Slave plantation

Colonists in the Americas tried using Native Americans for labor, but they were susceptible to European diseases and died in large numbers.

Fewer than one-third of Southern U.S. families owned slaves at the peak of slavery prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free African Americans), amounting to approximately 3.8% of the Southern and Border states population.

After being established in the Caribbean islands, the plantation system spread during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries to European colonies in the Americas and Asia.

The plantation system peaked in the first half of the 18th century,[citation needed] but later on, during the middle of 19th century, there was a significant increase in demand for cotton from European countries, which led to the expansion of the plantation system in the southern parts of United States.

In the late-19th century, monopolies ensured high profits from the sale of plantation products by exploiting cheap labourers, forced recruitment, peonage and debt servitude in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

[3] The new-fangled factories of the Industrial Revolution adopted some of the management practices of the slave plantations in order to organise and control their growing workforces.

[5] As the plantation economy expanded, the slave trade grew to meet the growing demand for labor.

Some plantations also went a step further and distilled the molasses, the liquid left after the sugar is boiled or clarified, to make rum.