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Difficulty: EasyDevelopment of Chattel Slavery

Read the following excerpt from a law passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1670:

"It is enacted that all servants not being christians imported into this colony by shipping shall be slaves for their lives..."

Which of the following was the primary factor that drove colonial legislatures to pass laws such as the one excerpted above?

  1. The plantation owners' need for a permanent, hereditary labor force to grow labor-intensive cash crops.Answer
  2. B
    The legal transition of European indentured servants into lifelong labor contracts.
  3. C
    The emergence of large-scale commercial wheat farming in New England that relied heavily on enslaved labor.
  4. D
    The desire of the British government to establish free-market capitalism by ending colonial trade restrictions.

Answer

The plantation owners' need for a permanent, hereditary labor force to grow labor-intensive cash crops.
The correct answer is correct because the legal institutionalization of chattel slavery in the seventeenth-century British colonies was driven primarily by the economic demands of plantation agriculture. Faced with a decline in the supply of English indentured servants, Chesapeake and Southern planters sought a more permanent, easily controlled, and hereditary labor force to grow lucrative cash crops like tobacco.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the primary source excerpt to identify what legal changes are being made.
The excerpt establishes that non-Christian servants arriving by ship (primarily Africans) are designated as slaves for life.
Understanding the direct effect of the law is necessary before evaluating its broader historical context.
2
Connect the legal change to the labor demands of the southern and Chesapeake colonies.
Planters required large numbers of workers to sustain the production of cash crops, but the supply of European indentured servants was declining and unstable.
This links the legal shift directly to its primary economic catalyst.
3
Evaluate the options to select the primary reason for these legal developments.
Planters desired a permanent, hereditary labor supply to cultivate cash crops, leading colonial assemblies to codify chattel slavery.
This identifies the correct historical cause among the choices.

Key Concept

The transition from indentured servitude to hereditary chattel slavery in the Southern and Chesapeake colonies due to agricultural labor demands.
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Topics

Development of Chattel Slavery

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