ipl-logo

Slavery In The Middle Passage

620 Words3 Pages

Contrary to popular belief, slavery was a prominent labor system in the world for much of time. Before slavery really started to take hold in the Americas, typically plantations hired servants rather than slaves. This was because slaves were more expensive than servants and neither lived long, so it was smarter at the time for planters to pay for servants. After death rates started to drop, it was more logical for planters to invest in slaves. Even though they were more expensive than servants, they could work for years. While servant demand started diminishing, the slave demand heightened. This was only one of the many changes that helped slavery become more and more conspicuous.
The Middle Passage allowed several hundred slaves to come to America on just a single ship. The Middle Passage had such despicable conditions that for every eighty-five slaves to come over, about fifteen died while on the Middle Passage journey. Slaves were unfamiliar with the foreign land of America and, this …show more content…

Before slave labor boomed normal slave imports would be about seventeen thousand and after slave labor became more popular it rose to about sixty thousand annually in under two centuries. Slave labor mainly started to grow because of increases in cash crops such as tobacco. Without the acceleration in these cash crops, then it is possible that slavery wouldn’t become as popular as it did. Slavery spread through the colonies very rapidly. Colonies began to realize the money that they could save from having slaves instead of servants, so they took the opportunity. Things like the Middle Passage and Atlantic Slave Trade made it very easy to make slavery the dominant labor system because slaves were plentiful. Just like ideas and crops can spread through colonies, slavery did as well. As stability in crops rose, so did slavery as the most effective labor system for southern

Show More
Related

  • How Did Colonists Use Slave Labor In Carolina

    196 Words  | 1 Pages

    The establishment of the Carolina colony, later separated into North and South Carolina, was the introduction of widespread slave labor in the English colonies. They had been used in Virginia for years prior, but other then that it was a new development. Slave labor was used on large plantations where the slaves tended to labor intensive crops completely against their will. The conditions in which they were brought over were just as bad, if not worse then the slave labor itself. Nearly one fifth of slaves brought over on ships died on those ships.

    Read More

  • How Did William Pitt The Younger Maintain Charlotte Britain

    506 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the early 1800s the slave based goods became less needed because the industrial revolution started a new beginning for Britain. With all the new inventions such as the steam engine, lightbulb, steamboat, spinning jenny, railroad and the telephone, slaves weren’t really needed because they

    Read More

  • Summary Of A Strange New Land

    1171 Words  | 5 Pages

    Strange New Land The time period and events of when slavery took place is a topic that is frequently and heavily covered in United States history. Peter Wood’s book, A Strange New Land gives an intrinsic synopsis of slavery from the very beginning of slavery in the Americas dating 1492 all the way through the start of the American Revolution in 1775. Wood reveals insight into the excruciating lives and the daily challenges slaves in the Americas endured.

    Read More

  • Institution Of Slavery Dbq Essay

    502 Words  | 3 Pages

    The institution of slavery almost instantly developed between 1607 and 1750 because the source of labor shifted its roots from indentured servants from Europe to slaves from Africa was founded on a religious base with the objective of converting more people to Christianity and slaves were easily seen as property. Slavery expanded and developed between 1608 and 1750 because the source of labor changed from indentured servants to cheap and reliable slaves. Indentured servants many white and European began to realize the unjustified system of labor in the colonies so they began to revolt against their masters. (Document 5) Plantation owners were upset with servants who thought dependently so they switched to a different source of labor, slaves mostly from Africa, in hopes of enforcing more restrictions and buying slaves for cheap. Evidently, this thinking became popular among plantation owners because eventually, the system of slavery overtook the indentured servants.

    Read More

  • Effects Of Slavery On African American Odyssey

    1344 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the south however slavery was still big. For instance, in 1820 Virginia had 425,153 slaves. Virginia sustained the largest number of slaves for many years. However, slavery began to grow westward. In 1789 the us constitution became a huge influence in continuing slavery.

