African Immigration and Slavery's Role in Early American Economy

Introduction: African Immigration and the Slave Trade

The initial immigration of Africans and people of African descent is inexorably linked to the slave trade and the institution of chattel slavery in the United States. Although immigration patterns would inevitably vary, they all tended to do so according to this country's relationship with and regard for slavery. The beginnings of African immigration to the U.S. are noted to have started as early as the mid-16th century, predating the founding of the nation itself. As a result, Africans and those of African descent would play a fairly integral role in laying the foundation of the nation-to-be.

In purely economic terms, their very landing on American soil already represented the monetary impact they would have on this society, since slave labor was extraordinarily costly to acquire and transport. Beyond that, these people would become the most prominent form of labor within certain regions and would come to be one of the most valued assets of the triangular trade that connected the United States, Europe, Africa, and parts of the West Indies.

Early Migration Patterns and the Middle Passage

It is worth noting that the first people of African descent to reach American shores were typically from the West Indies or Europe, and they accompanied explorers in the capacity of indentured servants in the mid-16th century. They frequently worked alongside European indentured servants (Foley) and were able to integrate themselves into colonial society to a meaningful degree. However, African immigration began in earnest toward the middle and latter portions of the 17th century, driven by the advent of the plantation system and the economic value found in crops such as tobacco, rice, and eventually cotton. Estimates suggest that "eleven to twelve million Africans were forcibly carried to the Americas," and that "one-half million were taken to what became...the United States" (Berlin). Enslaved people were brought to port areas such as Providence, Rhode Island; New Orleans; Chesapeake Bay; and ports in Georgia and South Carolina.

The immigration patterns of Africans and those of African descent were two-fold during this initial period. The first involved the Middle Passage — the harrowing journey in cramped, disease-ridden quarters from the African continent to the aforementioned port areas. The second was the internal migration from northern areas, including the middle colonies and New England, to the southern states where slavery truly thrived. Immigration to the Chesapeake Bay region was most prominent and most populous between the latter stages of the 17th century and the middle of the 18th century. From the mid-1700s to the early 19th century, African immigration was concentrated largely in the lowlands of South Carolina and Georgia, where slave labor was the nucleus of plantation life and its economy (Berlin). The slave trade was officially outlawed in the United States in 1808.

Slave Labor and the Southern Agricultural Economy

Regardless of where Africans and those of African descent initially arrived in the United States, the vast majority eventually made their way to the southern states, where they played a vital role in the economic system that the nation relied upon during its early stages. Whereas New England had diversified forms of commerce and trade — including maritime industries such as fishing — the southern states depended on the forced labor of Africans and African Americans to fuel the plantation system and its largely agricultural way of life. Consequently, most enslaved people were engaged in rural agricultural work, which proved to be the most profitable economic activity of this era in American history.

The most lucrative of these agricultural products proved to be cotton, which was in very high demand in Europe and other parts of the world. Enslaved people were engaged in the intensive manual labor of picking cotton fibers, a process that became significantly more productive after the invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin. Whitney patented this machine in 1794, and from that point forward, slave labor fueled the United States economy through the mass production of cotton, which was frequently sold to British textile mills that were desperate for raw material to manufacture finished goods.