The economical success which had attended the introduction of negroes
into the West Indies made it almost certain that the American colonies
would betake themselves to the same resource. The first introduction
of negroes is commonly placed in the year 1620, when a Dutch ship
landed twenty of them for sale at Jamestown. For some years their
numbers increased but slowly. In 1649 Virginia contained only three
hundred. By 1661 they had increased to two thousand, while the
indented servants were four times that number. Twenty-two years later,
if we may trust Culpepper's statement, the number of white servants
was nearly doubled, while that of the negroes had only increased by
one-half. Of their numbers and proportions in Maryland and North
Carolina we have no definite evidence. In South Carolina negro slavery
seems to have been almost from the outset the prevalent form of
industry.

As early as 1708 we are told that three-fifths of the population were
blacks. This alteration in the relative numbers of white servants and
black slaves was accelerated by a change which had come over the
commercial policy of the English Government. In 1662 the Royal African
Company was incorporated. At the head of it was the Duke of York, and
the King himself was a large shareholder. The chief profit of this
company was derived from the exportation of negroes from Guinea to the
plantations. The King and his brother henceforth had a direct interest
in limiting the supply of indented servants, and it is not unlikely
that this explains why Jeffreys for once deviated into the paths of
humanity and justice....

Had negro slavery never existed, had the natural resources of the
Southern colonies favored the growth of a free yeomanry, the system of
indenture would have been admirably fitted to establish a population