Slavery in the American Colonies Essay

Slavery was created in pre-revolutionary America at the start of the seventeenth century. By the time of the Revolution, slavery had undergone drastic changes and was nothing at all what it was like when it was started. In fact the beginning of slavery did not even start with the enslavement of African Americans. Not only did the people who were enslaved change, but the treatment of slaves and the culture that each generation lived in, changed as well.

Slave as defined by the dictionary means that a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. So why is it that every time you go and visit a historical place like the Hampton-Preston mansion in Columbia South Carolina, the Lowell Factory where the mill girls work in Massachusetts or the Old town of Williamsburg Virginia they only talk about the good things that happened at these place, like such things as who owned them, who worked them, how they were financed and what life was like for the owners. They never talk about the background information of the lower level people like the slaves or servants who helped take care and run these places behind the scenes.

Although, Slavery had existed for centuries as a lowest social status in different parts of the world like Africa, Roman Empire, Middle East and etc., in English colonies slavery gained an importance, because of increasing demand for labor force and becoming relationship legitimated by law. Therefore, Englishmen were the reason of slavery in the colonies and its consequences.

Slavery was held out until 1865, but during this time period abolitionist are trying to do anything to stop slavery. The reason being is because slavery wasn’t slavery anymore. Slavery was beginning to become more advance due to technological innovation. The Abolitionist are people that were against slavery and would boycott anything to get rid of slavery. The argument that the Abolitionist had during this time period was its conditions as violating Christian’s principals and rights to equality. The abolishment of slavery was a significant change in the history of slavery, because of all the technological innovation that was making the slaves jobs easier. In the American Revolution war slavery played a role in which they began a sequence of abolishing slavery. Slavery played a role in the American revolutionary war to begin to grant themselves freedom, liberty, and rights. Slavery changed in 1808 due to a bill that abolished the slave trade. The westward expansion divided the nation because the north and the south weren’t coming into agreement of change going on in the United States. The abolitionist had a plan and that plan was to abolish all slavery throughout the whole United States. These are some of the main things that would lead to the abolishment of 1865.

Africans were striped away from their native lands and forced to live in a foreign place that held no trace of familiarity. In the Americas, conditions on the plantations varied, but usually they were far from ideal. The institution of slavery imposed physiological and social damages to the slaves. Still, they were able to use cultural forms to lighten the burden of oppression. Many of them remembered their native languages, songs, and folk tales. This alleviated them from all of the emotional damage that the institution had enforced. However, as the generations of African-American children were born, it became harder to hold on to native customs solely. Eventually, African Americans were engulfed into European culture but added a great amount

A large number of slaves that were brought to the Americas were captured when the villages were raided. Adults during the raids were captured by being bound and gagged and they would sometimes put infants into sacks. The overwhelming majority of slaves sold to Europeans had not been slaves in Africa. They were free people who were captured in war, were victims of banditry or were enslaved as punishment for certain crimes. (Digital History). After slaves were kidnapped they were put onto ships and taken to the Americas. The conditions of the slave ships were wretched. People were crammed side by side with not much room or food (Aboard a Slave Ship, 1829). There were two ways slaves were loaded onto the ships. One way was to take a lighter load of people, so more people who would survive by the time they got to the Americas, and there would be less disease on the ship. The second way was cram as many people you could, with the tactic that the more people they had, the more profit. This way was very unsanitary and all of the slaves on the ship had horrible hygiene because of it. Some captains would not even provide

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself, Douglass argues that slaveholding is naturally damaging to the slaves but it is also destructive to the slave owners. Douglass reflects on the meaning of brutality in two distinct ways. He examines how it has two different meanings, one being to transform someone into a brute (beast) taking away their humanity and the other meaning is treating someone badly. The immoral and negligent power that slave owners possess over their slaves has an immense damaging effect on the slave owners own ethical wellbeing. The slaves are constantly mistreated and the slaveholders become evil as they victimize the slaves. Douglass illustrates how the slaves were constantly

The states in which slavery is still commonplace are well-known for their wealth, with much of this due to the friendly policies of the federal government towards the South. That said, if slavery were all of a sudden abolished, as many in the North argue, the nation’s economy as a whole would suffer greatly, especially with regard to exports, of which those from the South compose nine-tenths. Furthermore, those who believe that slaves in the South lead worse lives than laborers in the North are mistaken to the point of being disingenuous. The laborer in the North has to deal with poverty and anxiety to a much larger extent than that of the slave. Another common myth that abolitionists insist on is that the lack of education oppresses the slave.

