In most of the New World plantation societies the average remaining life span of trafficked Blacks was reckoned at seven years or less. In 1751, an English planter on Antigua summed up the prevailing slaveowner sentiment this way: “It was cheaper to work slaves to the utmost, and by the little fare and hard usage, to wear them out before they become useless, and unable to do service; and then to buy new ones to fill up their places.”
