Africans in British North America

1
Africans in British North America

• The Colonial Period

2
North America before Colonization

• American Indians
• Eastern Woodland Indians

3
British Claim to North America

• Voyage of John Cabot in 1497
• British victory over the Spanish Armada, 1588
• Establishment of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607
• Expectations gold, rice, sugar, silk
• Reality cultivation of tobacco

4
Africans in North America

• Africans already in Central America since the
  14th century
• 1492 Africans on Columbus ship
• 1526 Luis Vasquez brought 100 African slaves
  from Hispaniola to area of present-day South
  Carolina
• 1536 Africans accompanied Hernado de Soto on
  Mississippi River expedition
• 1565 Africans helped construct settlement of St.
  Augustine, Florida

5
Africans in Virginia

• 1619 documented arrival in Virginia
• A Dutch warship brought 20 Africans (17 men, 3
  women) to Virginia.
• They were all from Angola
• 1625 census 23 Blacks, 1275 whites
• 1649 census 300 Blacks, 18,200 whites

6
Africans in Virginia (contd.)

• These early Africans were not slaves, but they
  were not free either
• They were indentured servants
• Like white indentured servants, these Blacks had
  contracts they also gained freedom and
  established their own tobacco farms
• Example Anthony Johnson

7
Change to Slavery

• Laws passed by VA colonial legislature
• 1661 Africans became bondservants for life
• 1662 that a child inherits the status of the
  mother
• 1667 that slaves could be baptized as Christians
• These steps formalized the process that began
  earlier e.g., the case of John Punch in 1640
• Other colonies followed this VA example

8
Why the change to slavery?

• Economic
• High demand for labor on tobacco plantation
• Increasingly high volume of British slave trade
• Demographic
• White indentured servants were hard to obtain
• Racial
• Englishmens attitude toward outsiders e.g.,
  Irish
• Englishmens attitude toward Blacks, e.g., quote
  at beginning of chapter 3

9
Slavery in Maryland

• 1634 Africans began arriving in Maryland soon
  after establishment of the colony
• 1663 Marylands statutes gave official
  recognition to slavery
• By 1750, MD had 40,000 slaves and 100,000 whites

10
The Carolinas

• Slavery was introduced early because the colonys
  proprietors also owned or invested in the Royal
  Africa Company that dominated British slave trade
• 1663 official recognition of slavery with added
  incentive
• 20 acres for each male slave
• 10 acres for each female slave
• By 1715, Blacks had outnumbered whites

11
Georgia

• 1733 prohibition of slavery at founding
• 1750 GA allowed slavery after petitions by
  colonists
• 1773 census 15,000 Blacks 18,000 Whites

12
The Middle Colonies NY, NJ, PA

• Fewer Africans
• Slaves involved in commercial rather than
  agricultural work
• Slavery conflicted with ideology of religious
  freedom in PA
• Quakers were among the earliest to begin a
  campaign to stop slavery

13
New England MA, CT, RI

• Fewer Africans
• MA colonists were slave traders and competed with
  Royal Africa Company
• Boston was main port of slave trade

14
Slavery in Colonial America

• Housing flimsy, log cabins with dirt floors,
  thatched roof
• Clothing minimal, African-style headwraps,
  hats, hairstyles
• Food corn, yams, salt pork and occasionally
  salt beef and salt fish which slaves
  supplemented with vegetables from their own
  gardens

15
Creolization

• Cultural and physical interaction among all races
  in early colonial America
• Sexual relationships across racial lines are
  called miscegenation
• Miscegenation occurred more frequently in Latin
  America and the Caribbean than in British North
  America

16
Creolization (contd.)

• Mulattoesof mixed African and European parentage
• Mulatto slaves enjoyed some advantages over
  slaves who were purely of African ancestry