Slavery was a big part of life in the South. Many plantation owners relied on slaves and their work to help get the money and crops they needed. There were two types of slaves in the South at this time. There were house slaves and there were field slaves. House slaves consisted of servants, maids, and butlers. They were normally treated better than the field slaves (Biel 14). They got to be inside most of the time. Owners of house slaves would usually not beat them because they wanted the slaves to look presentable for whatever guests arrived or stopped by. With house slaves, the owner’s family enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle (Biel 14). These houses were normally extremely elegant. Some house slaves had the luxury

Throughout history, racial inequality and discrimination has plagued many nations; America as a forming country would be no exception to this. Several minority groups would be affected by the developing nations needs for labor, land and other resources. Discriminate treatment of ethnic and racial groups highly impacted America’s economy as well as its social structure. An example of these effects is that which African slave labor had on the developing country.

Slavery in American Society focuses in the significance of the world the Slaves made. O. Patterson clearly defines how natal alienation allowed the master to undermine and control his slaves since some of the slaves cultural identities were taken away from them. The master believed that slave management would help keep the slaves loyal to himself and make the slaves a better worker. However, the slaves did manage to form strong personal ties to assure themselves of who they were culturally. There were many significant ways that shaped the slaves' world, such as religion, spirituals, family life and conjure. The slaves found ways in which they could unite and maintain some of their

The abolishment of American slavery may have freed slaves from physical chains, but the black community has suffered from various ailments for all of American history. Following the Civil War, economic inequality and systemic racism presented overwhelming disadvantages to colored communities. Many people of multiracial ancestry were presented with the unique opportunity of racial passing, or the “deception that enables a person to adopt certain roles or identities from which he would be barred by prevailing social standards in the absence of his misleading conduct” (Kennedy 1145). That is, passing is the ability due to physical appearance to be identified as a member of another racial group. While it may seem that passing is a purely beneficial opportunity presented to mixed-race individuals, many experience psychological trauma as a result of challenging their racial identity, as shown in Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) through the novel’s protagonists Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield.

Another group of immigrants who arrived against their will during the colonial period were black slaves from West Africa. The earliest records of slavery in America include a group of approximately 20 Africans who were forced into Jamestown in 1619. By 1680, there were some 7,000 African slaves in the American colonies, a number that ballooned to 700,000 by 1790. Congress outlawed the importation of slaves in the United States as of 1808, but the practice continued.

Slavery in North America became an intensive struggle for African Americans to secure their freedom. Since, many white indentured servants became unavailable, enslaved Africans had to replace them. Along their journey to obtain their freedom, the numbers of enslaved Africans started to drastically increase, and soon they started to develop their own culture. Slave labor throughout the Middle, Southern, and New England colonies differed as the thirteen colonies showed how enslaved Africans slowly became African Americans. For instance, enslaved Africans who arrived in the Chesapeake Bay area started to see how rough conditions were for them than anyone else. Many of the laws passed emphasized how harsh conditions were for enslaved Africans. Soon, Africans started to see how they were inferior to other races. “A 1662 law made the enslaved status of black women heritable, decreeing that ‘all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.’”

The time period from 1607-1775, that formed the foundation the original thirteen colonies, is referred to as the colonial period of slavery (Clark-Pujara 9/19). During the colonial period of slavery, indentured servants and African slaves were essential factors for making the colonies successful by means of forced labor. Specifically, African slaves were the main source of labor workers and they consisted of several types of African slaves such as the including the “saltwater slaves,” slaves directly from Africa, “seasoned slaves” slaves from the Caribbean, and “creole slaves” the first generation of North American slaves (Franklin pg. 65). The Chesapeake was one of four regions that were predominant throughout the colonial period and it consists of colonies Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland. The Chesapeake region was first explored and settled in 1580 by the English. This area soon became popular place for wealthy English men due to the rising tobacco cultivation and consequently English men wanting to maximize their tobacco profits in the Chesapeake region switch from a model of indentured servitude to African slavery and created a legal system to justify race-based slavery (Clark-Pujara 9.19)