ve free enterprise.
American masters were probably no more cruel and no more sadistic than
others, and, in fact, the spread of humanitarianism in the modern world
may have made the opposite true. Nevertheless, their capitalistic
mentality firmly fixed their eyes on minimizing expenses and maximizing
profits. Besides being a piece of property, the American slave was
transformed into part of the plantation machine, a part of the
ever-growing investment in the master' mushrooming wealth.

The development of slavery in America resulted from the working of
economic forces and not from climatic or geographic conditions. When the
first twenty Africans reached Virginia in 1619, the colony was comprised
of small plantations dependent on free white labor. While some historians
believe that these immigrants were held in slavery from the beginning,
most think they were given the status of indentured servants. English
law contained no such category as slavery, and the institution did not
receive legal justification in the colony until early in the 1660s.
Although the fact of slavery had undoubtedly preceded its legal
definition, there was a period of forty years within which the Africans
had some room for personal freedom and individual opportunity. Rumors of
deplorable working conditions and of indefinite servitude were reaching
England and discouraging the flow of free white labor. To counter this, a
series of acts were passed which legally established the rights of white
labor, but they did nothing to improve the status of the African. In
fact, their passage pushed them relentlessly towards the status of slave.

The price of tobacco declined sharply in the 1660s and drove the small
white farmer to the wall. Only those with enough capital to engage in
large-scale operations could continue to make a profit. In order to fill
the need for the huge labor supply required large-scale agriculture, the
colonial legislature passed laws giving legal justification to slavery.
At the same time, Charles II granted a royal charter establishing a
company to transport African slaves across the ocean and thereby
increasing the supply of slaves available to the colonial planter.

Until this time, the number of Africans in the colony had been very
small, but thereafter their numbers grew rapidly. The African slaves
provided the large, dependable, and permanent supply of labor which these
plantations required. The small white planter and the fr