Slavery in American Society: Impact and Evolution

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Slavery in American Society: Impact and evolution Slavery in American Society 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. Some of the earliest records of slavery date back to 1760 BC; Within such societies, slavery worked in a system of social stratification (Slavery in the United States, 2011), meaning inequality among different groups of people in a population (Sajjadi, 2008). After the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 as the first permanent English Chesapeake colony in the New World that was agriculturally-based; Tobacco became the colonies chief crop, requiring time consuming and intensive labor (Slavery in colonial America, 2011). Due to the headlight system established in Maryland in 1640, tobacco farmers looked for laborers primarily in England, as each farmer could obtain workers as well as land from importing English laborers. The farmers could then use such profits to purchase the passage of more laborers, thus gaining more land. Indentured servants, mostly male laborers and a few women immigrated to Colonial America and contracted to work from four to seven years in exchange for their passage (Norton, 41). Once services ended after the allotted amount of time, th... ... middle of paper ... ...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Colonial_America> “Indentured Servant.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 11 April 2011. Web. 14 April. 2011. Boddy-Evans, Alistair. "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade." review of the triangular trade with reference to maps and statistics n. pag. Web. 14 Apr 2011. . Becker, Eddie. "Chronology on the History of Slavery." http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html. N.p., 1999. Web. 14 Apr 2011. “American Civil War.“Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 April 2011. Web. 14 April. 2011. Norton, Beth, et al. A People and a Nation. 8th. 1. Mason, OH: 2009. 41-42, 65-67,161,173. Print.

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