In colonial New England, two-thirds of adult males owned their own farm. A large
landed estate worked by tenant farmers and servants was rare; the typical New England
farm was modest in size and the owner's family typically provided the labor to work it.
Such farm families were often subsistence-based—primarily raising grain and livestock
for themselves and only selling at local markets whatever was not consumed.
In the Middle Colonies however, well placed individuals acquired extensive
estates by receiving land grants from proprietors or their appointed governors due to
ties of friendship or family. In New York, for example, families like the Schuylers and the
Livingstons acquired large estates in this manner. Owners of these large estates relied
on tenants and indentured servants to work their estates, but the estate owners often
lost tenants and indentured servants when these laborers bought their own land or
ended their contracted terms of service.
Consequently, wealthy landowners in the 18th century recruited new German
and Scots-Irish indentured servants from economically depressed areas, such as
Northern Ireland and the Rhine River valley in Western Germany, when the supply of
English servants could not meet demand. Over time, landowners also became more
reliant on African slaves to meet their labor needs. Since Africans became the private
property of their owners once acquired, they could never leave their employers. By the
18th century, Africans comprised as much as five percent of the population in the
Middle Colonies.
In the South, however, the demand for labor on large estates was much greater,
which resulted in a heavy reliance on slave labor to maintain economic growth. The
growth of slavery in the South most distinguished this region from the other two. The
rich alluvial soil and warm climate of the Chesapeake and the Low Country of South
Carolina and Georgia allowed for the cultivation of the profitable cash crops of tobacco,
rice, and indigo for export to England. Due to the shortage of labor, planters had to rely
on indentured servants and slaves to meet their labor needs.
Throughout the 17th century, planters made use primarily of indentured servants
from England and (in the case of Carolina) enslaved Native Americans since their cost
to the planters was less expensive than that of African slaves. Yet by the early 18th
century, with the growth of the African slave trade, prices for African slaves declined as
their supply increased. Planters also came to prefer African slaves to indentured
servants and Native Americans since Africans did not have to be released from
bondage after a certain period, like indentured servants, nor could they escape
servitude by fleeing to their homeland, as could Native Americans. Also, former
indentured servants could create problems for the wealthy planter elite.
The expansion of Virginia toward the end of the 17th century brought settlers,
many of whom were former indentured servants, into conflict with the Native Americans
of the interior. This confrontation precipitated a political and social crisis in the colony,
which is known as Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. As these former indentured servants
migrated westward and founded new settlements, they soon were in conflict with the
Susquehannocks by 1675. The royal governor William Berkeley, however, did n
