Using Slaves for Labor

Using Slaves for Labor
Chelsea Waters
HST201- U.S. History I
Colorado State University – Global Campus
Laurie Arnold
May 16, 2015

Using Slaves for Labor
Using slaves for labor in the colonies became a common occurrence. During the development of the New World. Labor was hard to come by and was desperately needed in order for sustainable growth. The use of slaves in the colonies began when the first slaves were brought in 1619 to Colonial Virginia, and from that point on spread amongst the rest of the New World including the Caribbean. Issues and changes in the New World arose with the introduction of slavery along with unintended consequences stemming from the unwilling servitude of the African slaves that colonists could not have foreseen.
The development of slaves for labor began in the Atlantic Slave Trade, in which natives to Africa captured slaves for trade from the central and western parts of the continent in order to sell to the European slave traders, which in turn they sold to the colonists for a hefty price. The Caribbean were the first of the new found land to use these slaves for agricultural labor for their sugar cane plantations. The first slaves in the colonies came to Jamestown Virginia due to the massive need of labor to work the tobacco fields. Originally the workers that came to Virginia were labeled as “indentured servitude which was the form of non-free labor most often used by the English at this time” (Botsch, 1994). After some time the status of indentured servitude slipped away and most became slaves for life, thus beginning slavery. The development of slavery gave the New World more of an opportunity to begin expanding agriculturally.
Slavery eventually brought many changes to the New World in a variety of ways. Greed is a natural human emotion but with the introduction of slavery it made that emotion more prevalent. Purchasing slaves was expensive but freeing them was even more. Having slaves made it easier for plantation owners...