Which of the following best describes how southern economies exploited the enslaved?

Plantation owners gained wealth by forcing enslaved people to work without wages, which reduced labor costs and increased profits from crops such as cotton and tobacco. Choice B, plantation owners maximized profits by using the enslaved for free labor, best describes this exploitation. Banks and insurance companies could profit from the slave economy, so A is not accurate, and indentured servants were not the group that profited as described in C.

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