African Slavery : Reasons For Rationale

This book is helpful interpretively as it helps the reader understand the relatively recent departure from an interpretation that slavery was an unprofitable and necessary evil in which African-Americans were usually treated well and benefited from their relationships with whites. Such traditions and interpretations have educated many visitors.

Throughout the book, The Origins of Slavery, the author, Betty Woods, depicts how religion and race along with social, economic, and political factors were the key factors in determining the exact timing that the colonist’s labor bases of indentured Europeans would change to involuntary West African servitude. These religion and racial differences along with the economic demand for more labor played the key roles in the formation of slavery in the English colonies. When the Europeans first arrived to the Americas in the late sixteenth century, at the colony of Roanoke, the thought of chattel slavery had neither a clear law nor economic practice with the English. However by the end of that following century, the demand for slaves in the

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of African slavery in America in the antebellum by late eighteenth century and before the antebellum crisis as discussed in Paul Finkelman’s book: Defending Slavery.

As Burnard and Morgan (2001) point out, the value of a slave who was already acculturated was considerably greater than one who was a ‘new Negro’. There were a number of methods by which this was accomplished.

The idea of race suggests that observed differences in cultural and social status are the product of biologically based differences among major ethnic groups. Out of that distinction the idea of racial superiority was evolved. In the majority of the population’s eyes at that time, the African race was inferior. They were seen as primitive and un-evolved. This was also another justification for the white populations, to both the governments, to uphold slavery as it was seen as a part of nature, and it also justified the idea to themselves. It was an excuse and a rationalisation for their actions, and an explanation to their own morals and Christian values.

“American Slavery, 1619-1877” by Peter Kolchin gives an overview of the practice of slavery in America between 1619 and 1877. From the origins of slavery in the colonial period to the road to its abolition, the book explores the characteristics of slave culture as well as the racial mind-sets and development of the old South’s social structures.

The cause for this shift in social policy cannot be accurately traced through the events of the 17th century, but several clues to this alteration in slave treatment can be found. It is often presumed that racism led to the inevitable slavery acts in the 18th century, but this rationale is rather unfounded based on the idea that many African-Americans were in fact free and maintained their own farms in Virginia. The cause of slavery is much more subtle than a prejudice view of racial differences.

Freedom is a gift that came with America and was given to its citizens. However, that’s not always how it used to be especially in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 17th century there were over 30,000 enslaved African Americans in North America . Many indentured servants were brought to the New World to help with growing crops and other duties. However, they were never a good fit for the new and wild America they had come to. In this essay I will be addressing the comparisons and contrasts of African American slaves and indentured servants in America.

Ira Berlin, in his book Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, traces the conditions of African-Americans in North America from their arrival in American colonial life, titled the charter generation, to the plantation generation and even up to the revolutionary generation. Berlin presents an argument in front of his reader that race, specifically in the North American colonies during these times, transitions between what he refers to as societies with slaves to slave societies. This argument can be seen as valid because Berlin does a good job of presenting his case through historical examples while detailing how the institution of race changed over time.

Race is a manmade social construction, first used to justify slavery in the early Colonial period. The articles discussed in this paper examines different elements of race and of slavery. The articles present two completely different opinions on the treatment and ideals associated with race and slavery before the civil war. While the articles are on completely different sides of spectrum associated with slavery, they are both discussing race.

“Earlier in the century, the legal difference between a slave and a servant was unclear. But now the law began to make sharp distinctions between the two—largely on the basis of race...” This quote clearly shows a shift in the legal definition of a slave to specifically the black race, making the black race synonymous with slavery and inferiority. Although unintentional on part of the upper class, these laws enculturated racism into colonial life, creating a class rift between whites and blacks. However, the incorporation of prejudice and racism developed only after the slave trade was established.

The Europe of the 17th and 18th centuries craved the sugar from the West Indies more and more as time went on. To keep up with these demands of the sugar economy sugar planters would bring seemingly endless supplies of enslaved Africans from across the Atlantic. With an increasingly high income it didn't matter that others were suffering under an oppressive system, or did it? In this paper I will prove that slavery grew increasingly race based from the 1660’s onward, slave laws were created and practiced more commonly, and standards for sexual race based relations had changed more dramatically. All of these things lead to the oppression of black slaves and lead to the establishment of a soley race based slavery system.

Winthrop D. Jordan author of White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812, expresses two main arguments in explaining why Slavery became an institution. He also focuses attention on the initial discovery of Africans by English. How theories on why Africans had darker complexions and on the peculiarly savage behavior they exhibited. Through out the first two chapters Jordan supports his opinions, with both facts and assumptions. Jordan goes to great length in explaining how the English and early colonialist over centuries stripped the humanity from a people in order to enslave them and justify their actions in doing so. His focus is

Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America, by Sterling is a ground-breaking study which brings up the problem of race in America during the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book exposes the untold story of how Africans formed a common culture on plantations in the South despite the difference in appearances, traditions, and language. Throughout this book, Stuckey suggests that black culture in the United States is essentially Africa. To support this argument Stuckey not only examined the thought of major theorists such as David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, W.E.B. DuBois, and Paul Robes, but he also drew evidence from art history, west Africans traditions, the folklore of the American slave, and anthropology.

The controversies surrounding slavery have been established in many societies worldwide for centuries. In past generations, although slavery did exists and was tolerated, it was certainly very questionable,” ethically“. Today, the morality of such an act would not only be unimaginable, but would also be morally wrong. As things change over the course of history we seek to not only explain why things happen, but as well to understand why they do. For this reason, we will look further into how slavery has evolved throughout History in American society, as well as the impacts that it has had.