From: Jerry Reavey
Date: 2/8/00
Time: 9:03:55 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.150.13
The African slave trade to the early Americas was caused by a desperate need for cheap labor and high productive turnout. White labor had dried out, so plantation owners and ocean traders adopted the Spanish slave trading practices. Slaves provided an abundant source of hard laborers, which could even be bred, sold, and even traded for other goods. The high output from the crops these workers were forced to toil upon would greatly benefit the economic status of the South.
The ease of which certain crops could be grown also increased the demand for able slaves. In the Chesapeake, Tobacco grew very easily, and demand for the product was high. The combination of cheap slave labor and the high returns from growing tobacco was a deal that was far too sweet for plantation owners to give it just a passing look.
Still, the English were remorseless in its capture and enslavement of the African race. The British had long seen black people as godless savages. Some Europeans justified slavery as being a part of atonement for worshipping "false gods" in the past. Most African Americans eventually converted to Christianity, abandoning any past religious or otherwise cultural identity. Destroying African culture allowed whites to have further domination over the slaves by taking away the things that united them as a whole.