Agricultural Development

Agricultural Development

The United States in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had no surplus populations, and did not have the means to provide cheap agricultural labor. They figure with enslaving certain kinds of people they would be able to succeed in this. At first the US enslaved the Indians, but that proved to be unsuccessful because the Indians would escape from them successfully as well posed danger to the colonies since they were capable of anything. Before this, southern planters try using white servitude by importing indentured servants from Europe. The difference between indentured slaves and African slaves, indentured slaves were “white people” who served to pay for their freedom, and after completing their term or when their contract expired they were free. The downfall of having indentured slaves they were scares and very expensive. Since having indentured slaves were very expensive people turned to having blacks for slaves since it was more profitable, and could buy one a black slave for life. There were also disadvantages of having blacks for slaves. Slaves were limited to wealthy planters as well they had to be fed clothed for their life cycle. At first slaves were working on tobacco and indigo productions but then cotton became so popular it created a greater demand therefore the slaves started working on cotton fields instead. Cotton production was actually “better” for the slaves in the opinion of the owners because the slaves worked most of the years compared only to 200 days out of the year.

With the growth of cotton it resulted in the plantation system because the economy grew and cotton was in demand. Eventually the spinning machinery was invented and a job that took several hours was finished in only one hour. Cotton became king not only for the southern economy but as well as the American export market.

Industrial development

Industrialization was primarily successful because of foreign labor imported mostly from Europe. The south depended mostly on slave labor for the cotton production the north depended on the foreign slaves from Europe. Because of the agricultural depressing many landowners converted their productions to pasturage and textile industry. Factory systems were introduced as well as machinery for work putting out many craftsmen out of work. Immigration from Europe, increase drastically because of the steamship, which before this a voyage took several weeks to just ten days. The European people decided to come over and work in the factories by choice because it was a better living situation than what they were going through in their homeland. Most of the European immigrants were skilled workers but most of them ended up working as peasants or farm workers. Most immigrants were from the northwestern part of Europe. During the industrialization unskilled labor were most in demand and foreign labor erected the industrial itself. America needed the immigrants as much as the immigrants needed America.

Placing Race In context

Rodriguez an Guzman talk about how the word “race” had different meaning to different people and from country to country. Race and ethnicity meaning has changed through out the years. It was once though as a biological