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Slavery In The British North American Colonies

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Slavery In The British North American Colonies
Slavery was a very important institution in the British North American Colonies within the years 1607 and 1750. It wormed it way into every aspect of the British North American Colonies, into the social structure, into the economy, it even found its way into the politics of the time. Slavery was like a disease to the colonies, infecting every single cell in the body of the culture.
The social structure of the thirteen colonies was altered by an addition to the existing divide between the rich landowners and the workers. Family interactions and duties also changed due to the growth of slave culture. No longer were the parents the main caretakers of small children, this began duty to be pushed off on slave women that acted as nannies. It was
…show more content…
One example of these new new laws are the slave codes, first established in Virginia in 1680, that required slaves to be unable to travel without express owner permission, and also for gathering to be illegal unless in the presence of whites. These laws also enforced stronger punishments for slaves committing crimes than a white man would receive for the same crime. Another law passed in 1662, applied the principle of partus sequitur ventrum which was that any person born to an enslaved mother was also enslaved, regardless of paternal heritage. By the year 1750, all thirteen of the British Colonies had some type of law in place allowing the existence of slavery, even Georgia which at first tried to resist on moral …show more content…
At first, it was harmless enough, gathering some additional Christian labor from far out places, but then it became warped into this gigantic greed monster, motivated solely by wealth and personal laziness. Likewise, the use of Opium in China was simple enough, just a little bit to take the edge out. However, also like the extensive use of slavery, opium began to change China, people's lives began to revolve around the high they contrived, no longer was the Opium to better their lives, it became necessary for them. No longer was it this thing that was casual, it became this obsession, motivated only by greed. As slavery was crucial to forming what would become American culture, so was Opium to destroying

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