![]() ![]() The Portuguese were the first to bring slaves from Africa to the Americas during the 1500s. Over half of all European immigrants to the Americas before the American Revolution were indentured servants.Īs indentured servants gradually earned their freedom, the system of indentured servitude was replaced with slavery. These indentured servants often worked on farms, and once their contract expired, they were free to work on their own. ![]() These laborers paid to their passage to North America by agreeing to work for an employer under contract for a set number of years. Initially, colonists partnered with indentured servants. These large plantations relied on slave labor, a dark legacy that would last for 250 years in North America. Further south, the Carolinas were home to large plantations cultivating crops like cotton. In the Middle Atlantic, around New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania, were a number of small, independent-farmer colonies. The Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia and Maryland had a number of tobacco plantations. The New England colonies, around the Massachusetts Bay area, were centers of commerce. The early British colonies had highly specialized economies, not unlike the patterns seen in present-day North America. ![]() \): Map of North American Colonies, 1750 (Derivative work from original by Pinpin, Wikimedia Commons) ![]()
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