The Transition from the Colonial Era to the Revolutionary War

There has been many historians and theorists who have tackled colonial slavery. One of them is Ira Berlin whose book Many Thousands Gone is his take on slavery diversity in American history and how slavery is at the epicenter of economic production, amongst other things. He separates the book into three generations: charter, plantation and revolutionary, across four geographic areas: Chesapeake, New England, the Lower country and the lower Mississippi valley. In this paper, I will discuss the differences between the charter and plantation generations, the changes in work and living conditions, resistance, free blacks and changes in manumission.

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.

In the essay "The Evolution of Slavery in Colonial America," author Jon Butler examines the growth of the slave practice in the land which would become the United States. As the European nations began exploring North America, they overtook the native populations of the areas and turned them into unpaid laborers. However, these people were not enough to supply landholders with sufficient aid. To make up the necessary numbers, plantation owners utilized indentured servants and then a number of slaves imported from Africa. Indentured servants were people who would be taken from the Old World to the New in order to start a new life. However, since they would not have the necessary funds to pay for their transportation, their journey would be funded by either a manufacturer or a plantation owner and their debt would be paid off by working for their benefactor. Slaves were not given this opportunity. These were people who were taken from their homes and families and forced into labor by threat of violence or death. This practice did not begin in the United States, but America was still allowing slavery well into the 19th century, long after other nations had come to the conclusion that slavery was inhumane and brutal.

From the period of 1754 to 1763, the British engaged in a war with the French within American territory. This war, fought due to both French and Native American hostilities, affected both the Americans view on the British and British treatment of their colonies. Ultimately, the French and Indian war lead to political, economic, and geographical changes for the American colonists and Great Britain.

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 British did not use what little “fans” they did have to fight in the revolutionary war. The colonists immediately assumed that the war would be over quick with no problems they thought that the colonist would be no problem. What they did is they decided that they should capture Boston, it was a vital port for the colonists it would weaken the colonists, but after the battle of bunker hill they figured out that this strategy was no good. After the British lost the battle of Saratoga the colonist, who had no navy and untrained troops, started receiving help from foreign countries. It made them look more powerful and feared in the eyes of the British.

Indentured services went on for a very long time at various periods. It was most prominent in the West Indies, Chesapeake, South Carolina. The change from indentured servants to slave labor took place gradually. There are different reasons for the shift from indentured servitude to slave labor. There are various reasons for the shift like changing patterns of immigration, law against bound servitude, and the rise of wage labor, increase in demand of cash crops. The change for servitude to slave took place from three different time periods.

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

The American Revolution is known as the war fought between American and Great Britain, for Americans freedom. The American Revolution is also commonly known as the American Revolutionary War, or the U.S War of Independence. The War itself only last a short eight years, it began in 1775 and ended in 1783, but tensions had been building up for centuries between the Great Britain and the colonies at the given time period.

Situations became more intense for those slaves who actually reached the plantations over in the Americas. Many of the plantation owners had returned home to Europe, leaving their holdings (slaves and land) in America to be managed by overseers who were often unstable. Often times slave families were split up and they were not allowed to learn to read or write. African men, women, and children were forced to work with little to eat or drink. From today’s perspective this seemed very inhuman to treat another human being in such a manner. However, in between the 16th and 19th centuries the harsh treatment of slaves was accepted on the basis they were not considered ordinary human beings; they were if anything a sub race a less superior one. Slave labor provided some of the most sought after items in Atlantic and European trading exchange such as sugar, coffee, and cotton of the Caribbean; tobacco and rice of North America and lastly gold and sugar of Portuguese and Spanish South America. These commodities represented about a third of the value of European trade at the time.

The autobiographies of Olaudah Equiano, a British slave, and Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, American slaves, highlight the transition from the institution of British slavery pre-American Revolution to the 18th and 19th century American plantation slavery. The explicit differences between the two systems suggest unique factors that either promoted or hindered each institution. In Britain, slavery was generally driven by economic factors that relied on trained labor. Growth and expansion of slavery in the United States, however, was deeply rooted in consistent oppression and exploitation of slaves through physical and psychological abuses, which in turn gave slave owners unchecked power that ensured the perpetuation of plantation slavery.

The revolutionary era is generally defined by particular events and results being ignited from discontent that involved governed individuals from the states. Amongst all these outcomes, the founding fathers intended the greater good for the future and conformed to change in the political, social and economic order of society. The old form of government that the states were used to being governed was overthrown and the new birth of democracy was formed. Nevertheless, no true variance was made clear in the fiscal trend of development, and the tiers of society remained all but untouched following the Revolution. The Federalist party, spearheaded by none other than James Madison, were as a whole in favor of a first ever developed draft of the

The British began plodding up a hill with their soldiers in two by two columns, when suddenly the patriots appear with their bloody guerilla war tactics. Unbeknownst to the British this war isn’t going to be just another piece of land conquered. This war isn’t going to be easy.

Colonies in the United States were being settled by 1,000’s of colonists in the late 1500’s early 1600’s. Colonists found very quickly that it would not be easy to settle new land thousands of miles away from there home countries. As the colonists became settled it was clear that more workers were needed; so slaves, and indentured servants were brought to do the work. Although, slaves and indentured servants were used for similar purposes there were many differences in how the work was performed, the relationship with their masters, and the culture.

The way which indentured servants came to the colonies was through selling themselves to the colonies. Through this, they could afford to leave England and start new lives with freedom. Once they reached the colonies, the servants were basically used as slaves and the property of their master. Instead of being a slave forever, indentured servants