Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton.
In 1501, shortly after Christopher Columbus discovered America, Spain and Portugal began shipping African slaves to South America to work on their plantations. In the 1600s, English colonists in Virginia began buying Africans to help grow tobacco.
The invention of cotton gin The increased demand and prices for cotton led to plantations owners to search for land in the west. The invention of cotton gin in 1793 allowed for much greater productivity than the manual separation of cotton. The result was an explosive growth in demand of slaves for cotton cultivation.
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.
By 1675 slavery was well established, and by 1700 slaves had almost entirely replaced indentured servants. With plentiful land and slave labor available to grow a lucrative crop, southern planters prospered, and family-based tobacco plantations became the economic and social norm.
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.
European slave traders provided guns, cloth, and other manufactured goods in exchange for captives. These enslaved men, women, and children endured the brutal “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean. They were shackled and crammed into the hold of a ship alongside hundreds of others.
The westward expansion carried slavery down into the Southwest, into Mississippi, Alabama, crossing the Mississippi River into Louisiana. Finally, by the 1840's, it was pouring into Texas. So the expansion of slavery, which became the major political question of the 1850's, was not just a political issue.
As in the South, enslaved men were frequently forced into heavy or farm labor. Enslaved women were frequently forced to work as household servants, whereas in the South women often performed agricultural work.
1619The arrival of the first captives to the Jamestown Colony, in 1619, is often seen as the beginning of slavery in America—but enslaved Africans arrived in North America as early as the 1500s.
Slavery Throughout the Ancient World Sumer or Sumeria is still thought to be the birthplace of slavery, which grew out of Sumer into Greece and other parts of ancient Mesopotamia. The Ancient East, specifically China and India, didn't adopt the practice of slavery until much later, as late as the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC.
Slavery existed both in the north and in the South, at times in equal measure. The industrialization of the north and the expansion of demand for cotton in the south shifted the balance so that it became a regional issue, as the southern economy grew increasingly reliant on cheap labor.