The British played a major part in the Atlantic slave trade. Enslaved Africans were the most profitable source of labour. Britain’s military and commercial strength were vital in its development.
The plantation system in Barbados was developed using poor white manual labour.
With so much new land available, labourers were always tempted to leave their job and start their own farm. Wages needed to be high enough to tempt them to stay, reducing the planters’ profit margins.
Plantation owners found ways around paying wages that cut into their profits.
Indentured servants were poor people who signed contracts to work in return for food, clothes and shelter. Servants were lent the cost of transport from Europe. They worked for a fixed period, eg five or ten years, at the will of their master, for no wage, to pay off their debt. However:
Criminals were sent as punishment for a specific period. Transportation to the West Indies was seen as an alternative to hanging. However, there were not enough British criminals who could be sent as forced labour.
Towards the end of the 17th century enslaved Africans emerged as the most profitable source of labour. This avenue was pursued so vigorously that the sources of labour from indigenous peoples, British wage labour, indentured servants and criminals, fell into insignificance.