It was easy for the English enslave the Africans. They were helpless; the English tore them from their land and culture and they were no match for the English’s guns and ships. Africans were captured and sent to the coast where they were kept in cages until they were picked and sold. Then they were packed aboard the slave ships in spaces that were no bigger than coffins. The combination of desperation from the Jamestown settlers, difficulty of using whites and Indians as servants, the availability of Africans and their helplessness made them the ideal candidates for enslavement. They were the solution to the settler’s problems.…
With a growing demand for tobacco and sugar and a shortage of workers, England saw slavery as the only option. Britain had been colonizing in the new world for many years before slavery became a commonplace in English-American society. In fact, in Give Me Liberty author Eric Foner writes, “...the shipping of slaves from Africa to the New World became a major international business. But only a relative handful were brought to England’s mainland colonies. By the time plantation slavery became a major feature of life in English North America, it was already well entrenched elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere”(Foner p96). It was crucial that English-America fixed the shortage of workers problem, unfortunately the solution they chose was slavery.…
The United States was built on slavery; it is woven into America’s history. Right after the Revolutionary War, slavery was abolished in most of the northern states. But it was rampant in the South where most of the citizens were farmers working in agriculture. A large amount of workers was needed for the success of the crops. The South was desperate for people to work in the fields. So when ships arrived in 1619 with African Americans the problem was solved, slaves seemed like a simple solution. Even though the Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal,” a large group of people were ignored. While white Americans were free, African American slaves were dehumanized daily without consequences. Endless work and abuse were a reality for some slaves. Not all slave owners abused their slaves and thought slavery was morally right. But no one wanted to speak up against it because if a person did they would be despised by their community. America had been split in half. The North wanted slavery to end, but the South had become…
CHAPTER II 1. According to Zinn, what is the root of racism in America? 2. Why were Africans considered “better” slaves than Indians in Virginia? 3. How did 16th century Africa compare to 16th century Europe politically, economically, and militarily? 4. How did slavery in Africa differ from slavery in Europe and the Americas? 5. Describe the conditions that slaves on ships coming to America (“Middle Passage”). 6. In terms of mortality, what was the cost of slavery? 7. What was the relationship between slavery and the plantation system? 8. What evidence exists that America’s slaves did not accept their fate easily? 9. Why did slave owners fear poor whites?…
The British settlers in the Chesapeake intentionally didn’t mean to have slavery but it happened because of laws that deprived blacks of basic rights. When black people came to Virginia they were given the same contract given to white peoples servants. The contract basically stated that Africans had to work for their master up until their amount of worked came up to the price they were sold for. Once they were done they were set free.…
Throughout the book, The Origins of Slavery, the author, Betty Woods, depicts how religion and race along with social, economic, and political factors were the key factors in determining the exact timing that the colonist’s labor bases of indentured Europeans would change to involuntary West African servitude. These religion and racial differences along with the economic demand for more labor played the key roles in the formation of slavery in the English colonies. When the Europeans first arrived to the Americas in the late sixteenth century, at the colony of Roanoke, the thought of chattel slavery had neither a clear law nor economic practice with the English. However by the end of that following century, the demand for slaves in the English colonies including the Chesapeake, Barbados, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas was so great and the majority of labor was carried out by West African slaves. The argument of whether Native Americans could also be used as a form of labor for the plantation societies of the English colonies is one that was long disputed between the English. Both Native Americans and West Africans were used as social mirrors. This meant that the English set both groups of people against themselves to emphasize what they conceived of as being completely different qualities of religious, social, and political organization, sexual behavior, and skin color. As Betty Woods explores the meaning of freedom and bondage in this small, yet impactful, five chapter book, she further determines the explanations English colonist used in answering the quest for cheap plantation labor.…
Slavery was driven by racial inequality. The colonists thought of the minority races of Africans and Indians as lesser people, and many people didn’t have a problem with enslaving them for their work force. During the triangular trade, slaves from Africa were brought to the Americas. The majority of slaves went to the Caribbean, but some ended up in Britain’s North American colonies. Slaves were quite easy to obtain because they could be bought or traded for traded for material items. African slavery became the workforce for hard labor and plantations. Before the Africans arrived in the colonies, the colonists also used Native Americans. The Indians occupied the territory that the colonists wanted to settle, so they saw them as a threat and the Indians were an easy target to enslave. At the…
