Why did the South own slaves?

Answer 1

historians are not quite sure why Jefferson didn't set his slaves free.

he inherited slaves from various people including his father, but Jefferson knew that slavery was wrong. so your question is a good one... why did he continue to own slaves? some people have suggested that Thomas Jefferson thought that setting his slaves free would only make them subject to re-enslavement by someone else. The next person who owned them might end up being very harsh to them. So why did he relly keep them though? No one really knows for sure.

> I would say rather, that Jefferson was a man of his time, and as such was a white supremacist. Jefferson speaks extensively on his feelings (and they are just that, and in no way scholarly or scientific) about the "races" or "species" of man in his "Notes on The State of Virginia"(1781). He states that, "...never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration..."(266) He goes on to bash and attempt to discredit Black artists of the time Ignatius Sancho and Phyllis Wheately.

He goes on to make asinine comparisons between American Slavery and Ancient Roman Slavery, and the intellectual and artistic development of Free whites and enslaved Blacks before eventually concluding, "...as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in endowments both of body and mind" (270).

And why would he keep his inherited slaves? Well, he goes on to say that, "This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people" (270).

And all of this was written several years before Jefferson impregnated his slave girl Sally Hemings (about 16 at the time). Inherited from Jefferson's wife Martha , Sally and Martha are said to have been half-sisters (i.e. Martha's dad enjoyed sex with his slaves as well). Their children, remained his slaves into adulthood as did Sally who wasn't freed until after Jefferson's death in 1826.

So Thomas Jefferson is a founding father, and known as a great thinker and proponent of liberty, however, a closer look at his life reveals that he was FAR from perfect, and like many white Americans (and Europeans) of his time did not believe that non-whites were equal to whites.

Answer 2

Prior to the invention of modern farm machinery such as the combine harvester, the cheapest way to grow crops was with slave labor. Slave owners of the old south got very rich off of the labor of their slaves.

It cannot be overlooked, however, that slavery was introduced by early British colonists. It was finally outlawed in the UK in about 1830. The Framers of the US Constitution did have the opportunity to abolish slavery but they failed.

Answer 3

"Jefferson tried his best, as an enlightened, thoughtful individual might. But the structure of American society, the power of the cotton plantation, the slave trade, the politics of unity between northern and southern elites, and the long culture of race prejudice in the colonies, as well as his own weaknesses-that combination of practical need and ideological fixation-kept Jefferson a slaveowner throughout his life." written by Howard Zinn in A People's History of The United States.

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Answer 4

He did not want to own slaves

Answer 5

He did cause he thought that it was wrong