Social Effects Of Slavery In America

Slavery in the United States of America began in the 17th century through a need for workers to develop a country weak on its feet. By the time of the civil war, slavery had drawn America apart through the difference in opinion between states and people. Even today, the effects of slavery are still felt through poverty and racism. During the 17th century America, slavery had a detrimental effect on society because it segregated the nation, delayed industrialization in slave states, and fostered racist attitudes in society.
The most simplified version of events leading up to the civil war is that the South wished to keep slaves, while the North disagreed, and conflict followed. However, slavery is one of the main reasons they were separated
Household manufacturing was almost universal in colonial days, with local craftsmen providing for their communities. This new era introduced factories, with machines and predetermined tasks, producing items to be shipped and sold elsewhere. In the North, industry flourished, fuelled by more abundant natural resources than in the South, and many large cities were established (New York was the largest city with more than 800,000 inhabitants). By 1860, one quarter of all Northerners lived in urban areas. Between 1800 and 1860, the percentage of labourers working on farms dropped from 70% to only 40%. Slavery had died out, replaced in the cities and factories by immigrants from Europe. The South, however, was nowhere close to this level of industrialisation. Although the majority of raw resources such as cotton, tobacco and other crops came from the south, it only accounted for 25% of the country’s wealth. This can be attributed to the fact that the fertile soil and warm climate of the South made it ideal for large-scale farms and crops like tobacco and cotton. The Industrial Revolution was closely linked to slavery. The millions of bales of cotton sent to Northern factories were almost without exception picked by slave labourers. Slaves in cotton fields worked in very difficult conditions under demanding overseers. Southerners defended slavery in part by claiming that Northern factory workers toiled under worse conditions and were not cared for by their employers. Defenders of slavery referred to factory workers as the “white slaves of the