Plan of the Investigation
How did the Black African indentured servants transition into slaves and how did this radical shift lay the ground work for slavery as the how the outlook on black Africans within the pioneer society change starting from 1661, is the central question this internal assessment will focus on. Historical backgrounds of indenture servants, first slavery laws of 1661, slave trade, Nathanial’s rebellion, and slave act of 1705, slave code are few of the main central points that will be mentioned within the internal assessment. The change from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) to racial slavery didn't happen overnight but rather happened through a series of events that led to the transformation. For the paper, the book, American Eras- the Colonial Era of 1600 to 1754 by author Jessica Kross and the website “Slavery and Indentured Servants:Law Library of Congress." Slavery and Indentured Servants:Law Library of Congress. Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013. .was used in order to further study the subjects and for gathering further knowledge for the topic. The paper will mainly focus on the transition and how the slavery laws of 1661 eventually led to the slavery act of 1705 and the reasons behind the plantation masters for the conversion of indenture servants to slaves.
Summary of Evidence
After the Virginia Company’s first settlements of Jamestown in 1607, indentured servants were the major source for manual labor. The sole idea of indentured servitude rooted from the need of consistent cheap labor on the tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations. Moreover, Farmers, planters and merchants in the American c...
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...f indenture servitude to slavery had begun, but it wouldn't be until the Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of African Americans would be sealed. In 1705, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law which transformed black indentured servants into slave the Virginia Slave Act of 1705 destined black men, women, and children to a lifetime of slavery, even if their service for indentured servitude was near ending. The colonies fearing the up rising of slaves led to the passing of a series of laws that limited slaves behaviors. The laws were known as slave codes. The slave code officially transformed the ones indenture servants to slaves. As racism became more widespread, more slave laws acts were being creating further limiting the African blacks. Society was at the height of White supremacy and black slaves were often abused or even killed by their white masters.
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 heavily on attitudes and how those positions worked to create the slave society established in this country.
During the 1600’s people began to look for different types of work in the new world. As cash crops, such as tobacco, indigo, and rice, were growing in the South, there became a need for labor. This got the attention of convicts, debtors, and other people looking for new opportunities and money. Indentured servitude was vastly growing during the 17th and 18th centuries. Approximatively 10 million men, women, and children were moved to the new world. Women during this time found themselves being sold to men for these cash crops. A commonly used term during this time for these women was tobacco brides. Almost 7.7 million of the slaves captured and moved to the new world were African Americans. Slaves and indentured servants had it rough for
Slavery was a main contributor in the South in the 1800s. African Americans were enslaved in large plantations growing cotton, instead of tobacco. Slavery was the same old story it was in the 1600s, barely anything had changed. Slavery was the dominating reality of southern life in the antebellum period due to economical, social, and political reasons.
As eighteenth century progressed, the british colonists treated bonded men and women with ever greater severity. They also corralled the Africans behavior and past from them every conceivable advantage of labor and creativity, often through unimaginable mental and physical cruelty. Slaveholding attracted the European colonists but...
Freemen who were once indentured servants created problems and disturbances within the colonies, but this was only because the bonds of indentured servitude were temporary -- plantation owners thought of slaves as never having the chance to rebel in the ways that freemen did during Bacon’s Rebellion, and as such their preference for labor shifted further towards slavery and not indentured
One struggle that indentured servants faced was adjusting to the unfamiliar physical conditions they met upon arriving in America. William Moraley, an indentured servant in Burlington, wrote a memoir about his many experiences throughout his servitude. One thing he remembered was the way civil leaders ignored his complaints against his master regarding the contract he signed in England. Moraley recalled, “The condition of bought servants is very hard, notwithstanding their indentures were made in England, wherein it is expressly stipulated, that they shall have, at thei...
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
In the seventeenth century, European indentured labourers and African slaves in the Caribbean play an extremely important part in the success of these new colonies. The colonies were expensive and difficult to maintain control of as the wars from the home continent of Europe continued into the Americas as colonization became widespread among these European powers. But in Jenny Shaw’s book Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean, other questions can be drawn. Focusing more on the lives of the labourers working in the colonies, the indentured servants and African slaves and the role they played in a small part of the vast British Empire. That in this period there
Early English settlers in the lower Chesapeake Bay region learned to cultivate tobacco from the Native Americans and it would prove to have profound influence in the development of Chesapeake society and the colonies of Virginia and Maryland as a whole. Between 1627 and 1669, annual tobacco exports climbed from 250,000 pounds to more than 15 million pounds. (p39. The American Journey). The Chesapeake region became the New World’s largest producer of tobacco. Since tobacco was a labour intensive crop to cultivate, the planters sought indentured servants from England as a source of cheap labour. However many servants died in alarming numbers from disease as a result from the supply of indentured servants declined, and larger planters who were wealthy managed to buy slaves. Slave population increased rapidly from 1,708 in 1660 to 189,000 in 1760. (Smith, Billy G., and Nash. Encyclopedia of American History).
In British colonial America, indentured servitude was borne from the Virginia Company out of a need for cheaper labor, and was gradually replaced by African slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries for the same reason. The growth of slavery in America was not a result of racism or intent, but of economic opportunism. Both were exploited for profit to the maximum of the free planters ability, which in the slave’s case, was much more, because there were little to no laws protecting them, and sometimes even laws targeted against them.
From 1750 until 1800 the colonial United States endured a period of enormous achievement along with a substantial amount of struggle. Before 1750, the new colony’s first struggle was between the colonists and England over who would have leadership within the New World. Once settled, the issues emerged from within the colonies themselves, particularly with the “belongings” they brought and imported. African American slaves were seen as property, and were not given any innate rights such as liberty or freedom when following their master to the New World. The revolution for the colonists from England began, with new freedoms received by the colonists; the slaves began to question their rights as humans. Innate rights such as liberty and freedom
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.
The film “Slavery by another name" is a one and a half hour documentary produced by Catherine Allan and directed by Sam Pollard, and it was first showcased by Sundance Film Festival in 2012. The film is based on Douglas Blackmonbook Slavery by Another Name, and the plot of the film revolves around the history and life of African Americans after Emancipation Proclamation; which was effected by President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, for the purpose of ending slavery of African Americans in the U.S. The film reveals very brutal stories of how slavery of African Americans persisted in through forced labor and cruelty; especially in the American south which continued until the beginning of World War II. The film brings to light one of my upbringing
Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict. Slavery has existed in the New World since the seventeenth century prior to it being exclusive to race. During those times there were few social and political concerns about slavery. Initially, slaves were considered indentured servants who will eventually be set free after paying their debt(s) to the owner. In some cases, the owners were African with white servants. However, over time the slavery became exclusive to Africans and was no limited to a specific timeframe, but life. In addition, the treatment of slaves worsens from the Atlantic Slave trade to th...
The term slave is defined as a person held in servitude as the chattel of another, or one that is completely passive to a dominating influence. The most well known cases of slavery occurred during the settling of the United States of America. From 1619 until July 1st 1928 slavery was allowed within our country. Slavery abolitionists attempted to end slavery, which at some point; they were successful at doing so. This paper will take the reader a lot of different directions, it will look at slavery in a legal aspect along the lines of the constitution and the thirteenth amendment, and it will also discuss how abolitionists tried to end slavery. This paper will also discuss how slaves were being taken away from their families and how their lives were affected after.