Slavery was purely economical in colonial America. Small farm and plantation owners both needed the extra hands to maintain the production of tobacco, cotton, and other cash crops. During the 17th and 18th centuries only about one fourth of white southerners owned slaves. The majority of slave owners were small farmers who owned less than ten slaves. Most of these said slave owners had one or two slaves, lived in decent homes, and worked side by side with their slaves in the fields. Most of these farmers were subsistence farmers who raised corn and hogs, but very little cotton. Ironically it was these farmers who were the most ardent defenders of slavery because the few they had they need, did not want to be the poorest, and did not want their children to work in the fields.
             After the revolution some leaders, including Thomas Jefferson, pondered the thought of freeing their slaves. However, it was cotton cultivation that silenced those ideas and rejuvenated the voracious demand for labor. During the 19th century slavery grew as the cotton business grew. By 1860 there were over four million slaves in the southern United States. Slavery began to be the principle way to measure wealth in the south. The more slaves a man had the richer he was. Slave owners needed their slaves because they did not want to lessen their profit paying them. The pro-slavery whites claimed that slavery was supported by the bible and Aristotle. Slavery raised the Africans from their savage ways and led them civilized Christian culture.
             The viewpoint of slavery changed between the 18th and 19th century primarily due to the eruption of the cotton industry. Cotton made up half the total value of all American exports after 1840. The South manufactured half of the planets cotton supply. The soft fluffy fiber aided in intensifying the schism over slavery between the North and South states.
             ...