Slavery In Colonial America

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

Other Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans were the groups thought to be most suitable for the economic demand of labor. Many of the early views of West Africans were received through the bible until written accounts of encounters with these people were made. These written accounts of the encounters of West Africans led to the idea West Africans could be brought over and sold in the Americas to work in chattel slavery. This in turn made them the ultimate choice for the labor force of the English. However the famous sale of twenty Africans to the colonists at Jamestown in 1619 by Dutch slave traders did not equate to the introduction of chattel slavery just yet. Many early African slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants brought in from England. They could work the land for a set number of years then after their term was up be freed and given a piece of land. Indentured servitude was not hereditary but their contract could be sold, bartered, given away or gambled away. These contracts gave away the servant’s labor but it did not give away the servant’s person. Despite this African presence, slavery was slow to arrive in Virginia because the mortality rate for indentured servants was so high during the first decades of the Virginia colony. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until economic considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

The origins and development of slavery in Britain’s North American colonies during the colonial period can be traced down to the fact that North American colonies were created for the economic profit of Great Britain. Reasons for the development of slavery in the North American colonies can be the switch to slavery from indentured servitude due to the desire of free labor and the results of Bacon’s rebellion, the introduction of cash crops such as sugar and tobacco and the introduction of the plantation system, and the easy access of slaves due to the triangular trade and the middle passage.

The slave trade in the North American colonies began to grow in the 1600s. The African slave trade sourced their slaves from many different West African villages and countries. The business of slavery was a growing and profitable field, not only for the slavers, but also for the slaveholders. With the decrease of indentured servants, settlers in the English colonies looked for a new source of labor to satisfy their growing labor demands. The next source was Africa. “By the 1690s slaves outnumbered indentured servants four to one” (45). Europeans largely disregarded the ethical dilemma posed by slavery due to the European view of Africans and their culture as uncivilized, foreign, and heathen (44). The largest forced migration in history (44)

The earliest signs of human bondage can be found in Ancient Rome where slaves were used for a large array of professions. Likewise, the slavery found in colonial North America had slaves included in every facet of the region’s economy. Colonial North America quickly grew dependent on African race-based slavery as the backbone to its economy. The first African Americans arrived to the New World near the coast of Jamestown in 1619 in the Chesapeake region (Clark-Pujara, 9/19). It was the first region to establish a society with slaves. One could say that African race-based slavery in the Chesapeake region developed because of the region’s economic dependence on tobacco production, scarcity of white indentured servants, increasing longevity for African Americans in the New World, and colonists establishing slave laws and codes.

In the 1680’s most Africans were working on plantations. As Mintz explains how black slavery become the dominant labor, “ 1680’s that Black slavery became the dominant labor system on plantations ” (2, Mintz). The colonists wanted the africans because they would work the best on plantations. This quote demonstrates the colonists gained power because more slaves were sold and The colonists gained more profit. In the Colonial America the slaves were being carried to the New World. As Olaudah Equiano illustrates how the slaves were brought to the new world, “ These filled me with astonishment which was soon converted into terror ” (1, Equiano). He was scared and like he never experienced slavery in his life. This quote demonstrates that the colonists gained power because the slaves were afraid of them and if they were afraid of them they wouldn’t

In 1619 the first slaves were brought to Jamestown Virginia to help with the production of crops, such as tobacco and cotton. A Dutch ship brought twenty slaves over to be sold in Jamestown Virginia. These men were brought over as indentured servants, who were to be released after a certain time of working had been done. Unfortunately, not every slave was given this opportunity in the years to come. This was just the beginning of the nightmare that the African people would endure for many generations. (Doyle)

In 1612 John Rolfe a Jamestown planter began to experiment with tobacco that the local Indians had been growing for years (Brinkley 37). He produced high quality tobacco crops and sold them to buyers in England. The problem with farming tobacco was that it required a lot of land and the tobacco would exhaust the soil after only a few years so these farmers would need more land and there wasn’t enough land for them. These farmers originally used white indentured servants on their farms to grow tobacco until 1619 when the Dutch brought over the first 20 African Americans (Brinkley 38). The future of these first African Americans in the English colonies remained unknown. It is thought that the colonist didn’t consider them slaves and thought they were the same as the European indentured servants who were being used. They would be held for a number of years and then freed like the European indentured servants that were currently being used. For the time however planters continued to prefer the use of European indentured servants and the use of black labor

The organization of slavery turned into significant to the economy and politics of the us from the colonial era to the Civil war, and its death became related to almost each extensive development of the country’s records. That loss of life got here in broad waves of reform—one gradual, largely peaceful, in regions with fantastically few slaves; the alternative climaxing in a violent conflict of sections ensuing in the liberation of 4 million slaves. A confluence of changing ideological currents, resistance by way of both slaves and their loose allies (black and white), and political trends that were, in the beginning, not without delay associated with slavery, brought approximately its end. (Its demise turned into additionally a part of broader,

The growth of tobacco, rice, & and other crops and the plantation economy gave rise to the high demand of labor in the English southern colonies. In the early years of the southern colonies, it was mostly indentured servants who would work for their aristocratic landowning masters in accordance to the Headright System. As this system benefited the masters some may also say it benefited the laborers. Each indentured servant would have their fare across the Atlantic paid in full by their masters if they willing to work a certain amount of years. They would also be supplied room & board while working in the masters’ fields. And if completion of contract is successful, laborers would receive a bonus. However, as good it seemed, the reality showed otherwise. Only forty percent of indentured servants lived to complete the terms of the contract. And female servants were recorded to have been subjects of harassment by their masters. Furthermore, the high demand of labor due to the plantation system influenced the general favor of forced labor

Slavery is defined as the state of a person who is a chattel of another1. When must people hear this term they think about African Americans struggle in early American history. They conjure up visions of the American Civil War and the iconic image of the great emancipator himself, President Abraham Lincoln. The truth to be told though, slavery in United States history predates those events and figures. It actually started before the United States was even founded. Slavery in the United States actually was rooted in Colonial North America. As different nations raced to settle North America they used the cheapest labor to progress their cause economically. But, the

The colonists did not choose Africans for slavery simply because they were unease by their alien skin tone or because they belittle the people’s lack of civilized background. In fact, the first Africans to arrive from abroad in 1619 were treated the same as the white indentured servants, who could earn their freedom, even a few acres of land, within agreed years of labor. Since cash crops are the fastest and most stable way to wealth, the demand for

Columbus discovered a whole new world in 1492 that was plentiful in resources and land. There was nobody there but natives that were perceived as unintelligent people that were easy to manipulate. Europeans though needed a strong will type of people that had specials skills and were use to the climate to build their colonies and farm their cash crops . That's when slave trade from Africa began. The enslaving of african americans in the atlantic world gave europeans the essential laborers for farming in the New world.

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.

In the early seventeenth century, European settlers in North America turned to African slaves as a more plentiful and cheaper labor source than indentured servants. According to History.com, the article “Slavery in America” states that, “After 1619, when a Dutch ship brought 20 Africans ashore at the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia, slavery spread throughout the American colonies. Though it is impossible to give accurate figures, some historians have estimated that 6 to 7 million slaves were imported to the New World during the 18th century alone, depriving the African continent of some of its healthiest and ablest men and women. In the 17th and 18th centuries, black slaves worked mainly on the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern coast. After the American Revolution(1775-1783), many colonists (particularly in the North, where slavery was relatively unimportant to the economy) began to link the oppression of black slaves to their own oppression by the British, and to call for slavery’s abolition.”