History 1301W– Origins of African Slavery in British North America

ORIGINS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN SLAVERY

The long history of slavery

--Roman Empire; transition of
serfdom; slavery never fully
eradicated
--Portuguese establish trading
posts in mid 15th century;
imports of slaves to Iberian
peninsula ~1000 per year

Portuguese fortress of Sao Jorge de Mina on African Gold Coast (1482)

The Atlantic Slave Trade (1502-1860)
~12 million Africans
 The Distribution of Slave Imports in the New World, 1500-1870

6%
6%

Brazil
37%
17% British Caribbean
French Caribbean
Spanish America
Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Caribbean
United States

17%

17%
 British America in 1660
• Total Population

New England Chesapeake West Indies

Whites 32,574 (98.3%) 33,738 (95.2%) 33,000 (56.9%)

Blacks 562 (1.7%) 1,708 (4.8%) 25,000 (43.1%)
Total 33,136 35,446 58,000

• Total Immigration to 1660

New Eng. Chesapeake West Indies

20,000 50,000 150,000
 British America in 1660
• Other Characteristics

New England Chesapeake West Indies

Infant Mortality Rate 115/1000 250/1000 ? (high)

Male life expectancy at age 20 45 years 25 years 15 years

Percent of wealth owned by top 25% 40% 60%

10% of wealth owners
Average number of unfree 0 3 or 4 65
workers per Farm
 Why African Slavery in the British North America?

Demands of the Agricultural Economy;

production of Staple Crops (Sugar,
Tobacco, Rice, Cotton (later)).

The British colonies had abundant land, but

scarce labor (opposite in England)

Evsey Domar, “The Causes of Slavery or

Serfdom: A Hypothesis” (1970).
A region cannot simultaneously have:
(1) Abundant free land;
(2) Abundant free labor; and
(3) Large Scale Agriculture.
 If Coerced Labor Made Economic Sense,
What Other Possible Sources?
• Why not use American
Indians as slaves?
– Strong reluctance of
Native American men
to work in agriculture
– Very high mortality
– Runaway problem
– Retribution from
Indians groups
• Indentured servants?
End of Tobacco Boom & Continued
Need for Land
• Tobacco cultivation led to dispersed
settlement and lack of towns
• Typical farmer dedicates about 1/10
of land to tobacco
• Growing land shortages causes
Virginia to stop the practice of giving
50 acres to individuals at end of
indenture at mid century
• Tobacco “bust” post 1665
• Servants who become free in the
1670s enjoyed little economic
success. Best land taken. Less than ½
become land owners. Renters paid
10-25% of tobacco crop
• Movement to frontier where they
violently competed with Indians
 Unresponsive and exploitative
government
• Hard times exacerbated by
Navigation Acts, and heavy
taxes and unequitable taxes
• Governor Berkeley, 1641-1677
– An elitist
– Annual salary (£1000)
• For perspective: cost of
transatlantic passage £6; typical
income of a small planter £3
– With friends, monopolized
deerskin trade with Indians
– Resisted settlers’ call for
indiscriminate Indian warfare
 Bacon’s Rebellion
• 1675 War with Susquehannock; settlers demand war of
extermination of all natives on frontier
• Berkeley insisted on defensive strategy
• Disgruntled Virginians found leader in Nathaniel Bacon, a
29-year old charismatic and prestigious newcomer. Leads
attacks on Indians.
• Berekely declares Bacon guilty of treason, which leads
Bacon to march supporters on Jamestown
– Is this a class rebellion?
– Bacon: “The poverty of the Country is such that all power
and sway is got into the hands of the rich, who by
extortionous advantages, having the common people in
their debt, have always curbed and oppressed them in
Demands the destruction of “all Indians in manner of ways.”
generall for … they were all Enemies.” – It’s clear, however, that Bacon and his lieutenants intended
no egalitarian revolution. Bacon criticizes Virginian’s rich as
newly rich.
• Bacon drives Governor out of Jamestown, burns
Jamestown to the ground to discourage Berkeley’s
return, but dies of dysentery in the next month.
• Was the turn away from indentured servants to African
slaves a response from leading planters to Bacon’s
Rebellion?
• Also corresponds to period of improved labor conditions
in England; fewer Englishmen (and fewer Englishwomen)
desperate enough to risk indentureship.
 From Servants to Slaves: Just the Facts
The Virginia Case
• VIRGINIA: (rough estimates)
– 1619: “20 and odd”
– 1650: 500 slaves, African and Indian
(12,000) 3%
– 1670: 2,000 slaves (33,000) 6%
– 1700: 16,000 slaves (58,000) 28%
– 1720: 27,000 (87,000) 30%

• Some Context
– 1640-1700: ~390,000 African Slaves
imported to West Indies
– 1640-1700: ~16,000 imported to North
America
– 1701-1725: ~151,000 imported to
North America
 Early 17th Century Chesapeake: A Society
with Slaves
• Labor in VA through 1670s = White servants, limited
numbers of slaves. Why?
– Economic Issues
– Cultural
– Before 1670 no systematic legal code to regulate
slaves
• Early in century, slavery rather amorphous and fluid.
• Significant numbers of free blacks with legal rights
– Example of Anthony Johnson, who acquired a
250-acre plantation and at least one slave.
– 40 freed people of color on VA Eastern Shore in
1665 (out of a total of 300).
– Suggests that slavery and racism had not yet
become inseparably intertwined?
 Circa 1680: A relatively abrupt drop in the
number of indentured servants
• In 1660s: average of 2 indentured servants per
household in York County.
• In 1690s: average of 2 servants for every 10
households.
• What explains the shift?
– Fewer Servants
– More Africans available (Royal African Company
chartered in 1672).
– Better disease environment
– Greater legal authority/power over slaves than
servants
– Bacon’s Rebellion: highlights the class problem
of recently-freed servants?
 Late 17th Century: The Creation of a Slave
Society (over time)
• Definition of a “slave society”: A
society/economy where the dominant form
of labor is enslaved. Political/Legal/Social
structure reflects slave system
• Emergence of slave law in Virginia (1643-
1723)
• Slave population at first grows by
importation, but by 1720s, slave population
in Chesapeake begins to grow by natural
reproduction, and by 1730s, 40% are native
born.
@ 30% morality rate
(3.3 M dead, 1500-
1840)
 Advantages of African Slavery for American plantation owners
relative to American Indians or Indentured Sevants

• Worker for life

• Keep children of The Distribution of Slaves in the Western Hemisphere, 1825

female slaves
• Less likely to run
away 31%
Brazil
37%
• Relatively low slave British Caribbean
French Caribbean

mortality and high Spanish America

Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Caribbean

fertility; natural United States

increase of the slave

population in British 2%
15%
11%
North America 4%