American Slavery History

Slavery, the condition of one human being owned by another (“Slavery”), has gone through many stages in its development and its reception around the world. As part of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BCE, slaves were a large part of civilized society as entertainers in the gladiator arena. These slaves would have been forced to compete, but with their victories and their deaths they would gain respect and some even their freedom. In Africa before the 16th century, slavery and systems of servitude existed throughout the continent. African slaves during this time were often captives of war or indentured servants; however they were not treated with disrespect. Instead it was common practice for such slaves to be fully integrated into the village
Unfortunately, as the New World began to develop and expand its agriculture base, namely tobacco, that the demand for workers increased. European settlers originally had no plan to meet the labor request. “Their first resort was to force Indian labor” (Morgan 52). This plan began to unravel quickly however, since the Indians were easily susceptible to foreign diseases and began to die off before profits could be made (Morgan 53). It became clear that the Indian population would not support the labor force needed, and so the Europeans began looking
Across the Atlantic, as stated before, slavery was practiced throughout much of Africa among the various tribes and villages. However, with the increasing demand for slaves, coastal tribes would raid the inland tribes and capture their fellow Africans and sell them to the Europeans for small valuable trinkets. These newly captures slaves couldn’t possibly have known what their futures held for them in the New World, if they made it there. Within the borders of the New World slaves tried to escape whenever possible, but rarely succeeded in such a new and strange world. Slaves newly imported were subject to laws and customs that they didn’t understand, and since many of them came from different villages few could communicate with each other (Marques). Slave rebellion was kept under control by the fierce and open violence aimed at those who stepped out of line. Fear for one’s life suddenly became more important than freedom for many of the newly