The Origins of Slavery - Betty Wood Book Review

             Betty Wood introduces her book, The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the English Colonies, by raising two conceptually-related questions: 1) What made English colonists believe they had the right to enslave West Africans and; 2) What prompted them to do so? She points out that even though there are many explanations that conflict with each other, historians agree that Englishmen set out to America with the intention of shipping over and then enslaving Africans when they got there. Betty Wood says that slavery was instigated against the West Africans because of both the racial prejudices and the economical necessities.
             When colonists realized how much work there needed to be done in the New World, and how much potential profit could be made, they concluded that they were in need of more help. The cheapest way to get help was through slavery, as opposed to indentured servitude (in which the indentured servant would eventually be allowed rights and land in the New World). Betty Wood says that an example of the economic justifications for slavery is the need for slaves to work in the Caribbean, rather than indentured servants, because the slaves would not be offered the lack of existing land that was needed to grow tobacco and other profit-producing crops, particularly in St. Kitts and Barbados. .
             The Africans did not have an "end" to their term, and there was never a loss in profit when the number of years ran out (the Africans were not owed anything). To the plantation owners, the economics of slavery was evident - slaves helped produce a higher profit as nothing needed to be given back to them. This is important since the North American settlers were interested in making profits from their land just as the lands in the Caribbean had become profitable. This made way for the planters in the Caribbean to move to the Carolinas. Since slaves were their property, they were able to take them with them and help the North American settlers to develop a more profitable land by producing rice.