The Effect of the Industrial Revolution on Slavery Essay example

Economically, the Crown did not provide as much assistance as needed to the colonists of the New World. Trade involved mainly countries other than England, because this way profits were maximized. England, once again, created its colonies for mercantilist reasons: profits and only profits. In reaction to these trade schemes, the Navigation Acts were enforced. Smuggling then grew extremely popular mainly because of price differences and simple convenience. Agriculturally, the main crops were indigo, sugarcane, tobacco, cotton, and rice. Due to high demand, several workers were needed. Through the Triangular trade, raw materials went to England and the Northern Colonies, slaves came to the plantation-dominated areas of the colonies, and manufactured goods went to the West Indies. Molasses was turned into rum in New England and traded for more slaves as well.

It was the constant trade to get slaves which made the colonists depend on slave labor. Slave labor was so profitable, most slave owners treated their slaves as property. Beatings, starvation, and overworking were common practices on the plantations. The slave owners didn’t care because they were making money from the

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.

Slavery was created in pre-revolutionary America at the start of the seventeenth century. By the time of the Revolution, slavery had undergone drastic changes and was nothing at all what it was like when it was started. In fact the beginning of slavery did not even start with the enslavement of African Americans. Not only did the people who were enslaved change, but the treatment of slaves and the culture that each generation lived in, changed as well.

The origins and development of slavery within Britain’s North American colonies in the period 1607 to 1776 was majorly in part by the English need for economic power. England had just arose as the strongest naval of the North Atlantic had they had to keep their high standing in the world. Bacon’s Rebellion, the profit received by cash crops, and the ability to easily purchase slaves through trade highly boosted Britain’s economy. The colonists within the British colony kept through economic standing and power by making themselves higher than any other through slavery.

In the 1600's, tobacco became the main source of income for most of the colonists. The economic prosperity of the colonies was primarily dependent on the amount of tobacco produced. The growing of tobacco needed large amount of land, with a large stable work force. The increased demand for a large, stable work force combined with the availability and low price of African slaves, led to the use of slavery in the colonies. To the planter, slavery was the ideal form of labor that would be most beneficial to productivity of his crop.#

Slave as defined by the dictionary means that a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. So why is it that every time you go and visit a historical place like the Hampton-Preston mansion in Columbia South Carolina, the Lowell Factory where the mill girls work in Massachusetts or the Old town of Williamsburg Virginia they only talk about the good things that happened at these place, like such things as who owned them, who worked them, how they were financed and what life was like for the owners. They never talk about the background information of the lower level people like the slaves or servants who helped take care and run these places behind the scenes.

People who lived in the 13 colonies had a very rough life and nothing came easy for them. Nothing for them came without hard work. If they slacked of summer with their farms they would go hungry that winter, or might not even survive. Every single day there was work to be done and some women had to cook for lots of people and work until they felt very sick. Even young infants were helping around.

After the invention of the cotton gin was invented, American cotton moved in ever-greater quantities to the factories of Europe. The cotton industry was among the world’s largest industries at midcentury, drawing on the labor of 20 million workers.

Slavery was held out until 1865, but during this time period abolitionist are trying to do anything to stop slavery. The reason being is because slavery wasn’t slavery anymore. Slavery was beginning to become more advance due to technological innovation. The Abolitionist are people that were against slavery and would boycott anything to get rid of slavery. The argument that the Abolitionist had during this time period was its conditions as violating Christian’s principals and rights to equality. The abolishment of slavery was a significant change in the history of slavery, because of all the technological innovation that was making the slaves jobs easier. In the American Revolution war slavery played a role in which they began a sequence of abolishing slavery. Slavery played a role in the American revolutionary war to begin to grant themselves freedom, liberty, and rights. Slavery changed in 1808 due to a bill that abolished the slave trade. The westward expansion divided the nation because the north and the south weren’t coming into agreement of change going on in the United States. The abolitionist had a plan and that plan was to abolish all slavery throughout the whole United States. These are some of the main things that would lead to the abolishment of 1865.

In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a machine that removed seeds from cotton fiber. The cotton gin had a very important impact on society and economy. It was a basic, uncomplicated invention, yet, had a major effect during the Industrial Revolution (the change from an agrarian society to one based on industry which began in Great Britain and spread to the United States around 1800). The inventor, Eli Whitney, was encouraged by the system of free enterprise, the freedom of private businesses to operate competitively for profit with minimal government regulation, to invent a machine that would remove cotton seeds from cotton quickly. As a result, he invented the cotton gin which basically removed seeds from cotton in a fast and

In the years from 1600 to 1783 the thirteen colonies in North America were introduced to slavery and underwent the American Revolutionary War. Colonization of the New World by Europeans during the seventeenth century resulted in a great expansion of slavery, which later became the most common form of labor in the colonies. According to Peter Kolchin, modern Western slavery was a product of European expansion and was predominantly a system of labor. Even with the introduction of slavery to the New World, life still wasn’t as smooth as we may presume. Although the early American colonists found it perfectly fine to enslave an entire race of people, they

After the invention of the cotton gin, the yield of raw cotton doubled each decade after 1800. Demand was fueled by other inventions of the Industrial Revolution, such as the machines to spin and weave it and the steamboat to transport it. By mid-century America was growing three-quarters of the world's supply of cotton, most

     Eli Whitney's machine was the first to clean short-staple cotton. His cotton engine was made of spiked teeth that were on a revolving cylinder which when turned by a crank, pulled the cotton fiber through small openings to separate the seeds from the lint.                                    L-ter on, the gins became horse-drawn and were powered by water. As a result, the cotton was being produced at a much faster pace. The price of cotton also decreased. Cotton soon became the number one selling good.

In American history, every event and person plays a part in the future. For example, rich plantation owners helped America advance their economy. However, that would not have been at all possible without the help of their slaves. The time and institution of slavery is a time of historical remembrance. It played a primary role during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The treatment, labor conditions, and personal stories of these slaves’ treatment and labor conditions are all widely discussed around the world to this day.