ORIGINS OF SLAVERY

1
ORIGINS OF SLAVERY

• As old as civilization itself
• Primarily involved prisoners of war in ancient
  times
• No particular bias towards race or ethnicity
• Arabs began African slave trade around 700 AD
• Obtained slaves (generally pows) from tribes
  south of Sahara Desert
• Small business
• Probably only involved about 1000-5000
  individuals per year

2
AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THE NEW WORLD

• Transatlantic trade in African slaves started by
  the Portuguese
• Provided slaves for Spanish and Portuguese
  plantations and mines in the New World
• Trade later taken over by the Dutch
• Brought first slaves to British colonies
• 20 African slaves brought to Jamestown in 1619

3
SLAVERY AND INDENTURED SERVITUDE

• Number of slaves in Virginia remained small until
  around 1670
• Reason
• Cheaper to use indentured servants
• Because of huge surplus of unemployed young
  people in England willing to do anything to get
  fresh start in the colonies

Indentured servant girl
4
SLAVERY TAKES OFF

• Population in England began to level off after
  1670
• Reduced number of young people desperate enough
  to become indentured servants
• Created labor shortage in Virginia
• Tobacco planters turned to slaves to make up the
  difference

5
BRITISH SLAVERS

• Growth of slavery also influenced by growing
  involvement of British merchants in slave trade
• Parliament passed law in 1660 prohibiting the
  American colonists from buying slaves from anyone
  but British merchants
• Growing labor shortage and growing British
  involvement in slave trade therefore sparked
  increase in the number and use of slaves in
  southern colonies after 1670

6
OTHER FACTORS

• Slavery only pays if slaves are kept working all
  year long
• Since they have to be fed, clothed, and housed
  all year
• Cannot be laid off in slow seasons
• Tobacco had long growing season and required
  intensive labor over most of the year
• Kept slaves working all year long and gave slave
  owners excellent return on their investment

7
THE CAROLINAS

• In 1663, Charles II granted eight friends a royal
  charter to colonize 600 miles of coastline
  between Virginia and Spanish Florida
• First settlement established in 1670
• Colony grew rapidly and eventually split into two
• North and South Carolina

8
CAROLINA ECONOMY

• Economy originally based on exporting meat, corn,
  and wood to sugar-producing Caribbean islands
• Slaves sometimes used to produce these products
  but free white labor remained dominant within
  agricultural labor force until 1680s

9
RICE

• Sugar market collapsed in 1680s, plunging
  Caribbean islands into a deep depression
• Bought much less of Carolina products
• Carolina colonists looked for new staple crop
• Found it in rice
• Perfectly suited for local climate and terrain
• Very strong market for it

10
RICE GROWING

• English colonists knew little about the
  complexities of rice-growing
• But West African slaves had much experience in
  growing it
• Their expertise made rice-growing a success in
  the Carolinas

11
RICE AND SLAVERY

• Rice-growing sparked tremendous increase in
  slavery
• Not a crop for a small farmer
• Most efficiently grown on large estates, worked
  by gangs of laborers toiling on their knees all
  day in six inches of water and mud
• White men would not do this type of work
• Black men would not do it eitherbut they could
  be forced to
• Slave labor thus rapidly replaced free white
  labor on rice plantations along coast
• Former white laborers moved further inland and
  set up subsistence farms

12
SLAVE LAWS IN THE CAROLINAS

• By 1710, slaves made up majority of population in
  Carolinas
• Especially in South Carolina were they accounted
  for 65 of population
• This numerical superiority frightened whites
• Caused them to enact series of savagely
  repressive slave laws
• Even made it illegal for slaves to read the Bible
• Designed to keep huge black population under
  white minority control

13
SLAVERY IN THE NORTH

• Slavery existed in northern colonies
• But it was not as deeply rooted or widespread as
  in the South
• Reason?
• Had nothing to do with humanitarianism
• Real reason was because it was not suited to
  agriculture in the north
• Slaves remained a luxury for the wealthy classes
  and because the wealthy only represented a small
  fraction of northern population, there were
  relatively few slaves

Slave servants with children of Puritan preacher
14
VIOLENCE AND SLAVERY

• White masters held awesome power over their
  slaves
• Including the power to whip them to death
• The right to inflict violence upon slaves made
  the entire system work
• The whip made the entire system go round

15
PASSIVE RESISTANCE

• Means for slaves to resist their masters were
  limited
• But they still resisted
• Puttin on ol Massa
• They goofed off when not watched
• Pretended to be stupid and broke tools and
  destroyed crops
• Stole food, clothing, and drink
• All forms of passive resistance
• Caused continual headache for masters but never
  occurred on large enough scale to seriously hurt
  planter profits

16
ACTIVE RESISTANCE RUNNING AWAY

• Newly arrived Africans most likely to run away
• But also usually easily caught
• American-born slaves were apt to be more
  successful
• Especially if they knew a trade and could make it
  to a town or city
• Planters formed vigilante patrols to hunt down
  runaways, required slaves to carry passes when
  off their home plantation, and offered rewards
  for their capture and return
• These measures kept runaway problem from reaching
  critical proportions
• But the practice remained

17
ACTIVE RESISTANCE REVOLT

• Ultimate fear of all white slave owners
• Odds against a successful revolt were high
• Mainly because slaves were always kept under
  close supervision
• But they still did occur

18
STONO, SOUTH CAROLINA (1739)

• 30 newly arrived slaves from Angola escaped,
  broke into a general store and armed themselves
• Then killed about 24 white planters and burnt
  their plantations
• Tried to escape to Florida
• Number had grown to over 100
• But caught by planter vigilantes and most were
  slaughtered
• Survivors tortured to death

19
CONCLUSION

• In the wake of Stono Rebellion, South Carolina
  enacted even more repressive slave laws
• But occasional small and isolated slave revolts
  continued to erupt all the way to the Civil War
• Although some planters would later claim that
  slaves were happy under their benevolent rule,
  these revolts and unceasing efforts by planters
  to enforce black subordination and white
  supremacy indicate that, in their hearts, they
  really knew better