Immigrant Labor In Colonial America

During colonial times immigrants from Europe discovered more opportunities in the Northern colonies, making immigrant labor less available in the South. As the amount of workers decreased, the southern colonies needed a new source of labor to work in the vast fields of the plantations. The large sugarcane and tobacco plantations required more labor than any other place in the Americas. About half of the slaves exported to the colonies went to the sugar plantations. The profits on sugar were high, and the costs were low. This allowed masters to work slaves brutally, and to cause the deaths of most of them since they could afford to simply buy more. the tobacco plantations required vast amounts of hand labor, and thus required slave labor