Slaves tended to be treated very differently depending upon their regional location and the colonial power that controlled the area. Overall slavery was an attractive proposition to landowners. There are many theories providing why slaves were taking and treated horribly in some cases but there are few accounts on what were the reasons colonial power conquered these lands and used their native people as what I call a "labor production scheme." Slaves in southern colonies typically worked under harsh labor conditions, while slaves in the middle and New England colonies were fewer, had more freedom, and were often treated more humanely.
Slavery in the Americas in my opinion had to be one of the harshest forms of slavery that existed. Primarily African slaves were the first "transported to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central & South America, starting very early in the 16th century."(http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_hist.htm) With the broaden of tobacco farming in the 1670's, and the diminishing number of people willing to sign-on as indentured servants in the 1680's, increasing numbers of slaves were brought in from Africa.
Slave transport in Africa, depicted in a 19th-cent...
English: Public domain image more than 100 years s...
English: Slaves in eastern Africa.Once the slaves reached American soil they were mostly treated as property, primarily to be freely bought and sold upon the free will of the white man. Some slave owners allowed their slaves to marry; others imposed marriages on them. "Slave marriages were not recognized by the states. The owner was free to split up a couple or family at any time simply by selling some of his/her slaves. Slave children were sent into the fields at about 12 years of age where they worked from sun up to sun down."(www.afrohamhistory.about.com)During the colonial period slavery in Brazil was a foundation in their economy, usually for the production of Brazil wood and sugar canes. Brazil acquired many of their slaves...