e plantation system of southern agriculture required a larger labor supply than could be provided by the natural population increase. Indentured white servants were first used, but these were eventually replaced by Negro slaves. The mere fact of a constant supply of slaves in the eighteenth century as compared to the sporadic supply of the seventeenth was a stimulus to slave use, but there were more important economic considerations underlying the replacement of indentured by slave laborers. At the start of the eighteenth century, the term of an indentured servant could be obtained for approximately one half to two thirds of the price of an adult slave. Slave labor, however, was purchased for life, while the servant ordinarily regained freedom after about four years. Furthermore, the offspring of a slave mother became the property of the plantation owner.
In terms of labor organization, there needed to be some drastic changes in the composition of society in order to engender such an outcome. These changes included a large immigration population an
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