For the early American colonists, the untamed terrain was a severe, wild and challenging land to conquer. Natives, superstitions, and nature all proved antagonistic toward their goals of developing a "civilized" life in the new world. To adapt to these new lands, practices from both the American Indians and Africans had to be acquired. These difficult to implement, without a large and cheap workforce, along with greed and biases formed from centuries of racism of foreign cultures led to the use of slavery in the U.S. South and Caribbean areas. While this is what led to the start of slavery, abuse of the natural land and the unpredictable nature at which it reacted is what shaped and defined slavery in the U.S south and the Caribbean. This can be seen through the writings of Merchant, Fiege, and Carney. Slavery was an embedded part of the life and systems of the early U.S. South. Built entirely around a plantation system of growing cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, the work required was enormous and owners believed large profits depended on a functioning slave system. These huge plantations is what led to the first abuse of land. While soil depletion caused many problems for planters it did have as many immediate effects on slaves as other practices would. As Merchant states in chapter three, "Soil depleting crops such as tobacco quickly depleted the soil and after three to four years the soil would be bereft of nutrients such as potassium and nitrogen and soil fungi and root rot would run rampant." Soil erosion became common as a result of continuous use of hoes that scratched away at the soil. After a few years, this led to the soil becoming unusable, forcing colonists to either change their practices or abandon the land. While these examples of abuse did not directly affect the lives of slavery it depicts an important example of how the lands reaction to treatment shaped the approach of the plantation owners. This affects slaves because by damaging their owners profitability it forced them to work more to develop the land and apply the solutions that they're masters came up with or stole. These practices either forced more burdens upon slaves or opened them up for more opportunities in their rather hopeless world. As slaves the extent of freedoms given to them were often linked to the forces at play in the natural world and the reactions their masters had to them. T