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Discuss The Importance Of Slavery In The Southern Colonies

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During the establishment of the English colonies, slavery became a key component to the growth and development of the colonies. Slavery began when the Puritans began migrating over to America in 1620. Most Europeans brought indentured servants to America to work on their land. This worked well for people who settled in areas further towards the north, which was a prime location to have a farm. Plantations in the south usually grew crops like tobacco, rice, indigo, and sugarcane. These crops are many day crops which means that it is labor intensive and requires more days to grow, the crops are also high profit crops. Slavery became important in the southern plantations because plantation owners needed more workers to be able to produce their crops rapidly. Without the labor the slaves provided, the tobacco would dry up before it could be harvested and the cotton industry would not have succeeded.
Slavery began to rise in the Chesapeake area with a law was passed in 1662 that stated that children born from one free person and one slave person, would follow the status of their mother. Once this law was passed slave owners took advantage of their slave women because any child that was born, even out of sexual abuse became property to the slave owner. In the year 1680 the ‘black’ population began to grow yet again because all people with any form of African ancestry was now considered black. The slave population began to grow exponentially because the slaves began reproducing

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