Plantation System

Definition

The plantation system was an agricultural practice in which large farms (plantations) relied on the forced labor of enslaved people to grow cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, and sugar.

Analogy

Think of the plantation system like a factory assembly line where slaves are the machines that never stop working. The plantations were like factories producing goods (crops), but instead of machines, they used human beings who were treated as property.

Related terms

Cash Crops: These are crops produced for their commercial value rather than for use by the grower.

Indentured Servitude: This was a labor system where people paid for their passage to the New World by working for an employer for a certain number of years.

Sharecropping: This is a type of farming in which families rent small plots of land from a landowner in return for a portion of their crop, to be given to the landowner at the end each year.