Preview

How Did the Economic, Geographic, and Social Factors Encourage the Growth of Slavery as an Important Part of the Economy of the Southern Colonies Between 1607 and 1775?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
441 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Did the Economic, Geographic, and Social Factors Encourage the Growth of Slavery as an Important Part of the Economy of the Southern Colonies Between 1607 and 1775?
Economic, geographic, and social factors all contributed to the rise of importance for slaves in the southern colonies as their position in American society changed from 1607 and 1775. Slaves not only influenced Jamestown in 1607, but they influenced America, all the way into the American Revolution in 1775. Slavery ultimately flourished and aided economic triumph in the southern colonies. Slavery was not only a cheap source of labor in the Americas, but it was effective too, as slaves greatly boosted the economy of the south. Slave ships came with new slaves often to American shores, making it easy for plantation owners to purchase slave workers for their plantations. Tobacco, one of the most profitable crops of the south, was maintained by slaves. Without their existence, crops like tobacco and even cotton and indigo could not be produced without higher labor costs. The combination of cheap labor and lack of extravagant conditions for slaves provided the most efficient, cost-effective economic system in the south. Consequently, the growth of slavery increased because of economic conditions created by wealthy plantation owners in the south. Geographically, the southern colonies of America had very different farming conditions than in the northern colonies because of their different environment. The soil in the south was not useful for growing the same crops that were produced in the north, such as wheat and corn. Instead, the hotter climate allowed for tobacco, cotton, rice, and indigo to grow and thrive. Also, the many rivers of the south permitted for easy transportation of goods and for slaves to be easily transported and purchased throughout the south. The ownership of slaves became an important sign of wealth and status in the social hierarchy of the south. The more slaves and the bigger plantation someone owned, the higher up they were. Everyone who was white was automatically above blacks, as they were seen as mediocre and incapable of academic

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Triangular Trade, Indentured Servants, and Bacon’s Rebellion encouraged slavery to grow in the southern colonies. By 1775, indentured servants were becoming inconvenient and Bacon’s Rebellion worried the plantation owners. The triangular trade brought slaves to America and the owners with no workers quickly bought on to slavery. Economic, geographic, and social factors all played in to the increase of slavery between 1607 and 1775.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The South was considered a slave-base economy. Sometimes the South’s economy was considered to be separated from the merchant revolution, but this is not entirely true. The north would not have been able to industrialize without the help of Southern cotton, or at least not as quickly. Cotton was one of the first industrially produced products and quickly became the most important commodity in the world trade in the nineteenth century.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When thinking of the growth of the American colonies in the early 1600s and early 1700s, slavery might not come to a consideration. Slavery is commonly known as the ownership to a human being for the use of labor or cheap labor. Slavery will be always frown upon since the thought of just owning a human will always be morally wrong, but slaves did play a huge role in the growth of American colonies and allowing the colonies to prosper economically. Slavery was a common trend for large world powers like the British, Spanish and Dutch even before the colonization in the America’s began. Slaves played a huge impact on economic, societal and political views in the colonies.…

    • 1265 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Black slavery in the South created a bond among white Southerners and cast them in a common mold. Slavery was also the source of the South 's large agricultural wealth, which led to white people controlling a large black minority. Slavery also caused white Southerners to realize what might happen to them should they not protect their own personal liberties, which ironically included the liberty to enslave African Americans. Because slavery was so embedded in Southern life and customs, white leadership reacted to attacks on slavery after 1830 with an ever more defiant defense of the institution, which reinforced a growing sense among white Southerners that their values eventually divided them from their fellow citizens in the Union. The South of 1860 was uniformly committed to a single cash crop, cotton. During its reign, however, regional differences emerged between the Lower South, where the linkage between cotton and slavery as strong, and the Upper South, where slavery was relatively less important and the economy more diversified. Plantations were the leading economic institution in the Lower South. Planters were the most prestigious social group, and, though less than five percent of white families were in the planter class; they controlled more than forty percent of the slaves, cotton, and total agricultural wealth. Most had inherited or married into their wealth, but they could stay at the top of the South 's class structure only by continuing to profit from slave labor. Planters had the best land. The ownership of twenty or more slaves enabled planters to use a gang system to do both routine and specialized agricultural work, and also permitted a regimented pace of work that would have been impossible to impose in free agricultural workers. Teams of field hands were supervised by white overseers and black drivers, slaves selected for their management skills and agricultural knowledge.…

    • 1262 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery was happening all over the United States before the invention of the cotton gin. Slaves were used to picking cotton as well as farm and do house chores for slave owners. Also, slaves were very popular in the southern states due that they had a late start in the slave trade. However, when they got in, the southerners realize that they can flourish economically by growing cotton. With slaves being so resourceful and able to control (at some points). The southern states started to flourish more than northern states.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Did Slavery Start

