Preview

Slavery In The British North American Colonies

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
883 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
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

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Real Ap Essay Qs List3

    • 4147 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Analyze the origins and development of slavery in Britain’s North American colonies in the period 1607 to 1776.…

    • 4147 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The amount of slaves that one owns can correlate with one’s wealth. Those who were captive had to endure endless abuse. Some were lucky to come under the protection of the church, but those who were not ended up being worked to death. The treatment of slaves was different between countries. One thing is certain: that many of the slaves were kidnapped and torn apart from their families.…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second main reason that led to the expansion of slavery in British America was the law. “As late as 1680, there were only 4500 blacks in the Chesapeake, a little over 5 percent of the region’s population.” (104) Even when the black population was still that small, new law was enacted to improve and status of white servants and further blocked access to freedom for blacks. “A Virginia law of 1662 provided that in the case of a child one of whose parents was free and one slave, the status of the offspring followed that of the mother. (This provision not only reversed the European practice of defining a child’s status through the father but also made the sexual abuse of slave women profitable for slaveholders, since any children that resulted remained the owner’s property.)” (106) And, “In 1667, the Virginia House of Burgesses decreed that religious conversion did…

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    APUSH SLAVERY FRQ

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The founding of the majority of American colonies was either for an economic profit or for religious freedom. To make the colonies founded for an economic profit, a large work force was needed. For many religious colonies that turned into huge economic powers, they used the Protestant work ethic. Other colonies decided to use indentured servants originally, but this ended up turning into a large use of slaves for their work force in some colonies. Despite slavery in Britain’s North American colonies originally pertaining to only the economic aspects of the society, it actually developed into an essential part of society and it was maintained for racial, social, and economic reasons. Slaves were used economically because they were cheap labor. Socially, it was respectable in some colonies to be a slave owner. Minorities were thought of lesser people by the whites, so slavery also showed racial superiority. This essay will discuss the racial, social, and economic reasons for the development of slavery in Britain’s North American colonies from 1607-1776.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Slavery was a major part of southern colonial life between 1607 and 1775, and grew exponentially due to the encouragement of the economic, geographic, and social factors in the Southern colonies during that era. Things such as large plantations, cheap labor, and misconceptions of the African race greatly affected the way slavery was viewed in the American colonies. Often, it was thought of as a necessary evil; or, even more often, just necessary. There were many factors that gave the colonists this opinion of slavery, and I will discuss just a few of the major ones.…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery in 1607 and 1775

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages

    mass goods and for wet soil. The many river parts of the south made it easy to transfer…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    still a very real thing. Slavery was a huge part of the early colonies of…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery In The 1700s

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Slavery in the United States expanded for a multitude of reasons including demand for labor, conventional racism, and its legality. In the 1700s, the economy of southern colonies such as Maryland and Virginia relied on cash crops. The ideal growing conditions of these colonies promoted the extensive growth of crops including tobacco, rice, and indigo. Despite these advantages, growing and maintaining these crops was not an easy task. It required a considerable amount of work and effort, which was provided by slaves. The ownership of slaves made the maintenance of plantations convenient and easy for the slave owners. In addition, racism played a large role in the expansion of slavery. Americans thought that they were above all else simply because…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “He that will not work shall not eat.” (Captain John Smith). Virginia was the beginning of colonization in America. In 1578, after colonists in England were driven to find new land, Sir Humphrey Gilbert received a charter to establish a new British Colony. On May 13th, 1607, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery ships arrived at what soon became the Jamestown peninsula. This discovery led to a series of important events that made the United States. After the Virginia Company of London was chartered to collect profit from the sales of silver and gold, they knew that a colony was needed. With one hundred forty four colonists on board, the first settlers left England on December 20th, 1606, with one goal…

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the colonies started to thrive with the new crop exports, there was a very high demand for field workers to cultivate those crops. There were two ways that the colonists met this demand: the use of indentured servants and the use of black slaves. Indentured servants were, by definition, “persons who agreed to serve a master for a set number of years in exchange for the cost of transport to America.” Our textbook also goes on to add that “indentured servitude was the dominant for of labor in the Chesapeake colonies before slavery.” The use of slaves started after 1700 when the supply of indentured servants began to diminish. A slave, also by definition, is “(especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.”…

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the beginning the white colonists thought that the Native Americans were friendly and helped others. They accepted the Native Americans and the colonists got involved with trades with them. They wanted to convert them into Christians, but the Native Americans refused. Eventually this made the colonists angry; this is when they started hating each other. The confrontations between is why English also disliked other race, and thought all people of color were bad people. Although, not all Native Americans disagreed with the white colonist, some embraced the English culture, because they wanted wealth and the strong military on their side.…

    • 129 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Black slaves were used throughout colonial times. The one we associate with slaves the most is probably field working. The truth is Black people were used for much more than that; their responsibilities included many jobs, from farming, to being cooks and housekeepers. In the south, some people would train their slaves to have trade skills, such as cooper (barrel maker), wigmaker, and carpenter. This could be helpful to the slave owners in many ways. Blacks that were trained in a trade could also be sold for more money, as they were considered more valuable. In addition, they could just be more helpful around the house and therefore spared the conditions of harder…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Initially brought in from the Portuguese slave trading market in only small numbers, making less than 2% of the American population, however in the early days, ‘chattel slavery’ was not addressed in the English common law. Technically free in a legal sense, these Africans once familiar with the customs of their English masters could unbound themselves. Some had been able to accomplish in purchasing land and often employing contracted English servants. The triumphs were short lived when rebelling English labourers were granted their freedom. Planters now in desperate need of labour were permitted by law to enslave thousands of African by the House of Burgesses, determining the racially unstable social system forever burdening the lives of African…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Black Codes of the Middle Colonies shared the same political views and treatment of slaves of those in the South. These laws listed specific restrictions of slaves and constituted them as legal property, and any violation of these laws would result in immense consequences. The laws in every state but they all shared the same principles that slaves had no rights and were strictly property. The treatment of slaves began to worsen as the colonies began more race conscious and developed a sense of superiority. In 1712 and 1714 two separate rebellions are noted to have occurred in New York, it’s reported that “slaves burned a house and shot the whites when they were inside and tried to come out” (Alexander and Rucker, 2010). Although slavery in the heart of New England wasn’t as large scale as in the South, the damage and consequences were the…

    • 1798 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Differences in classes began to form due to the high demand for slave labor in Colonial American Society. Slave labor also helped to cause racial tension even in the cities. The population also increased in Colonial America due to the high demand for slave labor therefore many African slaves were imported from Africa.…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays