13. Most of the Africans were not destined for North America
Despite bearing British flags before the Revolutionary War, and United States’ colors after, the majority of the slave ships bound for the Americas did not deliver their cargo in the United States. The sugar plantations of the Caribbean and Brazil demanded an almost continuous influx of new labor. Conditions at the sugar plantations were brutal, the work equally so. Life expectancy for the newly arrived slaves was short. Throughout the British holdings in the Caribbean, resistance to slavery by the Africans continued. Africans in Jamaica outnumbered the white citizens there by the late 18th century, making fear of rebellion a constant in Jamaica’s plantations and settlements. Harsh conditions to control against insurrection fed further resistance, in a vicious cycle which lasted for decades.
Healthy African slaves drew premiums when delivered to the islands, as well as to Spanish Cuba and Portuguese Brazil. American and British traders, drawn by profits, made voyages to the island plantations a priority. Another reason for their reticence in delivering slaves directly from Africa to the United States was the growing reluctance of Southern planters to purchase them. By the late 1700s, the planters’ society in the South preferred slaves born in British America, fearful of the “negative” influence on their slaves from those arriving directly from Africa. They routinely suppressed African culture and musical instruments, especially drums, and strove to inculcate a more familiar culture among their slaves. Those slaves which did arrive directly from Africa in the American South usually went to work in the fields immediately. Among the slaves, the field hand occupied the lowest rung in their societal ladder.