ABSTRACT
African slaves were imported into North America much as they were elsewhere in the Americas. The guiding force behind North American slavery was primarily British and to a lesser extent French and Spanish (in the Gulf region). Those North American communities that turned to the plantation mode of production – for tobacco and rice, later for cotton – turned inevitably to black enslaved labour. In the colonies of the ‘Old South’, slavery was integral to local economic
Map 60 Mainland North America, c. 1660
Map 61 Mainland North America, c. 1790
development, though black slaves never outnumbered whites as they did in the Caribbean or Brazil. Moreover, North American slavery was different from the slave systems that emerged in Brazil and the Caribbean. There was a basic demographic difference (Maps 60 and 61).
