Ap American History： Slavery

Tobacco was an appealing crop for planters, for it cost pennies to purchase and sold for much more. As a result, the slave trade expanded, and many companies sought to join the lucrative trade. This is shown by the Royal African Company losing its monopoly in 1698. By 1750, blacks comprised nearly half of the population in Virginia. To ensure the preservation of racial slavery, new slave codes deemed that the children of those enslaved would also be enslaved. Thus the concept of slavery for life was established. This furthered the claim of planters that the blacks they owned were in fact property or “chattels”, making the racial basis of slavery unquestionable. It is clear that America was no longer just a society with slaves— the institution of slavery was integrated with race, the economy, politics, as well as everyday life. In addition to tobacco plantations, cotton slavery was also expanding in the Deep South. As the soil became exhausted from growing tobacco in the Chesapeake area, many slave-owners found it more profitable to sell their slaves to southern plantations. Thus, though slavery remained in the Chesapeake area, the growing cotton industry moved its epicenter to the Deep South. The major forces that caused this shift will be included in the paragraph about the end of slavery. The soil was beginning to become overused because of the intensity of tobacco

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

FRQ #2: Analyze the origins and development of slavery in Britain’s North American colonies in the period 1607 to 1776.

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

The origins and development of slavery within Britain’s North American colonies in the period 1607 to 1776 was majorly in part by the English need for economic power. England had just arose as the strongest naval of the North Atlantic had they had to keep their high standing in the world. Bacon’s Rebellion, the profit received by cash crops, and the ability to easily purchase slaves through trade highly boosted Britain’s economy. The colonists within the British colony kept through economic standing and power by making themselves higher than any other through slavery.

Slavery has always been a part of human history. Therefore on cannot talk about when slavery began in North America. Soon after the American colonies were established in North America, slaves were brought in to meet the growing labor need on plantations. Although the importation of slaves continued to grow as new plantations were developed, it was the industrial revolution that would have the most profound impact on the slave industry. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the effect of slavery in the 13 colonies due to the industrial revolution.

      In the first few chapters, Kolchin introduces the different types of slavery that occured in America. He explains how the economy of America did not originally depend on the enslavement of Africans. The initial demand for slavery was not based on color. Many of the Native Americans were actually made slaves by early English colonists. However, the Native Americans proved to be ineffectual, and large numbers of indentured servants began immigrating from Europe. Africans were not introduced to America until 1619 and they were not under high demand until the late seventeenth century. From this point, the author discusses the growth and development of slavery.

The earliest form of slavery in North America can be traced back to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. There, they were called the “Twenty and Odd” and considered servants rather than slaves. Though little is known about this infamous event, this ‘trade’ continued of capturing Africans from Africa and bringing them to the colonies of Britain. The usage of slaves increased and were often used as field laborers on plantations, house workers, blacksmiths

[ 3 ]. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. New

Edmund S. Morgan’s famous novel American Slavery, American Freedom was published by Norton in 1975, and since then has been a compelling scholarship in which he portrays how the first stages of America began to develop and prosper. Within his researched narrative, Morgan displays the question of how society with the influence of the leaders of the American Revolution, could have grown so devoted to human freedom while at the same time conformed to a system of labor that fully revoked human dignity and liberty. Using colonial Virginia, Morgan endeavors how American perceptions of independence gave way to the upswing of slavery. At such a time of underdevelopment and exiguity, cultivation and production of commodities were at a high demand. Resources were of monumental importance not just in Virginia, but all over North America, for they helped immensely in maintaining and enriching individuals and families lives. In different ways, people in colonies like Virginia’s took advantage of these commodities to ultimately establish or reestablish their societies.

           Chesapeake and the other Southern colonies were agrarian societies. The main crop in Chesapeake and North Virginia was tobacco, while in the Deep South, mainly in Georgia and South Carolina, the main crops were rice and cotton. The expansion of these crops led to an increased demand of a large force labor. At the first they hired indentured servants. These were young people who paid for their passage to the American Colonies by working for an employer from five to seven years. Unlike slaves, Indentured servants could look forward to receiving payment known as "freedom dues" upon their release (Foner 2005). These freedom dues included things like new clothes and perhaps a bit of land. However, many died before the end of the.ir terms, and freedom dues were so meager that did not enable recipients to acquire land (Ibid.). Despite the hard conditions of work, a high death rate and

In the years from 1600 to 1783 the thirteen colonies in North America were introduced to slavery and underwent the American Revolutionary War. Colonization of the New World by Europeans during the seventeenth century resulted in a great expansion of slavery, which later became the most common form of labor in the colonies. According to Peter Kolchin, modern Western slavery was a product of European expansion and was predominantly a system of labor. Even with the introduction of slavery to the New World, life still wasn’t as smooth as we may presume. Although the early American colonists found it perfectly fine to enslave an entire race of people, they

In American history, every event and person plays a part in the future. For example, rich plantation owners helped America advance their economy. However, that would not have been at all possible without the help of their slaves. The time and institution of slavery is a time of historical remembrance. It played a primary role during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The treatment, labor conditions, and personal stories of these slaves’ treatment and labor conditions are all widely discussed around the world to this day.

During the development of the colonies and the nation as a whole, slaves were utilized in order to produce the crops and perform laborious tasks that were “below” white people. In the 1660s, there was an increased demand for tobacco products as well as indigo and rice in England (“African American Slavery in the Colonial Era, 1619-1775”). In order to fulfill the demand, there was a spike in interest in purchasing slaves. More and more slaves were needed to produce larger amounts of crops for the plantation owners.

Slavery as we know today, is still considered one of the most talked about subjects in history. The historical backdrop of bondage in early America incorporates the absolute most disturbing stories from our past. Slavery began when African Slaves initially arrived in the North American settlement of Jamestown in 1619. These slaves helped with the creation of profoundly lucrative products such as tobacco. In this manner, it was absolutely a rural undertaking that would later provoke the presence of one of the chronicled treacheries done particularly to the African migrants. The issue took course during the sixteenth and eighteenth century American