Preview

Slavery: Major Events In Black History

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4645 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Slavery: Major Events In Black History
Chronology Of The History Of Slavery: 1619-1789
1619
The other crucial event that would play a role in the development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680 's. (A Brief History of Jamestown, The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, VA 23220, email: apva@apva.org, Web published February, 2000)
The legend has been repeated endlessly that the first blacks in Virginia were "indentured servants,"
…show more content…
(Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/boaf/urrtim~1.htm)
1642
Virginia colony enacts law to fine those who harbor or assist runaway slaves. (Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service). The Virginia law, penalizes people sheltering runaways 20 pounds worth of tobacco for each night of refuge granted. Slaves are branded after a second escape attempt. (African American History, Chronology: A Historical Review Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 )
1649
Black laborers in the Virginia colony still number only 300 (see 1619; 1671). (The People 's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
Tobacco exports bring prosperity to the Virginia colony.(The People 's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
…show more content…
Not only did Africans represent skilled laborers, but they were also experts in tropical agriculture. Consequently, they were well-suited for plantation agriculture. The high immunity of Africans to malaria and yellow fever compared with Europeans and the indigenous peoples made them more suitable for tropical labor. While white and red labor were used initially, Africans were the final solution to the acute labor problem in the New World. (The Economics of the African Slave Trade, By Anika Francis, The March 1995 Issue of The Vision Online,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    preferred over indentured because slaves were outright owned, they did not have to fulfill any contract…

    • 710 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "For the English people in the New World there was really three labor options. One is to transport people from England to the New World. Another is to employ or exploit the indigenous labor...And the third is to bring people in from Africa."* In 1619 , when Africans were first brought into Britain 's North America they were to be treated as indentured servants. Regardless of color all servants were supposed to be granted freedom after so many years of labor. In 1640 John Punch tried to runaway and his…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zinn Chapter 2

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Since the arrival of the Virginians to the New World, they were desperate for labor. The Virginians were unable to grow enough food to stay alive. During the winter, they were reduced to roaming the woods for nuts and berries and digging up graves to eat the corpses until five hundred colonists were reduced to sixty. They couldn’t force the Indians to work for them because they were outnumbered and despite their superior firearms, they knew the Indians could massacre them. The Indians also had amazing spirit and resistance. They would prefer to die than be controlled by others. Indentured servants wouldn’t suffice because they had not been brought over in sufficient quantity. Also, indentured servants only had to work for a few years to repay their debt. Indentured servants eventually assimilated into society, increasing the need for laborers. Black slaves were the answer, as a million blacks had already been brought from Africa to the Portuguese and Spanish colonies. The first Africans that arrived in Virginia were considered as servants, but were treated and viewed differently from white servants. Even before the slave trade begun, the color black was distasteful. The Africans were viewed as inferior and that was the beginning of racism.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Bacon's Rebellion Apush

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Indentured Servants- Adult white persons who were bound to labor for a period of 3-7 years in exchance for their indentures.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    During the early years of the 1600’s many Europeans and Africans moved over from England and became indentured servants. Indentured servants were employed by wealthy people and were used mainly for cheap labor. Some types of labor consisted of working in the fields and helping farmers.…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    With the huge agriculture estates in Virginia, known as plantations, labor was needed to prepare, sow and harvest the crops. Which caused a slight problem; more men were needed to work the land then there were men that were willing to do it. This problem was solved with indentured servants who worked for a period of 5 to 7 years to pay for their voyage over and…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    * In the early years European indentured servants were laborers, later replaced by African slaves…

    • 5608 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dbq Slavery

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages

    By John Rolfe establishing the tobacco industry, many lives were saved and the economy shot up like a rocket. The settlers of Jamestown were facing Indian attacks, diseases, and famine. Many men refused to work and the settlers were on the verge to starvation, Tobacco saved Jamestown in many ways. It brought financial prosperity and resulted into the broad-acre system plantation. Tobacco plantations demanded labor. They tried to attract immigrants through the Headright System and by hiring indentured servants. Through the Triangular Trade, Africans were bought as slaves and forced to work on Tobacco and other plantations. In the 17th century, mercantilism was set up and tobacco was the original “enumerated” product bought over many years. Virginia Company made unwise decisions about tobacco, causing Virginia to become England’s first royal colony. Eventually, tobacco prices fell causing rice and indigo too became more…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    17th Century Virginia

