Spanish American Slavery

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 political issue of slavery in the United States intensified with the Mexican-American War. The United States gained a large area of territory with their victory over Mexico in 1848. Arguments over free versus slave states in the United States had already been around. The Southern states believed the Northern states wanted to eliminate slavery from the United States, while the free Northern states believed that the slave Southern states wanted slavery to spread throughout the continent. The new states brought up the issue of free versus slave, which created even more conflict in the United States. In 1845, Texas became a slave state. California became a state under the Great Compromise of 1850. The North gained California, making it a free

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)

As opposed to the south, slaves were treated more like servants and weren’t stripped entirely of their rights. Becoming free was much more likely in the north. “Early in the 17th century, black slave status in the British Americas was not quite absolute bondage. It was a nebulous condition similar to that of indentured servants. Some Africans brought to America were regarded as "servants" eligible for freedom a certain number of years.

What is slavery? Slavery is forced labor and this forced labor is what built America and made them become more developed. “Africans peoples were captured and transported to the Americas to work. Most European colonial economies in the Americas from the 16th century through the 19th were dependant on enslaved African labor for their survival.” Many claim that enslavement was very necessary in order for America to thrive and not die off for it is now one of the best countries in the world. However, slavery was not necessary in the Americas it was just a mechanism that just stripped Africans of their human rights, giving the slave masters the “right” to abuse them. Slavery was not necessary in the Americas because without slavery America would

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.

After the Thirty Years War, Europe’s economy was depressed leaving many laborers without work. A life in the “New World,” gave European Immigrants a new sense of hope. Indentured Servants were people who sold their labor voluntarily in exchange for free passage to the “New World,” and given housing upon their arrival. They were willing to enter an agreement to work for a specified amount of time, nor were considered the property of the contract holder. Alike in certain aspects, however, divergent in many areas of Indentured Servants, in the early 1600’s Slavery began in America when the first African Slaves brought to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Virginia was one of the first states to acknowledge slavery in its laws, to aid the production of lucrative tobacco crops. In 1670. The law that defined which people could be enslaved declared, “all servants not being Christians imported into this colony by shipping shall be slaves for their lives.” (Norton, Mary Beth. (2015). Initially, slaves were treated as Indentured Servants and given much freedom until eventually slave laws were passed. When the slave laws were passed this had seized any freedoms that might have existed for African Americans. The colonies began to reflect contradictions between Indentured Servants and Slaves. “More important, the laws began to differentiate between races: the association of “servitude for natural life” with people of African descent became common.” (Law

The Spanish started slavery in Florida as a way to get free labor to work in the likes of construction and agriculture. To add to this, later on the Spanish also encouraged slaves to run away from the British by offering them freedom once they came to Florida, which at the time was not a part of the British colonies. “The Spanish encouraged African slaves to flee the British colonies by offering them freedom in Florida in return for their conversion to Roman Catholicism,” (State Library and Archives of Florida, n.d.). So, not only did the slaves have to get free and make their way to Florida, but they also had to convert religions. The Spanish gathered many slaves during their time, and all those who lived in Florida before it became a territory did as well, this slavery did not stop when Florida joined us.

Similar to the Spanish colonies encomienda system, the New England colonies had indentured servitude. During the early settlements colonists were mostly friendly with the natives. Soon, in the colonies of Virginia and Maryland, chattel slavery and indentured servitude amongst the natives were vast. The English believed the natives were property and compared to animals. In indentured servitude the natives were granted freedom by the English in return for their work, just how to the Spanish granted protection for their labor.

Slaves existed in the England's North American colonies throughout the 1600s. However, indentured servitude was very common before the 1680s. “For half a century or so after 1620, most laborers were indentured servants; only a small proportion were African slaves” (Clark, Hewitt, Brown& Jaffee, 2007 p64). Indentured servants were people who signed an indenture, a contract by which they agreed to work for a serval number of years in exchange for transportation to colonies; in addition, they would get food, clothing, land, and freedom.

In 1619, the first African Americans arrived in the colonies. Only a handful of survivors had outlasted a gruesome sea voyage. They had all been taken during a raid of a Spanish ship that was sailing for the Spanish West Indies. During the next few years, many African Americans were uprooted from their homelands and forced into slavery. They were unwillingly taken from their families and tribes, forced onto slave ships, and forced to endure cruel treatment at the hands of their captors. Many of the African American women were sexually assaulted during their time on the ship, and in many cases, it would not stop when they reached port. Upon their arrival in the colonies, the slaves that survived would be auctioned off or used for

Slavery was one of the darkest periods in African American history. Africans were taken from their homes in West Africa and brought to America to work on plantations. However, slavery was not something new, as it existed in Africa before Europeans partook in it, but slavery in Africa was very different from slavery in America. During their voyage through the Middle Passage many slaves perished. Those who survived were sold and subjected to the harsh life on the plantations. When this happened, their authentic cultures were drastically changed from the way of life in their native homelands in Africa to life in the plantation society of the American colonies.

     Between the 15 century to the 18 century slavery was very much and economic institution. The Cost factor in those times was very expensive to buy slaves from Africa. This played an important role on the upkeep and how those slaves were treated. There were free blacks who owned slaves of their own. The slaves that were bought were already slaves from the African kingdom. The slaves in the Americas had no rights over themselves and their children had no social status. Slaves who worked on the Hacienda large farms had to produced surplus for regional market places. They overseen by the Haciendado a person who ran the farm. Slavery was not partial to only Africans and Indians but at a later time Asian and Europeans too. The Indians laboring cleaning the silver oar lives were at stake from being poisoned from the mercury used to clean the silver oar.

During the 1600s, African Americans emigrating to the United States of America was voluntary and rare, but by the 1660s many African Americans were imported to the United States as slaves, and they were purchased through the international slaves trade. By the 18th century, many slave codes were passed to take away human rights from the slaves, and mark them off as properties. The author of this article Gary B. Nash argues that African Americans were enslaved because of their skin color and the high demand of labor needs in America to expedite the production of cash crops and sugar production in the West Indies. The African Americans were portrayed as barbarians to the White colonists. Slavery was very limited in the Northern part of the United

How did American slavery compare and contrast with slavery in Latin America? Was slavery in these two places mainly similar? Were there differences worth noting? Were demographics a large part of the differences? Which place was the most oppressive? Which was more benign in slave conditions? Although, I feel slavery, in any form, is reprehensible, I would like to discuss major differences between these two places pertaining to the work performed, the treatment of slaves, and the rights afforded to each.