When Florida was under British control, Denys Rolle, British MP, brought settlers to his royally granted estate for the purpose of turning it into a capitalist

When Florida was under British control, Denys Rolle, British MP, brought settlers to his royally granted estate for the purpose of turning it into a capitalist plantation. This was before the first (haha) American Revolution. They took the closest thing resembling a flight from London to sunny Florida that there was back then. It was a sailing ship. -passage alone was 6 guineas (Pounds Sterling at the time) Fundamentally the chattel slaves were treated as cargo and expensed, everyone else was paying in one way or another for the venture to improve "their share" of the estate "provided" them. In this way the granted estate as a whole could be made "real" for the grantee (Rolle) after having first been nothing but decreed royal rights to not-yet-fully surveyed land. Attempted Florida real estate in its infancy. Make it more real than it was, so those who come along next will pay more rent. 1766 terms of settlement -help turn wilderness into a foundation for building Rolle a productive multinational agricultural venture -these one-way bundles include passage -all get a small lot in "town" and 5 acres for farming -plus "no limits as to quantity" of additional heritable farmland for a fee -all for a low, low, "small quit-rent" (property tax) indigent class - 4 years indentured sharecropping in lieu of 12 guineas -expected to achieve the wherewithal to "purchase nearly two negroes" of his own after 4 years third class "bare necessaries" - 12 guineas -you get survival materials, farm tools and a pig second class - 21 guineas -you also get craftsman's tools and more livestock -you still have to perform your own labor first class - 51 guineas -"The remaining 30 guineas may be employed in the price and wages of indented servants, or a working negro may be purchased with it." The sections in his own words do lend an idea about what the slaveholders of the traditional British aristocracy might have thought. The following document is worthwhile in its entirety but Rolle's account starts about halfway down the page: https://books.google.nl/books?id=Z2ZZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Extract+from+an+Account+of+East+Florida&source=bl&ots=QNsyfRR4oJ&sig=wvFh4YSDMROOO1_tl45aD8RIbhM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JIvUs_tBZOjhge21ID4DQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Extract%20from%20an%20Account%20of%20East%20Florida&f=false https://books.google.nl/books?id=Z2ZZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1... Later, after the British lost the war they ended up ceding Florida to Spain in 1783, and Rolle relocated his downsized plantation to the neighboring British territory of the Bahama Islands, claiming great losses due to the political change of sovereignty. This takes place a few years after the most recent American Revolution (same war as above) which had started in 1776. Florida was not one of the 13 North American colonies which had declared independence from Britain. In the interim period Rolle had made the transition to pure slave labor going forward, instead of the original indentured arrangement. The thoughts of this same gentleman 14 - 17 years later can be further hinted at by this next document from 1780 - 1783. The Rolle information again starts about halfway down the page: http://www.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/Plantations/plantations/San_Marco-Jericho-Chichester.htm http://www.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/Plantations/plantati... Detailed is the work output expected of the various slave types (considered to be probably exaggerated for the purpose of his bureaucratic claim for financial compensation). Among pages of claims, chattel slaves were by then valued per head at: 100 Pounds Sterling for Trade workers 50 for Field workers 15 for "Rising Generation" children 0 for "Past Labour" kitchen workers no longer capable of Field performance Quite a bit of inflation, if it can be believed. Only the chattel slaves have been made illegal since then, but there are bound to be ruling classes over a period of centuries where when the prohibition of slavery came along, it was treated as a technicality. Depends on where the line is drawn. I believe this line is called labor law. But it's not only a matter of where the line is drawn and what the terms are, but more importantly who draws the line and sets the terms.