Interpret the Evidence
1. The biggest challenges for indigo planters was the skill and labor required to grow the plant. Indigo required a large amount of strenuous work. For example you had stay in a bent position while planting the indigo seeds because it was more of a dust than a seed and would fly into the wind if not deposited directly into its designated hole. This took about 2 hours. After being planted it grew within months and had to be kept clean throughout its growing stage. These are just a few examples of the steps you needed to follow to grow indigo. The way planters overcame these challenges was by buying slaves and having them do all of the hard work. Some slaves even had prior knowledge of how to grow indigo. (Hewitt and Lawson,…show more content… In document 3.6 Mrs. Pinckney is writing to her son describing her personal struggle of learning how grow a successful batch of indigo. While in document 3.7 Mr. Milligen-Johnston describes in great detail the steps of growing a successful batch of indigo which lets us know that he is not a learner he is an expert and probably has an indigo plantation. Document 3.8 directly announces that slaves are the ones doing the grueling work that indigo demands, and because it talks about slaves directly it is able to give insight on some of the organized methods that slaves used to get the work done. For example “The Slaves range themselves in the same line and going backwards, they make little Pits …the depth of three or four inches, at about a Foot Distance every way, and as much as possible in a strait Line” (Hewitt and Lawson,…show more content… The initiative of North American planters developing new crops for export shaped the development of the southern colonies by basically showing them what and what not to do. The Southern colonies were developed after the northern colonies and the southern colonies therefore seen what it took to grow a successful crop. North America exporting new crops made the king and the colonies see eye to eye on mercantilism. . (Hewitt and Lawson, 76)
2. Planters responded to their vital need for more labor by purchasing more enslaved African Americans. For example “In 1688 one-third of all African Americans in Virginia and Maryland were still free but numbers dwindled year by year. Once the Royal African Company started suppling the Chesapeake with slaves directly from Africa in the 1680’s” (Hewitt and Lawson, 85). This shows us that many planters walked away from indentured servants as a source of labor. Planters also ensured that they would always have slaves by the Virginia Assembly passing a law that said if your mother was a slave so are you, that way whenever slaves reproduced they also gave the planter more laborers. “The laws passed by the assembly in 1680 also made it illegal for any negro or other slave to carry or arme himself with any club, staffe, gun, sword, or any other weapon of defense or offense” (Hewitt and Lawson, 85) ,(Hewitt and Lawson,