More Slaves example essay topic

Life in the American wilderness was tough, many people died before their 20th birthday from disease like Malaria, dysentery, and typhoid. More and more immigrants began to arrive in the south most of them young men whom less than half survived. Surviving men fought over the 'extremely scarce' women whom they outnumbered nearly six to one and near the end of the century three to two. Scarcely any children reached adulthood under the car of two parents and very few knew their grandparents. Weak family ties lead to many pregnancies among unmarried young girls; some brides were already pregnant when they wed.

The southern colonies still struggled on, native born inhabitants eventually developed immunity to the killer diseases and more families began to form, eventually the southern colonies would have a large population. Finally people began to plant tobacco (they feared natives would attack their corn fields) near river valley and began to grow economically. Rich Southern people began to turn towards African slavery. Only about 400,000 out of the 2 million slaves imported from African ended up in North America. By mid 1680's, black slaves outnumbered white servants among the plantation colonies' new arrivals. Blacks accounted for nearly half the population of Virginia by 1750 and in South Carolina they outnumber whites two to one.

African slaves were immune to the disease Europeans died from early and were use to planting things to eat and to sell. Earlier in the century differences between a slave and servant were unclear: but later there would be a big difference, the earliest slave codes made blacks and their children the property of their white slave masters for life. Slavery might have begun in America for economic reasons, but by the end of the seventeenth century, it was clear the racial discrimination also powerfully molded the American slave system. In the deepest south, slave life was especially severe.

The climate was hostile to health, and the labor was life draining. The widely scattered South Carolina rice and indigo plantations were mostly compressed of lonely African males who died, only for the slave master to buy more slaves. Slaves in the Chesapeake region had it somewhat easier. Tobacco was less physically demanding than those deeper in the south. Tobacco plantations were larger and closer to one another than rice plantations (which was introduced to Europeans by Africans), permitted slaves more frequent contact with friends and relatives. By the 1720's female slave numbers increased causing an increase in the population of slaves.

The more slaves there were the more things got done causing people to use more land and causing them to get more money. As slavery grew, the social structure widened. At the top of southern society were a small but powerful covey of great planters, who owned a lot of slaves and land and mainly monopolized political power. Beneath them were small farmers who owned one or two slaves, under them were luckless ex indentured servant who owned little, and even under them were indentured servants still living out their term. Blacks got even less respect than the servants. Slaves made southern life more enjoyable and livable to Europeans who knew little about dealing with land in such warm weather.

They planted rice, corn, cotton, indigo, and other things and they knew how to deal with it. They were not use to the long and never ending hard work but they knew somewhat what they were doing. Slaves expected to be free after a while but they did not get that, all they did was produce more product in plantations for their masters to sell to get more money so they can buy more slaves. For a while it seemed like a never ending cycle: Blacks clear acres of wooded areas, plants products, take care of the masters' household and land, pick the products, give it to the master, who in turn sells it and buys more slaves with his extra money. English indentured servants stopped coming to the new world because there were more jobs in England, causing the increase in the number of slaves. After a while slaves would be equal to or more than the number of masters in their southern colonies and increasing all aspects of southern life..