Slavery in the Colonies

Slavery in the British North American colonies differed depending what colony they are in. In places where slaves were the majority, they were treated differently as opposed to places with few slaves. In South Carolina, there were more African slaves than there were European settlers. In New England and the Middle Colonies, there were fewer slaves and fewer plantations for the slaves to work on. Virginia and Maryland had lots of slaves, in addition to lots of tobacco plantations to work on; but tobacco does not take as much time to grow, so slaves performed other tasks as well. In places like South Carolina, There were many plantations producing things such as rice and indigo. Many plantations require many workers, and Europeans turned to slaves to do it. This resulted in there being more slaves than Europeans in South Carolina. Europeans in South Carolina began to fear an uprising from the slaves because of the large number of them, so the owners of the plantations and workers tended to live far away from the plantations and have other slave overseers keeping everything in order on the plantations. Many slaves came straight from Africa, were able to preserve their culture. This happened here more than in the middle colonies because the slaves were isolated from Europeans, and therefore no cultural diffusion was able to occur. In New England and the Middle Colonies, there were fewer plantations. Fewer plantations meant fewer slaves were needed. Slave life was very different, mainly because slave owners did not fear an uprising. They did not fear because unlike Southern Colonies, slaves were the minority. Slave owners exposed themselves to slaves all the time without fear. Slaves had more choices of work in the Middle Colonies, not just fieldwork. The owners tended to work alongside the slave. Since slaves were not kept together away from other cultures, slaves and Europeans’ cultures diffused and white people found themselves eating African