Slavery

Overview

Native Americans were the first slaves in the United States before factors such as the lucrative nature of the African slave trade, the unsuitability of Native Americans for the labor-intensive agricultural practices, their susceptibility to European diseases, and the proximity of avenues of escape led to the transition to an African-based institution. Between 1450 and 1900, between 10 and 20 million Africans were uprooted from their homes and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean—the notorious “Middle Passage.” As the name suggests, the Middle Passage was the middle leg of a three-part voyage that began and ended in Europe. The first leg between Europe and Africa's “slave coast,” cargo (such as iron, cloth, brandy, firearms, and gunpowder) were exchanged for Africans. The ship then set sail for colonies in North America, South America, and the West Indies, where slaves were exchanged for sugar, tobacco, or some other product. The final leg brought the ship back to Europe.

Though many of the first colonies in America initially depended on the work of indentured laborers, a system of “perpetual servitude” utilizing slaves was soon adopted to ensure a reliable labor force. Virginia and Maryland were the first states to legalize slavery, in 1661 and 1663, respectively. With the success of tobacco planting, African slavery soon became the foundation of the Southern agrarian economy. In 1672, the king of England chartered the Royal African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown.

There are important distinctions to be made between Euro-American and African slavery. Under slavery in Africa, slaves retained some social and individual rights like marriage and the freedom to raise a family. Rarely were the children of those prisoners placed into slavery. They were also usually allowed to speak their language and to worship their gods. In contrast, efforts were made to strip Africans captured and taken into the New World of all their personality and humanity—they could not even bear their own names. Another characteristic that set American slavery apart was its racial basis. Although there were black, mulatto, and Americanborn slave owners in some colonies in the Americas, and many whites did not own slaves, chattel slavery was fundamentally different in the Americas from other parts of the world because of the racial dimension. By the mid-18th century, in America all slaves were Africans, and almost all Africans were slaves. The Atlantic slave trade was different from African slavery insofar as it was the first form of slavery motivated solely by commercial incentives. It was a highly profitable capitalist invention to provide cheap labor.

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