in the fields, though some others worked as servants craft workers, etc. In the northern colonies, slaves worked in factories, homes, and shipyards. Two important industries inspired the existence of black slaves in the British American colonies. These were the cotton and sugar cane plantations. Cotton case has its roots in the "cotton gin", a machine that removed seeds at an incredible rate of fifty people doing it by hand. Arose the need of more workers in the Southern to seed and collect cotton to meet the demand for this prosperous new industry in America. African slaves filled this necessity of cotton plantation labor.In the case of sugar cane, the Louisiana's agricultural labor needs were just as important as the cotton producing colonies and slave numbers climbed to about 4 million in the south in order to fulfill the labor requirements of planting and harvesting the cane.White colonizers also tried to enslave the American Indians but with very poor results. Partly due to the fact that many Indians died from diseases brought by their captors. Also, it was easy for the Indians to run away and go back with their people. This situation gave a big green light to bring even more black slaves from Africa. The colonizers did not encounter these same problems with the African slaves because the slaves did not have where to run and because they were healthier and stronger.The Atlantic slave trade operated from the 1500's to the mid-1800's. No one knows exactly how many Africans were enslaved during this period. Some estimate around ten million. Of the total number of slaves brought to America only six percent were received by the British colonies and lived in the south although slavery existed in a lesser number everywhere else in the colonies.A slave's life in America was a nightmare for the most part, since despite the existence of some laws to protect them from cruelty by whites and to give them limited rights, these laws were not alwa...
