What factors led to planters to use labor of enslaved Africans?

Answer 1

There are many reasons why many groups and nationalities have been used as slaves throughout time. Africans were only one of many examples because throughout time whites also enslaved whites. Africans still enslave Africans. The American experience is only one of many times slaves have been used in history and today.

Initially few enslaved Africans were used in the Americas. It was the expansion of the sugar industry in Barbados and the Leeward islands that led to the large scale use of enslaved Africans by planters. Initially white British indentured labour was used. The Dutch first started the trade but once the British got involved they were able to better organize the trade sending ships back and forth between England, Africa and the Americas, known as the triangular trade. As a result the price of slaves dropped and planters turned to this cheap source of labour.

Hence in a nutshell, the reasons for the use of enslaved Africans by planters in the Americas was simply that it was a cheap form of labour. By the time the mainland colonies started to used enslaved Africans as labour, the trade was well organised by the British and the price of slaves was significantly reduced to make slave labour viable.

Not that Africans were only slaves in the "New World". Some Black Americans owned slaves. Slavery was also not limited to the southern states either. There were states in the north during the civil war that owned slaves throughout the entire war. It was not until several months after the civil war ended that slavery finally became illegal.

Answer 2

Planters used the labor of enslaved Africans primarily due to the labor-intensive nature of agriculture, the need for cheap and abundant labor to cultivate cash crops like sugar, tobacco, and cotton, as well as the belief in the racial superiority of Europeans which justified the exploitation of Africans as slaves. Economic profitability and the desire for increased agricultural production also played a significant role in the decision to use enslaved labor.