The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

by Jemar Tisby

Enslavement was different in South America and the Caribbean than in North America. The labor-intensive crops and enormous plantations meant that Africans usually outnumbered Europeans. The Haitian Revolution broke out in 1791, and its success was due, in part, to the population discrepancy between enslaved Africans and European landowners. The harsh working conditions on sugar plantations and deadly diseases resulted in a high mortality rate. Deaths outnumbered births, so it was more cost-effective for plantation owners to replace slaves rather than to invest in keeping them alive. This led to a gender imbalance as slaveowners preferred male slaves who they could literally work to death. North America, by contrast, developed more gender parity, so a growing population of the enslaved came through birth, often referred to as “natural increase.” Slave women in North America had an average birthrate of 9.2 children, twice as many as those in Caribbean colonies.