The benifits of slave ownership essays

The benifits of slave ownership essays Many factors in the southern colonies influenced the switch from dependence on indentured servants to do labor to slave dependence. Plantation owners first started out by using indentured servants to do their labor for them. But as time went on, they realized that it was cheaper to buy slaves who had the same lifespan but would work their entire life instead of a set period. In order to make business more profitable, southern plantation owners had no choice but to convert to slave ownership instead of using indentured servants. Plantation owners determined that land layout, profit, and lifespan made it so that it was cheaper to own slaves than to have indentured servants. Without an enormous growth in the slave labor force, the massive expansion of tobacco production could not have taken place. Slaves were so expensive at one point that it was impractical to spend so much on a slave when they had a very short lifespan. Although indentured servants also had a short lifespan, it was much cheaper for a plantation owner to pay for them than to pay for a slave. Once the lifespan of a slave increased it seemed that for southern plantation owners the use of indentured servants was starting to become impractical. It was impractical because although the lifespan of the indentured servant increased also, their term with their masters did not. Reverend Peter Fontaine understood this when he wrote his letter to his brother. He wrote that it was a decision of economics to use slaves on a plantation. He also stated that it was cheaper over time for slave labor than for indentured servant labor. If the colonists would not have imported slave labor from Afr ica than they would not have made nearly as much profits; they would have lacked the workers to produce mass amounts of goods. In the south, the environment was a perfect place to construct large plantations in order to mass-produce crops for profit. When the colonists arrived the...