 In the book ″ 1493, ″ the author Charles Mann, cites sources that speculate that the reason African slaves were brought to the British Americas was because of their immunity to malaria. Britain did not have large number of African slaves, there were plenty of unemployed workers who could come as indentured servants. In the area above the Mason-Dixon line, the malaria protozoa did not fare well, the English-speaking indentured servant proved more profitable as he would work toward his freedom and hence worked with less supervision and coercion. As malaria spread, places such as the tidewater of Virginia and South Carolina which had previously been habitable by white people became endemic with malaria. Small white landholders were at a disadvantage to plantation owners, as they risk complete economic ruin when they were sick, while plantation owners relied on more malaria resistant West African slaves. Malaria caused huge losses to British forces in the South during the revolutionary war as well as to Union forces during the Civil War. Malaria also helped weaken the native American population and make them more susceptible to other diseases.