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages

    African slaves worked for cheap labor in the plantations of tobacco, rice and indigo around the Southern Coast of America. Slavery traveled all the way up to Maryland and back down all the way to Georgia. During the late 18th century, plantation lands filled with mostly tobacco almost disappeared causing an economic crisis, doubting slavery in America. Around the same time as the economic crisis, merchandise in England led to a huge demand for cotton in America.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the American South slavery was very hard on people and families. In the American South, families were split up and friendships were too. Slave families were split up. Families were split up by their kids and spouse getting sold and sent very far away. It was very hard to keep families together. People that were free from slavery came back to help their friends escape. Slavery was very hurtful and slaves were not treated nicely.…

    • 225 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the South slavery was a main thing, it was a struggle to take control in America. Slavery was the main stronghold and motive behind many political actions. Which is why slavery being dominate in political and economic which made it a big thing from 1840 to 1860. Which is why he way life in the South for the slaves involved resistance and survival. Slaves have been around for a long time. From slave farmers from the South. To the North where men believed that women shouldn't be allowed to work. Even though slavery was terrible some slaves managed to escape their terrible life and did it with success. While unfortunately some slaves didn’t escape well like others and had to suffer the consequences from their masters.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery in the south was a very negative experience for the Africans that were forcefully enslaved and brought over to North America more specifically Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The journey across the Atlantic was treacherous many didn’t survive due to sickness, starvation, or merely being murdered like cattle and thrown overboard. Eventually the sharks started following the ships for food because slaves were being thrown over so frequently, the sharks didn’t have any reason to hunt. After arriving in Virginia initially slaves were forced to help with crops like tobacco and cotton until the cotton gin was invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, the main focus began to shift solely to cotton because of its enormous profit. Slaves…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Manifest Destiny

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Slavery, considered somewhat unethical in the North, flourished in the South, mainly due to the fact that the entire economy of the southern states depended largely on slave labor in the cotton and sugar fields. As the soil of the Old South was used numerous times causing it to lose many of its nutrients, plantation owners and farmers moved on to the New South, the land stretching from present day Georgia to Texas, an area much larger and more suited to process cotton than the Chesapeake colonies. As more and more people migrated to the region in hope of becoming a successful farmer and becoming rich, the area became highly dense with slaves and wore out the soil very quickly. The invention of the cotton gin made it easier to harvest cotton, causing slave owners to buy more slaves and plant more plants, eventually causing them to need more land. This caused the southerners to pursue territorial expansion westward. The answer to many of these problems was the annexation of Texas,…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    over time

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Due to these advancements the United States went through several economic changes. Goods like Cotton produced in the South, were a big economic booster when transportation to the North and West opened up. The large plantations began to rely on slave labor to continue their requests for numerous amounts of cotton, reducing the amounts of immigrants transported to Southern farms.…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Slavery and the Economy

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Over the course of history, historians have viewed slavery as an immoral and unjustifiable institution. At the beginning of the antebellum period, around 700,000 slaves were unjustly imported and sold into slavery. New land discovered in America was seen as profitless and pointless without an inexpensive source of labor. By the end of this historical time period, that number increased to over 4,000,000 slaves brought into the United States. The institution of slavery helped boost the economy of the United States because it provided a cheap, but enormous labor force to work on newly acquired, bountiful land. Over the course of the 19th century, the cultivation of cotton became increasingly important to the economy of the United States.…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Slavery has existed for over hundreds of years; there have been numerous amounts of social, economical, and political impacts of slavery throughout the entire world. I believe that the economics in slavery in the United States were more significant than the social and political impacts of slavery. Slavery has proved that it has had an impact on economy in a different way by the invention of the cotton gin in 1790, the price of owning slaves, and the slave trade.…

    • 280 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Slavery played a huge role when increasing their economy system. Slaves were imported from the English to work on the plantations. These slaves soon made up a majority of the population in South Carolina. It was not long before slavery was to become primary of the economy in the entire south. However, along with them slaves also brought plenty of new diseases and harsh treatment of one another were also present. Slavery helped their economy but it also killed plenty people.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Slavery

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Slavery in America became very prominent after the decline of white indentured servitude. Since indentured servants did not want to work in the hot tobacco fields and since there was no way to tell and indentured white servant from a free white man. They would run away and move to a different town. Thus, making them free. This left the plantation owners in a world of hurt. So, the plantation owners turned to slavery for cheap labor. Not only was it cheap but it was also easy to do and less of a hassle than having to deal with white indentured servants. Slavery eventually took over the labor system of white indentured servitude by creating cheap labor, the right to enforce punishment necessary and the slave codes.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays