Why were slaves so essential to the Southern Colonies?
The original slaves brought to Jamestown helped with a severe labor shortage. The Native Americans often died from imported disease and the indentured servants often ran off. They could find better jobs elsewhere.Those indentured servants that did stay were to receive 50 acres of land and other expenses that the contract holder didn’t want to pay. Slaves solved the labor problem. With the cash crop economy, (cotton, tobacco, indigo) a lot of unskilled hand labor was required.There wasn’t enough Native Americans (who could easily run off) and the indentured servants were to costly to use in the fields. Besides slavery was forever and the children of slaves were also slaves. The Southern economy became dependent on slaves. At the start of the Civil War the 9 million population of the confederacy had almost 4 million slaves.
