Africans in America | Part 1 | Narrative | From Indentured Servi...
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Part 2: 1750-1805
Part 3: 1791-1831
Part 4: 1831-1865
Narrative | Resource Bank | Teacher's Guide
From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery
All servants imported and
brought into the Country. . .
who were not Christians in
their native Country. . . shall
be accounted and be slaves.
All Negro, mulatto and Indian
slaves within this dominion. . .
shall be held to be real estate.
If any slave resists his master.
We sometimes imagine that such . . correcting such slave, and
oppressive laws were put quickly shall happen to be killed in
into full force by greedy
such correction. . . the master
landowners. But that's not the
shall be free of all
punishment. . . as if such
way slavery was established in
accident never happened.
colonial America. It happened
gradually -- one person at a time,
- Virginia General Assembly
one law at a time, even one
declaration, 1705
colony at a time.
One of the places we have the
clearest views of that "terrible
transformation" is the colony of
Virginia. In the early years of the
colony, many Africans and poor
whites -- most of the laborers
came from the English working
class -- stood on the same
ground. Black and white women
worked side-by-side in the fields.
Black and white men who broke
their servant contract were
equally punished.
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• Arrival of first
Africans to Virginia
Colony
• Africans in court
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Africans in America | Part 1 | Narrative | From Indentured Servi...
Anthony
Johnson was
a free black
man who
owned
property in
Virginia
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All were indentured servants.
During their time as servants,
they were fed and housed.
Afterwards, they would be given
what were known as "freedom
dues," which usually included a
piece of land and supplies,
including a gun. Black-skinned
or white-skinned, they became
free.
Historically, the English only
enslaved non-Christians, and not,
in particular, Africans. And the
status of slave (Europeans had
African slaves prior to the
colonization of the Americas)
was not one that was life-long. A
slave could become free by
converting to Christianity. The
first Virginia colonists did not
even think of themselves as
"white" or use that word to
describe themselves. They saw
themselves as Christians or
Englishmen, or in terms of their
social class. They were nobility,
gentry, artisans, or servants.
One of the few recorded histories of an African in
America that we can glean from early court
records is that of "Antonio the negro," as he was
named in the 1625 Virginia census. He was
brought to the colony in 1621. At this time,
English and Colonial law did not define racial
slavery; the census calls him not a slave but a
"servant." Later, Antonio changed his name to
Anthony Johnson, married an African American
servant named Mary, and they had four children.
Mary and Anthony also became free, and he soon
owned land and cattle and even indentured
servants of his own. By 1650, Anthony was still
one of only 400 Africans in the colony among
nearly 19,000 settlers. In Johnson's own county, at
least 20 African men and women were free, and
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13 owned their own homes.
In 1640, the year Johnson
purchased his first property, three
servants fled a Virginia
plantation. Caught and returned
to their owner, two had their
servitude extended four years.
However, the third, a black man
named John Punch, was
sentenced to "serve his said
master or his assigns for the time
of his natural life." He was made
a slave.
Traditionally, Englishmen
believed they had a right to
enslave a non-Christian or a
captive taken in a just war.
Africans and Indians might fit
one or both of these definitions.
But what if they learned English
and converted to the Protestant
church? Should they be released
from bondage and given
"freedom dues?" What if, on the
other hand, status were
determined not by (changeable )
religious faith but by
(unchangeable) skin color?
• Virginia recognizes
slavery
• Virginia slave codes
• Colonial laws
In 1670
Virginia
seized
Johnson's
land...
• Virginia looks toward
Africa for labor
Also, the indentured servants,
especially once freed, began to
pose a threat to the propertyowning elite. The colonial
establishment had placed
restrictions on available lands,
This disorder that the
creating unrest among newly
indentured servant system
freed indentured servants. In
had created made racial
1676, working class men burned
slavery to southern
down Jamestown, making
slaveholders much more
indentured servitude look even
attractive, because what were
less attractive to Virginia leaders.
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black slaves now? Well, they
were a permanent dependent
labor force, who could be
defined as a people set apart.
They were racially set apart.
They were outsiders. They
were strangers and in many
ways throughout the world,
slavery has taken root,
especially where people are
considered outsiders and can
be put in a permanent status
of slavery.
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Also, servants moved on, forcing
a need for costly replacements;
slaves, especially ones you could
identify by skin color, could not
move on and become free
competitors.
- David Blight, historian
In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony to
legally recognize slavery. Other states, such as
Virginia, followed. In 1662, Virginia decided all
children born in the colony to a slave mother
would be enslaved. Slavery was not only a
life-long condition; now it could be passed, like
skin color, from generation to generation.
In 1665, Anthony Johnson
• Court document regarding Anthony
moved to Maryland and leased a Johnson
300-acre plantation, where he
died five years later. But back in
Virginia that same year, a jury
decided the land Johnson left
behind could be seized by the
government because he was a
"negroe and by consequence an
alien." In 1705 Virginia declared
that "All servants imported and
brought in this County... who
were not Christians in their
Native Country... shall be slaves.
A Negro, mulatto and Indian
slaves ... shall be held to be real
estate."
• Royal African
Company
established
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English suppliers responded to
the increasing demand for slaves.
In 1672, England officially got
into the slave trade as the King
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Africans in America | Part 1 | Narrative | From Indentured Servi...
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of England chartered the Royal
African Company, encouraging it
to expand the British slave trade.
In 1698, the English Parliament
ruled that any British subject
could trade in slaves. Over the
first 50 years of the 18th century,
the number of Africans brought
to British colonies on British
ships rose from 5,000 to 45,000
a year. England had passed
Portugal and Spain as the
number one trafficker of slaves
in the world.
Next: The African Slave Trade
and the Middle Passage
Part 1 Narrative:
• Introduction
• Map: The British Colonies
• Europeans Come to Western Africa
• New World Exploration and English Ambition
• From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery
• The African Slave Trade and the Middle Passage
• The Growth of Slavery in North America
Part 1: Narrative | Resource Bank Contents | Teacher's Guide
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