    Read More

  • Atlantic Slave Trade Dbq Essay

    1194 Words  | 5 Pages

    This meant that slaves would begin to lose their minds due to the horrible and cruel treatment they received. Even slaves who had already survived the Middle Passage and had been sold to masters would also often lose their minds due to their despair and abuse. Slave masters and overseers did not respect or care if their slave was happy, they only cared that they were working their fields. Often slaves would be slashed with whips and clubs that broke their bodies and

    Read More

  • Slavery Dbq Essay

    484 Words  | 2 Pages

    Evelyn Castillo Mr. Lopez APUSH Per. 3 Slavery was an essential component to the economy and labor force in the United States that slowly grew into a major conflict that was the main source of tension between the states. They were first brought into the New World around the time of its settling. Slaves were treated inhumanely by Americans and enslaving them was seen as normal.

    Read More

  • How Did Slavery Affect The Economy Of The South

    274 Words  | 2 Pages

    These slaves were required to obey their masters and work the fields all day. The increase in slavery changed the social systems down South; the order now went African American slaves, poor white males, and at the top was wealthy white plantation owners.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Water From The Rock

    1906 Words  | 8 Pages

    The source for this was usually in the popular crops such as tobacco, rice, cotton and wheat. With this being intensive labor and highly productive, slavery became popular in the states where this took place. These states included South Carolina,

    Read More

  • New World Slavery In America

    1000 Words  | 4 Pages

    Slavery was different for America then it was for the rest of the world. For the rest of the world, it wasn’t a race thing they just enslaved the people that they had conquered. They did not care what the color of their skin was it was just about the need for labor. In the article “New of New World Slavery” it explains how slavery was different in America than in Europe. “Slavery in the classical and the early medieval worlds was not based on racial distinctions”.

    Read More

  • How Did The Industrial Revolution Cause Tension Between North And South

    665 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Industrial Revolution caused tension between the North and the South. The north mostly concentrated on manufacturing products and south grew the raw materials used to make those products. Since the north concentrated on manufacturing, there wasn’t a high demand for slaves. Meanwhile, the south grew for example cotton, and many other raw materials so there was a high demand for slavery since white people did not want to do low-paying, unskilled and hard labor. On January 1808, the north and a few southern congressmen, voted to abolish the slave trade.

    Read More

  • Labor System 1450 To 1750

    928 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Americas, the main exports were silver and cash crops, both of which required work that was terribly tedious and exhausting. This led to the overwhelming predominance of slavery in the Americas, since the Europeans were not willing to carry out the hard work themselves. When the Europeans found they lacked a workforce, the sought slaves elsewhere. While the people who were called slaves changed, the institution never did. The same mistreatment, torture, and horrible conditions were evident in American slavery until it was abolished centuries later.

    Read More

  • How Did Slavery Change Between 1800 And 1860

    522 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lastly, with the expansion of the country to the west and into what we now know as Texas drove the need for more slaves to work the land. With the decrease of demand for tobacco and rice, plantations turned to the new crop cotton. In 1800 less than half a million bales of cotton

    Read More

  • The Impacts Of Slavery In The 17th And 18th Century

    1239 Words  | 5 Pages

    The scope of slavery varied based on how practical and profitable slaves would be in that time period and location. Slavery had many impacts on society as a whole and influenced political, economic, and cultural aspects which all demonstrate the development of slavery in the 17th and 18th century. By the 17th century many Indians had been killed off by diseases and many white indentured servants no longer were willing to work (Foner, pg. 94). At first, the majority of slaves were sent to Brazil and the West Indies with less than 5% sent to the colonies (Foner, pg. 98).

    Read More

  • Negative Effects Of The Transatlantic Slave Trade

    166 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Trans-Atlantic slave trade impacted and changed the world by misplacing and separating thousands of individuals from their families and homes. Thousands of people lost their lives when they were abducted and forced into slavery. Many did not survive the ship rides to the Americas. Many were murdered and tortured. Some were thrown of boats and died from diseases caught on the ship.

    Read More

More about Slavery In The Middle Passage

Open Document