Colonies in Profile: Origins of Slavery

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•Keep in mind that we believe that a full understanding of the human person, of equality, and of justice all make slavery an evil action and practice, violating the principle that all people are equal in their humanity and possession of natural rights. Therefore, no one person may automatically infringe on the humanity or rights of another unless some initial violation of another’s rights has occurred.
•Understand that racism is the belief that some people are superior or inferior to
others based on race, racial characteristics, or ancestry. Racism arises from a failure to recognize the equal dignity and value of each human being, and racism manifests itself through the voluntary acts of individual people, both private words and actions and public speech and actions, such as laws and regulations.
•Remember that slavery has a long record in world history, from ancient times through the middle-ages and in different places, leading up to the transatlantic slave trade. Portugal first began using African slaves on their sugar plantations off the west African coast, manifesting the chattel and race-based aspects of slavery in European colonies. The slave trade gradually made its way to the various colonies established throughout the Western Hemisphere, particularly with the cultivation of sugar cane in the Caribbean. The first Africans were brought to Jamestown by an English privateer who had captured a Portuguese slave ship en route from Africa, likely headed for Portugal’s South American colonies.
•Try to imagine the barbarities of slavery and the slave trade. Overall, of the nearly 11 million Africans who survived being brought to the Western Hemisphere, around 3 percent, or about 350,000, were brought to the North American continent, with the rest of all Africans taken to other colonies in the Caribbean and South America.
•Both similarities and differences exist between slavery and indentured servitude.
Indentured servitude was a common way for those who could not afford passage or to
establish themselves in the New World to tie themselves to a sponsor for a number of
years, offering free labor in exchange for passage across the Atlantic and shelter in the
colonies. Oftentimes indentured servitude was not much different from slavery in its
practice, as shown in transcripts from court cases of indentured servants claiming relief
from a cruel master.
•It would be several decades before a law emerged in the southern colonies that concerned African colonists in particular or the practice of slavery. In 1662, forty-three years after the arrival of the first Africans at Jamestown, Virginia’s commanding general determined that a child born to an enslaved woman would also be a “servant for life,” and in 1668, corporal punishment for slaves was permitted in law. These appear to be the first laws regarding slavery in colonial America.
•The transatlantic slave trade grew with the sugar cane plantations of the Caribbean as far back as the early 1500s—plantations which also happened to become England’s most valuable colonies. At the same time, the source of labor shifted away from indigenous peoples, European convicts, and indentured servants to slaves. Although slavery was more widespread in the southern colonies (to grow tobacco and rice) and almost universal in England’s Caribbean sugar plantations, few laws explicitly prohibited the practice in most colonies, at least at certain times in their histories. Consider also the early abolitionist efforts of some colonists, the Quakers, for example.
•ACTIVITY:
-Answer the following questions in short phrases, using both this reading material and your own understanding.
1.) What was the worst part of American slavery?
2.) Why was this part wrong?
3.) How did that part disagree with Christian beliefs?
***Write out the Questions and your Answers on a separate sheet of paper to be turned in on Monday Oct. 27th***