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Slavery American Slavery

Decent Essays

Slavery in America has always been a widely discussed topic. Many of these discussions have be focus on why slavery grew so rapidly between the late 1700’s and the mid 1800’s just before the Civil War. The number of slaves in the south during the late 1700’s was approximately 500,000, this number grew to almost four million by the 1860’s. There is evidence to support that the perpetuation and expansion of black slavery in the United States between 1776 and 1860 was influenced by greed, a since of white superiority, and legislation. A combination that would lead to an eventual civil war. Greed was a major driving force in the expansion of black slavery in the in the 18th and 19th centuries. This expansion of slavery was a cycle that would perpetuate itself. Plantation owners would realize early on that the ownership of slave would increase their socioeconomic status and the greed for this status was enormous. The use of slaves would create higher profit margins for the plantation owners. With higher profits, plantation owners could purchase more land, and with more land came the need for more labor (slaves) to operate the larger plantation. A larger plantation would lead to owner coming into power within the local government as a top land owner. The political power that came with local government leadership also became lusted after. At the time, the greed for more money birthed the greed for more land, the greed for more land birthed the greed for political power. All of

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