase. Atlantic capitalism at that point was based primarily on plantation agriculture and resource extraction, but especially on the former. To more readily understand the significance of these economic realities, let us for the moment hypothetically pretend we have a plantation in which we choose to use free wage labor. As was always the case then, this plantation is located not in England or anywhere in Europe, but across the Atlantic in America, let's say mainland North America, or even the Caribbean. Now let us examine the realities within which this plantation operates, and how it does so with a hired wage labor force. In doing so let's keep in mind that at this time in history America has large amounts of unoccupied territory. So then, let's begin. Here are the following conditions This is large scale plantation agriculture producing for the world market. Prior to 1750, agriculture was un-mechanized. Agriculture was therefore labor-intensive, especially to produce for the world