Tracing the Development of Slavery in the English Colonies of North America

Tracing the Development of Slavery in the English Colonies of North America

European nations had not embarked on colonization in North America with the intention of relying on Africans for slave labor. However, as Indian labor proved to be unworkable due to population decrease, the opportunities to exploit the potential riches of American made slavery attractive. In the Chesapeake, tobacco cultivation created an insatiable demand for labor. The proprietors of South Carolina also found that African slaves provided an advantage in growing cash crops.

New World Slavery differed from the Old World slavery in significant ways.

· In the Mediterranean and Africa, slavery was usually limited to captives from wars.

· Slaves had to be heathens, not members of the religious group of the slave-owners.

· Slaves were members of the household and did have certain rights.

· Slavery did not extend to the offspring of the slaves.

Slaves offered few advantages over indentured servants used to grow tobacco in the early 1600s.

· English indentured servants were plentiful.

· African slaves were expensive and rarely available in the N. American colonies.

· Dutch and Portuguese slavers carried slaves directly from Africa to the West Indies and Brazil

· The English associated slavery with backward Mediterranean societies.

· The English were ethnocentric and preferred other Englishmen as servants and labor.

By 1675 the advantages of slaves began to outweight the advantages of indentured servants.

· English birthrates dropped from 1640-1660 due to a recurrence of the plague.

· A 1660 fire in London and subsequent rebuilding created opportunities to work at home.

· The greater life expectancy made lifetime servitude a better investment.

· After 1664, the British took control of the slave trade from the Dutch.

· By the 1670s, the Royal African Company began to make direct shipments to the Chesapeake.

· Small scale slavers from N. E. ignored the monopoly and sailed up the rivers of the Chesapeake

· The Royal African Company lost its monopoly in 1698.

· Bacon’s Rebellion led planters to reject importing more potentially rebellious whites after 1675.

The legal foundation for slavery in the British colonies developed slowly.

· The Barbados Slave Codes of the 1660s arrived with the proprietors of the Restoration period.

· The first colonial laws differentiating slaves from servants only appeared in the 1660s.

· By 1662, the status of children born of slave and free would follow that of the mother.

· By 1667, conversion to Christianity would not make one free.

By 1705, Virginia combined all these laws into a comprehensive slave code.

Eventually, but not originally, slavery and race became synonymous.

· Racial difference made it more difficult for escapees to blend into society.

· One drop of black blood made one black in British North America only.

· By 1667, the offspring of a biracial union would automatically become illegitimate.

The combination of capitalism and slavery made for a particularly immoral system

· Slaves were property, not human. They could be bought, sold, left to heirs.

· By 1669, the accidental death of a slave from punishment was no longer considered a felony since no man would intentionally destroy his own property

By 1700, the Chesapeake and the Lower South were slave societies, their economy depended on slavery, rather than societies with slaves.