What Happened During The 1790 S - 1366 Words

As early as the 1700 s slaves were common in the United States; they usually worked as farm hands in order to grow tobacco and indigo. But they were not present in huge numbers before the 1790 s, and there was even a trend towards states banning or limiting the slave trade before that time. ‘What happened during the 1790 s?’ you ask. Well, as the United States grew westwards the cultivation of cotton, a valuable but labor intensive plant, grew as well. There was an enormous demand for cotton by textile manufacturers in Europe, due to a recent invention that allowed mass production. Cotton was previously a very difficult crop to profit from, because of the long hours required to separate cotton seeds from the actual cotton fibers. This†¦show more content†¦2. Pinedo 2 Slaves being transported to the South were usually ripped from their families and the surroundings they were familiar and comfortable with. These slaves then faced their new life at the plantation, a very different environment from what they were used to. They faced harder work, such as clearing trees and planting crops, than they had back in the ‘old Southern states’. The great demand for slaves on the plantations produced two very distinct types of slaves, rural and urban. Rural slaves, as you might have guessed worked on the plantations usually from dawn till dusk, driven by their overseer. Whereas urban slavery resulted from the lack of white laborers in the mining and lumber industries, because so many whites defected to the cotton industry in hopes of making a larger profit. As a result there was an increased demand for slaves in mills and in ships, so slaves that had learned specialized skills in the plantations, were in high demand in Southern cities. Slave owners hired out their slaves to work wherever their skills were required. This means that the owners left their slaves unsupervised all day, unlike the plantations where they were always under his watc hful eye. Many of the slaves who worked in the cities cited them as incredibly different from working on the plantation. In the city a slave was almost a free man compared to the plantations, he got better food, clothes and privileges. Also the acts of cruelty