British Colonial Immigration and Demographics w/o Slavery

Lets supposed that, early on in the history of the British colonies in North America, slavery does not take root. My preferred POD is the Parker V. Johnson case, but lets not get too bogged down in the how.

I'm curious how the demographics might be altered in such a scenario.

For example, if we're looking at the situation from strictly economic terms, it might make sense for planters to continue to import indentured servants from West Africa, since it was widely understood that they were better suited to the climate in which most plantation agriculture was situated. Might we see a situation in which African indentured servants might command better treatment than their European counterparts? Its noteworthy that, historically, as the value of indentured servants went up, some competition emerged among potential clients to establish better conditions (shorter terms, stipends, and the like).

Might we also see a higher population of colonists of African decent, what with many more of them needed to maintain the same level of productivity as a slave based plantation would have? On the other hand, might such servants skew more towards men, thus mitigating such growth? On the third hand, might a Afro-British creole demographic emerge as free black laborers take wives? (one might hope that, with slavery stillborn, the prejudices against such unions would be mitigated, but I'll admit to knowing less than I want about race relations in 17th century British America prior to the introduction of chattel slavery) Or perhaps, as happened historically in many occasions, the black laborers will marry into local indian tribes.
 
With your POD I think the demographics of N. America are going to be very different. There were a lot of African slaves in the Caribbean already at that point but not a huge number on the British mainland. Overall I think you're going to see a much whiter and much more Irish North America as Irish indentured servants are brought in to fill more labor. African slaves might have been more desirable from the landowners pov but without taking slaves how are they going to get people to immigrate to a British colony know for holding slaves in the past?

To get West African indentured servants they're going to have to go to Africa and recruit and I doubt they're going to get many takers for that. Some are probably going to go for a weird "forced indenture" route, where they're kidnapping people from Africa and releasing them after their indenture period. Not unlikely given their obvious willingness to be cruel but I can't see that loophole lasting for more than a few years if the courts have already ruled against slavery.

In the long run poor Irish are much more likely to be brought in, especially in mainland N. America where malaria and other diseases are less common. If slavery is outlawed at your POD I don't think a large African population in the thirteen colonies is likely at all. Cotton is still labor intensive so sharecropping of poor white farmers seems more likely to me.
 
I suspect African "indentured servants" or "apprentices" would quickly devolve into conditions virtually identical to slavery under a different name (indeed, this happened frequently IOTL once slavery was abolished in Britain). It's not as if the life expectancy of a worker in a Caribbean sugar plantation was long anyway, so a nominally limited contract could easily last until the "apprentice" had died.

But supposing we avoid that situation, plantation agriculture becomes less profitable for the British (which may just mean that someone like the Dutch or French expands more heavily). I don't know how much effect it had on British attitudes, but remember that the Spanish already have extremely complicated racial hierarchies developing in their colonies with the castas system.
 
A more North orientated BNA is going to be the major result and Natives Ameriacns not Blacks are going to be the winners. Bluntly everything South of the Mason-Dixon Line can only really be developed and exploited with copious quantities of people you can work to death for bed and board.

If you butterfly away BNA slavery then the Carolinas and Georgia are going to be developed decades later than OTL. Virginia is just far north enough and just healthy enough that it would probably continue with a mix of Irish, English and European indentures keeping the population stable (but not growing). The Mid-Atlantic is going to be the big beneficiary as much of the British immigration that in OTL went to the South to run slave plantations will instead be directed towards farming in a healthy temperate climate which while less profitable is also less deadly.
 
If you butterfly away BNA slavery then the Carolinas and Georgia are going to be developed decades later than OTL. Virginia is just far north enough and just healthy enough that it would probably continue with a mix of Irish, English and European indentures keeping the population stable (but not growing). The Mid-Atlantic is going to be the big beneficiary as much of the British immigration that in OTL went to the South to run slave plantations will instead be directed towards farming in a healthy temperate climate which while less profitable is also less deadly.

I think you can move your line a lot further south to almost the Gulf. For example North Carolina's slaves were very heavily concentrated on the coast. Inland was initially settled almost entirely by small farmers. Farming in the US south isn't as unhealthy as you're indicating, its just not a very profitable enterprise compared to the slave plantations growing very labor intensive crops like tobacco and rice. It's working people to death in the quest to grow rich that killed slaves, not anything inherent about the land (unlike say Cuba or Louisiana bayous where a variety of diseases would be endemic). I know more about North Carolina so that's my example but the center and west of the state was settled by groups like the Quakers and Moravians who where strongly antislavery when they first arrived. Large slave holding was rare near the frontier since it would make keeping slaves nearly impossible.
 

katchen

Banned
Yes, and it was African slaves that brought the more deadly forms of malaria, as well as yellow fever, with them in their blood for the American mosquitoes. Without African slaves, places like South Carolina and Georgia are far less unhealthy to live in. And tobacco, while labour intensive is not nearly as labour intensive as sugar cane.
Of course instead of a black-white divide, the American South is likely to recreate the "croppie lie down" divide between Irish Catholic indentured servants and tenant farmers and Scots-Irish protestant yeomen. Which from what we have seen in Ireland could turn out just as bad if these divisions are cemented into law.
 
I'm aware the Southern Uplands are relatively healthy but you've got to go through the Low Country to get to them. I'm not saying that the South isn't going to get settled, it is. But it will be much slower and the Mid-Atlantic will be the beneficiary. For example you'd probably see a less German Pennsylvania as English settlers who in OTL went to Georgia or Carolina end up there.
 
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