Slavery in America


The earliest African arrivals were viewed in the same way as indentured servants from Europe. This similarity did not long continue. By the latter half of the 17th century, clear differences existed in the treatment of black and white servants. A 1662 Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life, and a 1667 act declared that "Baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome." By 1740 the SLAVERY system in colonial America was fully developed. A Virginia law in that year declared slaves to be "chattel personal in the hands of their owners and possessors for all intents, construction, and purpose whatsoever."


The principle by which persons of African ancestry were considered the personal property of others prevailed in North America for more than two-thirds of the three and a half centuries since the first Africans arrived there. Its influences increased even though the English colonies won independence and articulated national ideals directly in opposition to slavery. In spite of numerous ideological conflicts, however, the slavery system was maintained in the United States until 1865, and widespread antiblack attitudes nurtured by slavery continued thereafter.


Prior to the American Revolution, slavery existed in all the colonies. The ideals of the Revolution and the limited profitability of slavery in the North resulted in its abandonment in northern states during the last quarter of the 18th century. At the same time the strength of slavery increased in the South, with the continuing demand for cheap labor by the tobacco growers and cotton farmers of the Southern states. By 1850, 92 percent of all American blacks were concentrated in the South, and of this group approximately 95 percent were slaves.


Life on the plantations was hard, and no consideration was given to the cultural traditions of blacks. In the slave market men were separated from their wives, and frequently children were taken from their mothers. Family and tribal links were thus almost immediately cut. Fifty percent of the slaves were owned by 10 percent of the 385,000 slave owners. This concentration within a limited number of agricultural units had important consequences for the lives of most blacks.


Under the plantation system gang labor was the typical form of employment. Overseers were harsh as a matter of general practice, and brutality was common. Punishment was meted out at the absolute discretion of the owner or the owner's agent. Slaves could own no property unless sanctioned by a slave master, and rape of a female slave was not considered a crime except as it represented trespassing on another's property. Slaves could not present evidence in court against whites. Housing, food, and clothing were of poor quality and seldom exceeded what was considered minimally necessary to maintain the desired level of work. Owners reinforced submissive behavior not so much by positive rewards as by severe punishment of those who did not conform. In most of the South it was illegal to teach a black to read or write.



Copyright 1995 by Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.