WI It occurs to no one to import slaves from Africa to the New World

HueyLong

Banned
No African slavery means no America, or at least not the same one as we know. It was expensive to get people here and stoop labor was both much needed and in short supply. You couldn't use Indians, they either died or ran away, nor Europeans, as they died if worked hard in America.

Indentured labor was still an alternative, and often outnumbered slaves in the early years. There was a surplus population that could be moved and would be for awhile. One scholar estimates that 500,000 convicts were transported to the US in the 1710s, and that was with competition from slavery.

Europeans did not die if worked hard. The higher fatality was due to the fact that they were cheap and plentiful, and there was no profit in letting them live out their term. The big problem was their much, much easier escape. You cannot tell a MacDougall as easy as a Kunsa.

And don't forget, the NE colonies did not rely on slavery. So there is a model there for free settlement.

However, I don't think that indenture and penal settlements will last until the age of cotton, so plantation culture is mostly a footnote in the continental US.
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
He got pissed off and ranted that he wasn't a n****r. He told a few people in town about how the n*****rs were trying to make him out to be one of them. Then the Klan made him step down becuase he wasn't "pure white" enough to be one of them.

Southern Racist are a unique group they'll tell you with pride that their grandfather was from some local indian tribe and then tell you how much they hate nonwhites.
You are 100% correct , I have noticed that same thing (and been puzzled by it) for some time now.IIRC most of them claim to have a great great grandmother how was a “Cherokee Indian Princess”
 

Philip

Donor
. You couldn't use Indians, they either died or ran away, nor Europeans, as they died if worked hard in America.

Please tell me that I misunderstand you. It seems that you are claiming that Europeans and Native Americans were physically unable to do the work that African slaves were forced to do.
 
Please tell me that I misunderstand you. It seems that you are claiming that Europeans and Native Americans were physically unable to do the work that African slaves were forced to do.

Regarding American Indians, the statement is very accurate...both regarding the attitudes of European conquerors and as a fact demonstrated by the high death rates wherever it was tried. It wasn't that American Indians couldn't work as hard as Africans, or that the local civilizations did not already have institutions equivalent to sefdom and slavery, but Indians were very prone to become sick or die from small pox, measles, and other imported diseases. From the cold and calculating perspective of a slave society, attempts to enslave native americans were not efficient.

Regarding Europeans, many were unused to and otherwise unsuited to the extremely high temperatures and humidities of tropical and subtropical america. Probably 2nd generation immigrants would have been able to adjust, but why would you import bunches of Norwegians and Scots if you had to wait 20-years for their offspring to be ready for the fields.

Without african slavery, the European colonization of most of these america would have been radically different from what happened in OTL.
 

NomadicSky

Banned
You are 100% correct , I have noticed that same thing (and been puzzled by it) for some time now.IIRC most of them claim to have a great great grandmother how was a “Cherokee Indian Princess”

I know. I laugh about that. You must have spent time in the south.
 

HueyLong

Banned
Regarding American Indians, the statement is very accurate...both regarding the attitudes of European conquerors and as a fact demonstrated by the high death rates wherever it was tried. It wasn't that American Indians couldn't work as hard as Africans, or that the local civilizations did not already have institutions equivalent to sefdom and slavery, but Indians were very prone to become sick or die from small pox, measles, and other imported diseases. From the cold and calculating perspective of a slave society, attempts to enslave native americans were not efficient.

Regarding Europeans, many were unused to and otherwise unsuited to the extremely high temperatures and humidities of tropical and subtropical america. Probably 2nd generation immigrants would have been able to adjust, but why would you import bunches of Norwegians and Scots if you had to wait 20-years for their offspring to be ready for the fields.

Without african slavery, the European colonization of most of these america would have been radically different from what happened in OTL.

You wouldn't. Especially as slavery of Europeans was out of date (common law, by some contemporary critics, invalidated any hereditary slavery). Europeans could and did do field work on plantations, they were only replaced by slaves because there is no contract end (where you have to compensate them), you can own their descendants, and they had no chance of running away and blending in. Europeans could survive and work in the climate of the South.

Black slavery "won" versus indenture not due to any matter of labor efficiency, but due to the racial line and hereditary aspect.
 
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