It is no secret that America has not always been a tremendous economic power, with significant influence over the world. On the contrary, at the stage of active settlement, the continent of North America was represented by the British colonies, slowly eradicating all Indians and occupying foreign territories. Once all the enslaved Indians had died of disease and weakness, Europeans began to buy Africans as cheap labor in the early seventeenth century. The imported slaves had no civil rights or freedoms and instead were assigned either unpaid labor on cotton, hemp, and cane plantations or, preferable to slaves, domestic service to their masters. The reasons for this historical phenomenon are economic: American territories were rich in fertile soils, and labor was needed to work them. In order to maximize the benefits of cultivating the land, slaveholders decided to use cheap slaves.
Indeed, all thirteen of the original states actively practiced slavery, but the same patterns of using cheap labor differed markedly. For example, the climates of the southern and northern settlements were unequal, so the slaves in the northern states were employed in non-agricultural jobs like mining, construction, shipping, or maintenance, while the unwilling southern laborers (in Carolina, Georgia, or Florida) toiled primarily on plantations (“Unit 3,” n.d.). This also justifies the fact that most northern slaves (in New York or New Jersey) did not live in large communities and were fragmented into mini-groups. In addition, the number of slaves differed as well: in the largest states, like New York or New Jersey, the number of slaves exceeded 15,000, while in the other states, it was markedly less (Bourne, n.d.). Finally, the northern states of the colony were the first to agree to abolish slavery, while the southern settlements resisted the most. It took about four years from Lincoln’s edict to formally ratify the abolition of slavery in most states.
An essential historical trend for discussion was the gradual replacement of white wage laborers by black slaves as a cheaper and less demanding force. Nevertheless, even during slavery, the servant model persisted and differed from the work performed by slaves. For example, servants received social guarantees for their work: it could be accommodation, food, or travel. After fulfilling their obligations, servants could be set free, while slaves officially became the master’s property for life. Obviously, in this case, slaves could not have any guarantees or privileges.
References
Bourne, J. (n.d.). Slavery in the United States. EH. Web.
Unit 3 African American Slavery in the Colonial Era, 1619-1775. (n.d.). NJ State Library. Web.