What Is The Role Of Slavery In The 1800's

Slavery played a big par in the History of the United State’s during the period of the 1800’s. Even through only about 25 percent of the Southern population owned slaves, the South still fully defended it. The South argued that it was an economic necessity to have slaves. The South was full of plantations, and produced cash crops such as tobacco and cotton; this was the main part of the South’s income. To produce these crops, the plantation owners needed hard working men with cheap labor. Originally the plantation owners used indentured servants as the owners were not of working class. At a certain point those servants would work their way out of their service, but the owners still needed laborers. Even though there was a price for purchasing slaves, it was cheaper than having indentured servants, as they were free labor indefinitely. The price the owners paid to feed, …show more content…
Some slaves would run away and become fugitive slaves. The fugitive slave act was put in place, so that if the slaves who ran were found, they would be required to return them to their masters. Unfortunately there were many people that were opposed to slavery, and would help these slaves along the Underground Railroad to freedom. Slaves who were afraid to run, or were not able to, would get creative and rebel in their day to day activities. Most slaves in the field were men, and they would look to sabotage the owner’s efforts by breaking tools, hiding tools, and setting fires. Some slaves would fake an illness just to get out of their work for the day. Some men played dumb, or would even slow down their work. All these rebellions did was delay work, and not stop it. Eventually the men would be back to work. As a result, masters would try to ward off future rebellions by showing others what would happen when they would rebel. Some slaves would be killed, whipped, tortured, or starved to