I was surprised to learn a few years ago that many slaves were bought on credit — somewhat like having a mortgage on your home. The slave owner could not sell (or free) the slave until he’d repaid the bank, or other lender, the price of the slave, plus interest. Jefferson inherited his slaves from his wife’s father, and later from his wife. They were still heavily “mortgaged”, and since he spent much of his time serving the colonies and later the nation (rather than making Monticello a viable operation) he could not “free” them.
It was a dreadful system, and the banks had a lot to do with it. However, without slaves, the great plantations could never have been developed. No single family could have put all that land to the plow. Furthermore, without the cheap cotton, linen, wool from the South, the Northern mills would not have prospered. So the North benefited from the evil system too, as much as they would deny it.
True. In an area with cheap/free land, large farming operations cannot exist without either slavery/serfdom or machinery.
No single family could have put all that land to the plow.
True, but so what? The same land would have been plowed by the same people, but organized as independent farming families instead of as aristocrat/slaves. That sounds like a better approach to me.