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Virginia, indentured servantry was very common. The indentured servants had to work hard both night and day for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread. Document D is written by an indentured servant. He tells that he would much rather be in England, even without a limb, than to be where he is now. Indentured servants chose to be what they were because of what they got out of it. As Document E says, "..at the end of the said terme, to give him one whole yeeres provision of Corne, and fifty acres of Land, according to the order of the country." Nobody expected that they would be in such misery. During their term, they started to think that they put too much into their work than what they were getting out of it, but they continued to strive on because they wanted land and corn. Indentured servantry affected the economic status of Virginia. The more they made other people work, the less that they had to do to provide for themselves and the rest of the colony of Virginia.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Slavery in the Chesapeake, low country of South Carolina and Georgia, and in the northern colonies differed in plenty ways but also had their differences. In Chesapeake from the 1620s to the 1670s, white and black people worked together in the tobacco fields together, lived together, and slept together. They were all unfree indentured servants. When Africans first arrived to Virginia and Maryland, they agreed to work for their masters until the proceeds of their labor recouped the cost of their purchase. Most indentured servants died from overwork or disease before regaining their freedom. Here and there, black men seemed to be living similar to their white counterparts. Free black men living in the Chesapeake owned land, farmed, lent money, sued in the courts, served as jurors and as minor officials, and at times voted. Before the 1670s the English in the Chesapeake did not draw a strict line between white freedom and black slavery.…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Clash of Cultures

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the early 16th century, the North American colonies depended on the indentured servants for cheap manual labor and other services. By the 1680s, the indentured servants were exchanged with African slaves. However, by the early 1700s, there were no more servants yet because they were being replaced by African slaves. Many indentured servants ran away when they got the chance to North America and blended in so they didn’t be seen and took every chance to escape. A lot of the servants died soon after arriving in North America due to the different environments since most were born in West Africa. The servants had to earn the freedom by surviving and finishing up…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history African Americans have faced a great deal of adversity due simply to the racial group they belong. This group has been subjected to being owned and treated like farm livestock, pushed by law in to separate spaces and were even subjected to racial motivated hate crimes. African Americans have faced some of the most radical hatred, subjugation and prejudicial treatment of any minority group. Laws have been passed to project an idea that they are not equal to the majority group of this country. Members of this group have spent time in jail for sometimes simple actions which violated this law. This minority group has been the target of racial violence as well. These attacks of resulted in everything from minor injury to death. In this chapter we will discuss the historical hardships faced by this minority group.…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Indentured servants were usually men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five and made an agreement with wealthy colonists to work for a certain amount of years to obtain land, money, or something that they needed. However, unfair colonists told the indentured servants that they had to work for a longer amount of time than it said in their agreement because of necessities they used while they were laboring for the colonist. Then years later they said the same thing over again to them to trap them in a continuous loop of labor to where indentured servants were almost considered slaves. Slavery wasn’t something you had a choice to be apart of. It was labor that you were made to do your entire life obtaining nothing in return. Slavery was forever and it didn’t stop just with you. If you were a slave and had children then your children would automatically be slaves too.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery and Its Impact on Both Blacks and Whites Slavery and Its Impact on Both Blacks and Whites The institution of slavery was something that encompassed people of all ages, classes, and races during the 1800's. Slavery was an institution that empowered whites and humiliated and weakened blacks in their struggle for freedom. In the book, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slave Frederick Douglass gives his account of what it was like being a slave and how he was affected. Additionally, Douglass goes even further and describes in detail the major consequences the institution of slavery had on both blacks and whites during this time period. In the pages to come, I hope to convince you first of the mental/emotional and physical damage caused by slavery on black slaves, and secondly the damage slavery caused in the mental well-being of white slave-owners.…

    • 1481 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    It is in 1640 when we see the first distinguished punishment between blacks and whites. This came when three indentured servants, 2 white and one black, by the names of John Punch, James Greggory and Victor working in tobacco fields in the Chesapeake Bay had finally had enough of the way they were being treated by their master. The three of them decided to try an escape. They were captured after a couple of days and returned to face trial. James Greggory and Victor, the two white indentured servants, were given additional years added onto their contracts. John Punch, the black indentured servant, was sentenced to serve until the time of his death, making him the first “slave” at this time. But then by the time of the early 18th century we then begin seeing an increase in the number of slaves being brought in for slave trade so that they could accommodate the large increase in agriculture and serve ambitious farmers. These slaves were brought from Africa as prisoners of war and women and children to carry out the intensive labors. The most prized Africans brought in were men younger than the age of 20 and women younger than the age of 20 because they…

    • 1898 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays