In the 19th century the southern of the US had extremely big plantations. Among other things they grew tobacco, sugarcane, cotton and figs. The regular labor was expensive so the plantation owners first tried to use the native americans for labor. The native americans couldn't survive some of the european diseases and many of them died though. The plantation owners then started to use african slaves as labor. In 1750 there where at least 235 000 slaves living in the southern colonies. The life as a slave was terribly cruel and hard. The Blues got invented by the african slaves that worked in the fields. In creating Blues they were inspired by music from a lot of different sources. They mixed African spirituals, African chants, work songs,
