During the early colonial period, indentured servants had filled the role of labor, working primarily in the Chesapeake region in the cultivation of tobacco. However, as the Dutch lost their monopoly on the slave trade, the price of slaves fell, allowing many plantation owners to purchase slaves and encouraging the growth of the slave trade to America. During the Revolutionary War and the decades following, slavery continued to boom, particularly in the South, where the use of slaves in crop cultivation came to dominate the Southern economy. In the North, industry supported the economy, allowing for a decreased need for slave labor. The difference between the economies of the North and South allowed for different levels of importance for slavery in those areas; however, discrimination prevailed throughout the young nation, leading the African-American community of the time to struggle against whites for freedom and civil rights. In the South, the largest contributing factor to the expansion of slavery was the westward growth of America during the early 19th Century. The Louisiana Purchase, signed under Thomas Jefferson, opened millions of acres to settlement encouraging many white southerners to move west into Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. These areas with their warm climates encouraged the expansion of the plantation system westward and accounts for the massive growth of slavery in those areas by 1830 seen in the Document C map illustrating the difference in slave concentration of the colonies. Lord Dunmore offered all slaves the opportunity to be free by joining the British military, as explained in his proclamation. The British sought to weaken colonial resistance by the support of the slaves. While many joined the British military to escape slavery, some colonial states offered slaves their freedom if they joined the colonial side after realizing how many slaves were rebelling to the British side. Some free blacks joined the British side because they