“American Slavery, 1619-1877” by Peter Kolchin gives an overview of the practice of slavery in America between 1619 and 1877. From the origins of slavery in the colonial period to the road to its abolition, the book explores the characteristics of slave culture as well as the racial mind-sets and development of the old South’s social structures.…
Gary Nash author of Red, White, and Black purpose to their readers is describing the early colonists, but also the relationships toward Europeans, the Indians, and the Africans. Nash successfully analyzes the impact of the colliding three cultures and interprets them to give an overall theme about the relationships between those who made America what it is today. He has shown another point of view to his reader that we grew up and was raise in a white people land; learning only the White people point of view through history. His purpose of writing Red, White & Black was to prove that Native Americans and Africans were not victims, but played as a active role to American history.…
The author mentions that in 1680 slavery was not very common in English colonies, later around 1700 this would change. One of the possible causes of it was the decrease of indentured servants in the colonies of Chesapeake and the Carolinas, in which the labor force was in high demand at that time. Captive Africans became easy to obtain due to the slave trading by merchants and ship owners in European countries. Europeans could purchase captives in African wars that they could later send as laborers to America.…
There were many views of the issue of slavery during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the resolution of slavery affected economics, politics, and social order. The slave trade triangle between Europe, west Africa, and the Indies has a great affect on European economics during this time. The only way for this elaborate trade triangle to work is if there were black Africans available for export to the Indies as slaves. If they were not available, then the landowners in the new world weren't able to produce the sugar, coffee, and tobacco for export to Europe, and the circuit broken. These African slaves were convenient, according to Guillaume Raynal (document 6), because they were thought to be more comfortable working in the hot conditions of the Indies, because they had originally come from a very hot climate in Africa.…
Sugar cultivating took over the plantations in the New World; farmers began to convert most of their lands to sugar cane. This meant more workers were needed to work on these fields. These jobs were very labor-intensive so they first brought in the indentured servants. These servants were unable to adapt to the harsh tropical climate and the hard work discouraged them. It wasn’t much later when they decided to bring in the African slaves. As these slaves were owned by them, they forced them to do these vigorous jobs.…
Many of the slaves basic needs were unmet. Despit the change in status, the black communities on the sea islands had little to eat and were still badly clothed…
Coming from a lower class background in the slums of Brooklyn, Zinn comprehends class struggle and oppression of the poor (Zinn, A People’s 2). He empathetically describes the early years of the New World, in which indentured servants traveled to America in hopes of a better life. On the eight to twelve week passages, many were subject to starvation and disease, sometimes having to resort to cannibalism in order to survive (Zinn, A People’s 43). Once they were in service of their masters, it was common to become victims of beatings and rape (44). Though the Amendment VI of the United States Constitution later gave citizens the right to a trial by an impartial jury, servants were not permitted to serve as jurymen. In an effort to improve their miserable situation, servants made feeble attempts at rebellions, such as the uprising of the Gloucester County servants, which was revealed and never carried out. Large scale revolt was so impractical that servants had to defy their masters individually by physically attacking their masters, running away, or refusing to work (45). About 80% of all indentured servants “died during servitude, returned to England after it was over, or became ‘poor whites’” (qtd in Zinn, A People’s…
During the colonial period and the coming of European immigrants to the United States, there was a shortage of labor. The main economic production in the southern part was farming, particularly cotton that was exported to Europe and supplied in the Northern parts of America. The South thus required enough workers to yield more produce of the farms. In August 1619, the first twenty blacks were shipped to America in Jamestown, Virginia. These blacks were not labelled as slaves but as indentured servants, a condition which was to run for seven years. This was followed by other white people from the poor countries of Europe who also came as indentured servants. According to their masters, the indentured service was supposed to be taken as payment for the expenses of their journey across the seas to America. When the white people agreed to the terms that the African black people who had been released after the seven years of indenture service were brought back to work in the farms. For these newcomers from Africa, it was not an indentured service but a service with no payment or any specific term to release. (Edmund 34). This was the beginning of slavery in America. Larger numbers of Africans were brought to North America as slaves to work in the farms and large plantations established in South part of the United States. In the South, the slave owners would be entitled to the slave labor output, even without remuneration. In fact, the rights and protection of slaves would be regulated by laws and customs in particular time and place. (Goldfield…