| The decline of indentured servitude and the rise of chattel
slavery were
caused by economic factors of the English settlers in the late 17th century.
Colonists continually tried to allure laborers to the colony. The head right
system was to give the indentured servant a method of becoming independent after
a number of years of service. Colonists chiefly relied on Indentured Servitude,
in order to facilitate their need for labor. The decreasing population combined
with a need for a labor force, led colonists to believe that African slaves were
the most efficient way to acquire a labor force that would satisfy their needs.
Before the 1680\'s, indentured servitude was the primary source of labor in
the newly developed colonies. There were both white and black indentured
servants. White servants had even outnumbered black servants three to one. Some
black indentured servants were able to complete there time of service, and even
had land and servants of their own. After the 1680\'s, the population of white
indentured servants decreased exponentially. There were a number of different
reasons why the population of indentured servants had decreased. For whatever
reason, indentured servitude was a form of labor that was declining, and the
need for labor increased rapidly. #
African-American labor was beginning to
be more valuable than white labor. African laborers were beginning to be looked
at as property, as well as being treated that way. By the 1660’s, the status of
the African was an indentured servant was gone. Virginia had begun to make laws,
which were defining slaves as property. Africans were economically better, due
to British control of the slave trade making black labor cheaper.#
In the
1600\'s, tobacco became the main source of income for most of the colonists. The
economic prosperity of the colonies was primarily dependent on the amount of
tobacco produced. The growing of tobacco needed large amount of land, with a
large stable work force. The increased demand for a large, stable work force
combined with the availability and low price of African slaves, led to the use
of slavery in the colonies. To the planter, slavery was the ideal form of labor
that would be most beneficial to productivity of his crop.#
The key factor
to the shift to African chattel slavery was the revolt known as Bacon’s
Rebellion in 1676. Bacon was an English aristocrat who just came to Virginia Due
to a disagreement with royal governor William Berkeley, he gathered support from
both white and black indentured servants and began a series of revolts against
the governor and the landowners. These revolts just added to the preference for
black labor and slavery. Even though Bacon died before anything could happen,
the threat of such a biracial alliance challenging the power of the master class
prompted the colony’s elite to switch to an enslaved black labor force. The
demand for black slaves rose and this caused an increase of Africans into the
colonies. By the 1700’s, slavery was deep-rooted in the colonies’ government.#
Planters had an abundance of land and a shortage of labor. This
relationship, made the amount of tobacco directly proportional to the number of
slaves that the planter owned. Slavery was the backbone of the prosperity of the
colonies. A major factor in the consideration of slaves on plantation is the
flux of the land. Tobacco was the major crop of the 17th century, and tobacco is
a plant that exhausts nutrients from the soil, which led to the rotation of
crops, in order to replenish the crops. The planter needed to educate
his
workers on certain agricultural techniques in order to know how to make the land
most productive. With a permanent work force, such as slaves, the slaves would
only require to be educated once, instead of the planters having to re-educate
indentured servants every X number of years. The African slaves also had other
characteristics that enticed colonists to use them as a labor force. The African
slaves were immune to malaria, which resisted them from disease. The Africans
also were subsistence farmers in Africa; thus, they had a tradition of farming,
and essential agricultural skills.
Slavery was a course in history, where it
was opportune for the colonists to use slavery as a labor force. The decline in
population of indentured servants exacerbated the situation, as time progressed,
slavery became increasingly imminent. Morality was not taken into consideration,
because of the settlers were only viewing slavery from an economic view, rather
than a humanitarian point of view. The introduction of slavery into the colonies
can be summarized with a cliché of the settlers being \"at the right place at
the right time\".
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