Slavery in Colonial North America

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Slavery in Colonial North America
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History of European Slavery

• Practiced by Greek Democracies
• Accounted for a large portion of Roman wealth
• Middle Ages house slaves common in Mediterranean
  region
• 15th century pope forbids enslaving Christians
• Portuguese sought access to African slave trade
• Used on sugar plantations on Mediterranean
  Islands

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African Societies

• Kinship bonds
• Polygyny
• Lower birth rates
• Women - higher social status than Europe
• Shifting cultivation
• Trading centers - Timbuktu
• Slavery was practiced but differed from European

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Slave Trade

• All Western Europe nations
• Costal outposts
• Inland raids by rival tribes
• English - John Hawkins, Royal African Company
  1672 (loses monopoly in 1698)
• Independent slavers from New England
• Fortunes made

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The Middle Passage

• Baraccons gt waiting ships
• rammed like herring into a barrel
• Torn flesh
• 3 weeks to 3 months
• the dancing slave
• Sanitation?
• 1/6 perished
• Revolts
• Drowning

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Olaudah Equiano
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The 1st Slave AuctionNew Amsterdam, 1655
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North American SlaveryA Society With Slaves
1619-1670s

• 20 to VA in 1619
• Remained low for decades
• Indentured servants more cost effective
• Society with Slaves v Slave Society
• Africans owning Africans?

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North American SlaveryA Slave Society
1670s-1770s

• Indentured servitude dwindles
• Higher wages in Britain
• Better opportunity in other colonies
• Planters feared landless whites
• Inheritable slavery written into law
• VA slave code 1705
• serves as model

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Upper South (Chesapeake)

• Tobacco
• Necessary?
• Better fed and cared for than Caribbean region
• By 1750s 80 native born

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Lower South

• Rice Indigo
• Much larger plantations
• S. Carolina began as slave society
• Georgia prohibited slavery from 1732 until 1752

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Slavery in the North

• Societies with slaves
• Acceptable institution
• Large concentrations in some areas but relatively
  uncommon in the countryside of NE
• Antislavery movement begins among Quakers (early
  18thC) in Philadelphia 1750s

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Daily Life Culture

• built the South
• Rural labor
• Insufficient clothing cost saving inferior
  status
• Small farms side by side with owner, better
  conditions but less autonomy
• Larger plantations harder life but more
  autonomy

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African Americansin colonial N. America

• Family core institution but no legal status
• Slave codes
• Sale of family members
• Most managed to keep family intact more
  profitable for master

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African Americansin colonial N. America

• Children named for family members
• African names give way to Anglo names by late
  18thC
• Kinship bonds

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Culture

• E Pluribus Unum
• African religions until Great Awakening
• Burial dances
• Multi-rhythmic music
• Guinea-English dialect