Essay On African American Slave Labor

Unable to enslave the Native Americans and to sustain themselves through the growing of crops, the American settlers went into a state of extreme distress. The first American settlers were in dire need of labor to “grow corn for subsistence … [and] to grow tobacco for export”. These crops were needed in order to sustain the lifestyle these European emigrants were used to, but were unwilling to complete the labor needed for the benefit of these crops. Because they were “little inclined to work the land”, the white settlers attempted to force the Native Americans into slave labor, but they “could not capture [Native Americans] and keep them enslaved” since the Native Americans “were tough … and defiant”. The white settlers were “skilled craftsmen,

Slaves brought from Africa were torn from a land where they understood the cultural system and languages and brought to an unfamiliar land where they did not neither the customs or language of the people who enslaved them. The African slaves were easy to for the Europeans to subdue and, as a plantation owner puts it, he “could make $257 on every Negro in a year, and only spend $12 or $13 dollars on his keep”, so the American colonists could easily force other humans to complete their labor and gain a huge profit on top of having enough crops to sustain their lifestyles. American slavery was intensely driven by profit and reduced slaves “to less than human status”. “African blacks found themselves especially helpless” because they had been removed from a communal, “settled culture, of tribal customs family ties” filled with familiar traditions and rituals. Due to their displacement, the African people were made to feel helpless, and thus, easily controlled by the American colonists who made a livelihood off this