By the eighteenth century, plantations in America worked by enslaved Africans were producing cotton and sugar for European markets. Considering what you know about why Europeans migrated to America and how conquest had unfolded there, explain why enslaved African labour — rather than local or European labour — became the dominant workforce on these plantations.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · 2026-06-26 14:58 · grounding rag
Model Answer
Enslaved African labour became dominant on American plantations for several interconnected reasons:
- Collapse of indigenous labour: European conquest brought diseases like smallpox that wiped out large portions of Native American populations, making local labour scarce and unreliable as a permanent workforce.
- Unsuitability of European labour: Europeans migrated to America seeking land and opportunity, not plantation servitude. Indentured servants completed fixed contracts and could claim freedom; they were difficult to control permanently.
- Profitability of the slave trade: European merchants, particularly from Britain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, had established profitable networks trafficking enslaved Africans. Enslaved people could be bought once and exploited for life, reducing long-term labour costs for plantation owners.
- Colonial economic logic: Colonies existed to supply European markets cheaply. Enslaved labour — unpaid, permanent, and legally owned — maximised profits from cotton and sugar cultivation, fitting the exploitative economic model that colonialism depended upon.
- Legal and social structures: Colonial laws were built to sustain slavery, making African enslaved people the only legally permanent, inheritable workforce available.
Source: Chapter 3, Section 2.3; Chapter 4, Section 1
---
Explanation
This question tests analytical thinking, not just recall. Examiners expect you to link three factors: (1) the destruction of indigenous populations through conquest and disease, (2) the limitations of European migrant labour, and (3) the economic incentives driving the African slave trade. The source passages establish colonialism's exploitative character and the drive for cheap labour for export markets — use that framework. Avoid writing a general history of slavery; stay focused on why African enslaved labour specifically became dominant. Five crisp, connected points earn full marks.