In the seventeenth century tobacco became the largest cash crop to be grown in the English colonies. Until this point in history tobacco had been a luxury item only afforded by the upper class of society. Farmers in order to plant more crops and earn more money needed laborers to work their fields and help grow the crop. Indentured servants were the best choice for this task. With a purchase of an indentured servant you received a 4-7 years’ term of labor and a headright of 50 acres per servant. As the century progressed tensions began to rise between indentured servants and their masters. This caused landowners to search for an alternative source of labor for their farms.
At the end of the seventeenth century slaves began to replace
