The colour of the slaves skin also had advantages for the owners. Because of their black skin the slaves were able to work out in the sun all day without getting sunburnt like the white workers. The colour of the slaves skin also had other advantages. It made the slaves stand out from the white Americans and therefore making it very difficult for them to run away.
The alternatives to slavery for the plantation owners in the south had many problems. The first alternative was white labour but most whites in the south wanted to go and start their own plantation or required reasonably high wages to stay with an owner. Indentured labour was another choice but these workers ran away and could not be found as they blended in. Redemption was another form of labour but again the workers would leave and try and start their own plantation due to the cost of land. The last choice was using convicts. This was a poor system of labour as the convicts ran away and stole things. Masters did not like this idea, as they did not want a person who had committed serious crimes working for them around their wife and children.
Slavery was the most effective, efficient and profitable system of labour for the southern plantation owners. Under the slave system they could force the workers to work much harder with long hours even in the harshest conditions. The slave owners could work women slaves just as hard as male slaves giving them even the hardest tasks increasing productivity and therefore profit. .
A large gain for the slave owners was that they had the slave for life. The owners could get much more work out of a slave than they could any other type of worker. Also children born into slavery stayed slaves and were the property of the master. This gave the master a slave that he did not need to pay for. The master could put this slave to work when he or she was old enough or he could sell the young slave for a considerable amount because being so young they would have many working years ahead of them.