The Southern Colonies Developed Race Based Slavery

The Virginia Slave Codes date all the way to early 1600s. During the 17th century, indentured servants, who decided to work for an affirmed amount of time in replace for their means of access to the "New World", were a handy resource of manual labor for the American colonies. Both blacks and whites served under the system (Goldenburg 1). White servants, after working out their time of agreement, often progressed to appreciated places in the society. On the other hand, their black correspondents, who totaled to about 2,000 in Virginia in 1670, were rarely given the same treatment. By the middle of the century, they were usually regarded as servants for life. In the late 1650s, laws referring to slaves started to

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.

The Southern Colonies had hopes of creating profit from the export of agricultural goods when they developed a plantation economy; farms would grow single crops, such as rice and tobacco. However, as the agriculture business grew, so did the demand for more workers, but they needed a cheap source labor to rely on. The idea of slavery was brought up, but the Southern Colonies could not enslave the Native Americans because they became difficult due to their independence. As a result, African slaves were used because of how easy it was to enslave them. Many African slaves were taken from their homes, and put in a foreign place; this left them defenseless and afraid. The slave population grew largely, and became a steady source for many single

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 1619, Virginia was an isolated British settlement on the Chesapeake Bay. It was sparsely populated by men trying to make the colony profitable for England. But the colonists were devastated by hunger, disease, and raids by Native Americans. So when the White Lion, a badly damaged Dutch slave ship arrived, carrying 20 kidnapped black Africans, the colonists bartered food and services for the human cargo. The Africans started working for the colonists. They would work 7 years of hard labor in exchange for land and freedom. But when colonies started to prosper, the colonists were reluctant to lose their labor. Since the Africans did not have citizenship, they were not subject to English common law. They were workers with no rights.

During 1619 where slavery fist appeared in Virginia, a Dutch warship brought more than twenty African men and women that were obtained as slaves in the Caribbean. There were many laws that Virginia created restricting freedom of African slaves. For example, Virginia passed a law that restrained Africans from carrying weapons (Jones, 82). It seemed as if Virginia created laws year after year restricting African men and/or women into doing/not doing particular things. During 1643, a law had passed that taxed productive field hands of African American women but not white women. Again, in Virginia, planters passed a set of laws that improved differences between slaves working for a specific period and they consigned to

This made indentured servitude, America’s first labor system, appealing to immigrants because it gave them a chance to improve their lives. Indentured servants consisted of mostly young men and some women who signed a contract to work a specific length of time for an employer, also called the master. The length of servitude intially ranged between three to seven years. Servants gained passage to America, food, clothing, and shelter.. Upon completion of their contract, servants were to receive their freedom dues. These dues included land, barrels of corn, and a few articles of clothing. Many also received extra dues such as a horse or cow and specific tools for trade depending on their gender. In return, an employer had laborers to tend their fields and more land was awarded to them for each servant he brought over from England. The purchase of indentured servants was almost three times cheaper than the purchase of African slaves that started coming to Virginia from the Caribbean. The indentured system seemed to beneficial for both the laborer as well as the employer,

The southern colonies of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, all formed throughout the 17th and 18th centuries have arguably the most recognizable features. The political, social, and economic circumstances that brought about their formation in the 17th and 18th centuries are still seen in modern society. One of the major factors that established the southern colonies was the economic conditions. Due to the fertile farmlands, people turned to agriculture to make a living and provide for themselves. As a result of the vast space and sheer amount of farmland, slavery quickly became the labor of choice. One source explains it, “The Southern Colonies developed labor- intensive agricultural economies that relied heavily upon enslaved labor” (The Southern Colonies). The southern colonies began to grow cash crops such as rice, indigo, and tobacco in order to support their families and farms, and this was a huge booster to the economy.

Furthermore, both the North and the South needed labour; the North used poor white immigrants to fill factories while the South relied on slaves to farm cotton. Inevitably, these systems clashed as the Northern Republicans sought to limit the growth of Slavery to protect the jobs of their unskilled white constituents. In terms of microeconomics, Plantation owners would not benefit from having to pay waged laborers because the South required abundant and cheap slave labour to produce cotton in profitable amounts. Additionally, the cumulative value of slaves was too bloated to yield without a catastrophic loss of investments. Finally, the macroeconomic goals of the South included the expansion of slavery to the west, while the North was adamant about containing the already “shrinking south” to within its borders, forcing Slavery to extinguish as soil degraded and demand for farm labour fell. By controlling the West through free labour and the Homestead act, the North could deprive the South of critical plantations out

Colonial Virginia and Jamestown are considered to be the origin of English settlement in the North America region. It was in Virginia where colonial laws about race, gender, and race were created facilitating the establishment of slavery society which would later become the United States of America (“U.S History,” n.d). The growth in tobacco production provided finance which made Virginia be an agricultural center. Virginia also witnessed the change from indentured labor to the slavery type of labor system. The issues that were experienced by colonial Virginia residents in the seventeenth century were carried on to the future United States (“U.S History,” n.d).

Great post, I agree that Southern colonies strongly depended on slavery. They had a large demand for crops such as tobacco which required slave labor. Africans and African Americans had been reduced legally to the status of domestic animals (D. C. Hines). harshness was not the same for every person of African descent. The treatment they received

Despite being held at the bottom of the social pyramid for throughout colonial times, the labor of the colonies would prove to be far from useless. While vast, open land was turned into numerous plantations in the colonies by rich planters, the plantations could not purely be run by their owners, creating a great need for labor. This lack of labor would eventually be solved through the use of African slaves, but after the first shipment of slaves to Jamestown in 1619, few were purchased due to high prices for an extended amount of time. The planters, however, would be able to fulfill their need for labor through English indentured servants. Through the use of indentured servants, basically free labor was provided to land owners, while

During the development of the colonies and the nation as a whole, slaves were utilized in order to produce the crops and perform laborious tasks that were “below” white people. In the 1660s, there was an increased demand for tobacco products as well as indigo and rice in England (“African American Slavery in the Colonial Era, 1619-1775”). In order to fulfill the demand, there was a spike in interest in purchasing slaves. More and more slaves were needed to produce larger amounts of crops for the plantation owners.

From the outset, the issue of labor in the Chesapeake was a dominant force in the creation of colonial society. The origins of colonial labor rested on the shoulders of indentured servants, often unemployed laborers from England sent to the colony by the Virginia Company. After serving a term of seven years, each servant was then entitled to freedom and the opportunity to work in the colony to best achieve individual benefits and the success offered by the New World. The early generations of these servants turned freemen posed little problem to their former masters as they constituted to small a segment of the population to

Economics, climate, geography, and social and cultural factors influence the need for slavery in colonies. Southern colonies was most reliant on slavery due to its economic, climate and geography. Southern colonies had a unique advantage which was the climate. The warm weather and plentiful rainfall produced profitable crops such as tobacco and rice, which required the need for laborers. Slaves were used for working outdoors and consisted of hard labor. Also, due to the social economic status the wealthy felt as if they were superior to slaves. Which I would label as a “slave society”.