The Demand for Slavery

"Keeping in mind Gregory O'Malley's article, "Beyond the Middle Passage: Slave Migration from the Caribbean to North America, 1619-1807," as well as materials from the lectures, describe the contribution of African-Americans, whether slave or free, to the composition of the population of the United States by 1790. How important does O'Malley believe that second voyages, from Caribbean islands to the mainland, were in creating the African American population of the colonies on the North American continent that became the United States? How and why do O'Malleys estimates differ from those of other historians?

What implications may his findings have for how Africans were absorbed into mainland society? " The New Demand for Slavery By the year 1790, slave trade became the dominant source of labor in the English colonies, and the Caribbean. The bound labor made it to America in two different routes, and often determined their worth, but they never became more than a minority. The slave trade provided a substantial growth in the Colonies, now allowing the whites to have workers that could complete the hard tasks, undesired by traditional colonial people.

The bound Africans were thought to be essential labor, hich made the slave trade take off, and the importation numbers to rise. Therefore these areas, with an excessive deal of hard work, often felt that the bound labor was essential for economic growth and the United States population began to increase as the bound labor became favored. African forced labor contributed to the population of the inland Colonies and the Caribbean, but made a different effect in each area, as stated in the lecture.

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As the rising need for laborers increased, so did the number of bound labor. Where the labor first began to peak, was in the Caribbean. The weather was blistering, due to he tropical climate. This made disease prevalent in place like the West Indies, which made the Europeans avoid the hard effort needed. The Europeans also avoided the work in the West Indies when they found out the work was undesirable, very laborious, and by the time they reached freedom, they would not be able to afford land on the islands.

Due to this, they had to satisfy the need for workers by finding involuntary people to complete the task. The number of slaves began to rise in the southern colonies, as soon they began to recognize that tobacco production was cheaper and more productive than sugar lantations. Natural reproduction tremendously drove the slave populace up, but also did the demand for workers on the tobacco fields. O'Malley stated in the first census, taken in 1790, that one in five people came from African origins.

Today, in the twenty-first century, nearly twelve percent of the American population was made up of slaves. The shipping records indicate the number of slaves that came directly to America, but not the exact population of slaves in the Colonies. Slaves were favored straight from Africa, because they thought the forced labors coming from the Therefore, many slaves were unaccounted for, because that seemed irrelevant to the fact that they needed workers fast, to support the economic growth, and fulfill the hard work being set forth.

The trips from the Caribbean were still significant, but varied under certain rule. Under the Spanish rule, slaves from the Caribbean were favored, but under the French rule, slaves were favored straight from Africa. O'Malley states that the slave population can be different than what other historians consider, because the ships from the Caribbean often admitted to having more slaves aboard them then they ctually wrote down on the records. This could supply many more slaves to the Colonies that were unaccounted for, which could have helped drive the population.

O'Malley implicated that many more Africans could have been shipped than what accounted for. Thus, it shows how the people often thought of the slaves more as a piece of luggage, rather than a real, living, breathing human being. The bound laborers were forcibly taken from their home, and put on a land they knew nothing about. The slaves were forced to work in the hot conditions of Caribbean, or even on plantations of the southern colonies. The distribution of the ound labor varied across areas that needed the workers, but could also afford them.

The exact number of persons with African decent cannot be told, because many were not recorded on overstocked ships, and many voyages were not tracked, especially from the Caribbean. Discrimination played a major role in their everyday life, where they were treated like a piece of property, rather than a human being. After the harsh treatment, the bound laborers finally were labeled free at the end of the Civil War, but this was only a beginning of their struggle to be treated like an individual of the United States of America.

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