With ideal climate and available land, property owners in the southern colonies began establishing plantation farms for cash crops like rice, tobacco and sugar cane—enterprises that required increasing amounts of labor. To meet the need, wealthy planters turned to slave traders, who imported ever more human chattel to the colonies, the vast majority from West Africa. As more slaves were imported and an upsurge in slave fertility rates expanded the “inventory,” a new industry was born: the slave auction. These open markets where humans were inspected like animals and bought and sold to the highest bidder proved an increasingly lucrative enterprise. In the 17th century, slaves would fetch between five and ten dollars. But by the mid-19th century, an able-bodied slave fetched an average price between $1,200-$1,500.