“From 1500 to 1860 it is estimated that around 12 million enslaved Africans were traded to the Americas.” With the rise of cash crops, a workforce was needed to efficiently harvest the tobacco, indigo, and rice on large plantations in the south. Eventually, the answer to the labor shortage was enslaving Africans. Slavery in America had become a necessity due to the large economic gains from the transatlantic slave trade, as well as the triangular trade. In 1612, John Rolfe of Jamestown started to cultivate tobacco for commercial use. Tobacco demanded land and labor in order to be profitable, which was an easy requirement for colonists to fulfill at the time with programs such as the headright system and indentured servitude. However,
