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Period: to
1610 - 1640
- Tobacco became a cash crop in Virginia in the year 1612.
- Twenty Africans were sold in Jamestown to work in the fields in 1619.
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Period: to
1641 - 1670
- Maryland passed a law in 1664 that made slavery legal.
- By 1670, Virginia and Maryland had the largest populations of enslaved persons in the colonies.
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Period: to
1671 - 1700
- By 1700, enslaved persons made up 22 percent of the population of Virginia and Maryland.
- Southern colonies increased their production of rice, tobacco, indigo, and other cash crops.
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Period: to
1701 - 1730
- In 1705, Virginia law made all enslaved persons property.
- More than twice as many Africans arrive in colonial America between 1700 and 1710 than in all of the 1600s.
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Period: to
1731 - 1760
- By 1750, 31 percent of Marylanders were enslaved people.
- During this time, Virginia and Maryland grew more than 100 million pounds of tobacco a year.