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Difficulty: EasyChesapeake and Southern Colonies

"Our principal wealth consisteth in tobacco; and if the price thereof fail us, we are altogether undone."
— Virginia General Assembly, 1620s

Which of the following was a major consequence of the economic system described in the excerpt?

  1. A growing reliance on indentured servants and, eventually, enslaved Africans to cultivate cash cropsAnswer
  2. B
    An economy dominated by small, family-owned farms producing subsistence food crops
  3. C
    A legal system that granted permanent landownership to laborers after completing their lifelong enslavement
  4. D
    The establishment of a free-market system designed to enrich colonial merchants over the mother country

Answer

A growing reliance on indentured servants and, eventually, enslaved Africans to cultivate cash crops
The correct answer describes how the tobacco-based economy of the Chesapeake required intensive labor, leading first to the reliance on indentured servants and later to the development of chattel slavery as the labor supply of servants declined.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus.
The stimulus identifies tobacco as the primary source of wealth in the Virginia colony during the 1620s.
This establishes that the Chesapeake economy was heavily dependent on a single cash crop.
2
Identify the labor demands of tobacco cultivation.
Tobacco is a labor-intensive crop that requires large workforces to plant, tend, harvest, and process.
Understanding the labor demand explains why the colony had to secure a steady supply of workers.
3
Connect labor demands to historical developments in the Chesapeake.
The demand for labor led first to the widespread use of English indentured servants and later to the development of hereditary chattel slavery.
This directly matches the historical transition in labor systems in the Chesapeake region.

Key Concept

The economic reliance on cash crops like tobacco in the Chesapeake colonies led to a strong demand for labor, resulting in the use of indentured servitude and the eventual rise of chattel slavery.
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Topics

Chesapeake and Southern Colonies

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