Throughout the 17th century, European settlers in North America turned to enslaved Africans as a cheaper, more plentiful labor source than indentured servants, who were mostly poor Europeans.
Growing demand for sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cotton produced a broad, hemispheric trend that saw more slaves, producing more cash crops, in places that were marginal to the 18th-century Atlantic plantation complex.
The American Revolution had profound effects on the institution of slavery. Several thousand slaves won their freedom by serving on both sides of the War of Independence. As a result of the Revolution, a surprising number of slaves were manumitted, while thousands of others freed themselves by running away.
Part of the reason slavery evolved differently in New England than in the middle and southern colonies was the culture of indentured servitude. As a carryover from English practice, indentured servants were the original standard for forced labor in New England and middle colonies like Pennsylvania and Delaware.
One of the primary reasons for the reinvigoration of slavery was the invention and rapid widespread adoption of the cotton gin. This machine allowed Southern planters to grow a variety of cotton - short staple cotton - that was especially well suited to the climate of the Deep South.
High European demand for cash crops (Tobacco, sugar, and rice), Difficulty in enslaving Natives, and lack of indentured servants were the reasons for growth of slavery.
What was the impact of the Revolution on slavery? Some patriots argued that slavery for blacks made freedom possible for whites. For government to seize property, including slaves, would be an infringement on liberty. Between 1777 and 1804, every state north of Maryland began emancipation.
Why did slavery continue to spread after the Revolutionary War? Slavery continued to spread because large plantations in the South needed slaves to do most of the hard work so the plantation owner could make a profit.
It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, effective on January 1, 1863, declared that the enslaved in Confederate-controlled areas were free.
How did African slavery differ regionally in eighteenth century North America? There were three distinct slave systems in the colonies: tobacco-based plantations in the Chesapeake, rice-based plantations in South Carolina and Georgia, and no plantations in New England and the Middle Colonies.
Plantation size also differed widely. In the Caribbean, slaves were held on much larger units, with many plantations holding 150 slaves or more. In the American South, in contrast, only one slaveholder held as many as a thousand slaves, and just 125 had over 250 slaves.
African slavery expanded so rapidly in the late 17th century, because The Royal African Company's monopoly was finally broken. The trade now opened to English and colonial merchants on a competitive basis, prices fell and the number of Africans arriving in North America increased.