Why African Labor?

4 Pages 943 Words

What is America? Some may say that it is the land of the “free” where vast opportunities are available. Then why in its history of the United States have slaves, partially a large amount of African Americans? What made it so important that they had to enslave such large amounts of Africans to do their labor for them? In 1776, a vast part of the United States controlled black slave labor for many reasons.
One of the major reasons for having African slave labor was to boost the American economy. Back then, even till now, people use their labor to produce products which is later traded to other people for other resources and products. Capitalism is a major part in the American economy, so to expand one’s wealth; one would need to produce more products. To make more products, one would need to work to make them; however, instead of working themselves, owners of farms and other business found it easier to have other people do it for them instead. Enslaved Africans were the most commonly one chosen to do their labor.
Another reason that enslaved Africans were used because they were much preferred over Native Americans and indentured servants. Native Americans were not used commonly because they were hard to maintain as well caused specific problems to the colonies. Enslaved Native Americans were able to break away from their owners successfully because of their knowledge of the land. They knew the grounds well and were able to hide from the colonists. Using Native Americans also disrupted the trade between them as well cause a lot of tension in the frontier. In addition, the amount of Native Americans started to become limited due to epidemics and wars. Using indentured servants were also a problem for the owners of farms. Indentured servants are individuals from Europe who were poor and could not pay for a fare to immigrate to the United States. Instead they made a contract with the owners in the United States to work for them for ...