Gabriel_Bell
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2024
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In the early years of this country, Europeans came to the US because they were poor and had no land of their own. In Europe, the land belonged to the nobility, and in Britain, the nobility drove the peasants off the land so they could raise sheep. The peasants who were lucky might have managed to get a job in the textile mills.
When the immigrants decided to come, they had no money to pay the passage, and many of them had to agree to work as indentured servants for several years for landowners. The land that was available was heavily forested and it needed to be cleared off. There were no chainsaws, backhoes. They had shovels, axes and machetes.
The main cash crops were tobacco and indigo. Cotton was not a major thing until the cotton gin was invented in 1793. Similar inventions were developed in India before that.
The best way to get rich in America was to discover gold and silver. But the next best way was to get some land and buy slaves to clear it off and to harvest the cotton and of course, food for people and animals. Andrew Jackson noticed that members of the Five Civilized Tribes of the SE US (Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and Cherokee) has cleared off a lot of land already, so he forced them off the land and drove them off to Oklahoma. And eventually Mississippi became one of the most prosperous states. Jackson sold the Indian land for $1.25 per acre. This was about $42.69 in today's money.
When the immigrants decided to come, they had no money to pay the passage, and many of them had to agree to work as indentured servants for several years for landowners. The land that was available was heavily forested and it needed to be cleared off. There were no chainsaws, backhoes. They had shovels, axes and machetes.
The main cash crops were tobacco and indigo. Cotton was not a major thing until the cotton gin was invented in 1793. Similar inventions were developed in India before that.
The best way to get rich in America was to discover gold and silver. But the next best way was to get some land and buy slaves to clear it off and to harvest the cotton and of course, food for people and animals. Andrew Jackson noticed that members of the Five Civilized Tribes of the SE US (Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and Cherokee) has cleared off a lot of land already, so he forced them off the land and drove them off to Oklahoma. And eventually Mississippi became one of the most prosperous states. Jackson sold the Indian land for $1.25 per acre. This was about $42.69 in today's money.
