Exam
Name___________________________________
ESSAY. Write your answer in the space provided or on a separate sheet of paper.
Slavery on Three Continents
Directions: The question below is based on the seven documents that follow. Spend 15 minutes reading the
documents and planning your response, and then spend 40 minutes writing your answer.
Be sureyour essay has all of the following:
1. A thesis that is defensible and answers ALL parts of the question.
2. Has a coherent essay that defends the thesis.
3. Uses all of the documents to defend your thesis.
4. Does one of the following for all of the documents- point of view, author’s purpose, historical context, or
audience.
5. Goes beyond the documents to explain historical processes that help defend your thesis.
6. Provides an example of an additional document to support or qualify your thesis.
7. Goes beyond the prompt and connects to a different period or part of the world
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1) Using the documents and your knowledge of world history, compare the indigenous slavery of
Africa and the development of slavery in the various colonies of the Americas.
Document 1
Source: Grave sculpture showing a Greek woman with slave attendant, c. 100 B.C.E.
Credit: Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program
Document 2
Source: Pronouncement from Charles I of Spain (Emperor Charles V) regarding the
enslavement of Native Americans in the West Indies, 1542
As We have ordered provision to be made that from henceforward the Indians in no way
be made slaves, including those who until now have been enslaved against all reason and
right and contrary to the provisions and instructions thereupon, We ordain and command
that the Audiencias [court of law] having first summoned the parties to their presence,
without any further judicial form, but in a summary way, so that the truth may be
ascertained, speedily set the said Indians at liberty unless the persons who hold them for
slaves show title why they should hold and possess them legitimately. And in order that
in default of persons to solicit the aforesaid, the Indians may not remain in slavery
unjustly, We command that the Audiencias appoint persons who may pursue this cause
for the Indians and be paid out of the Exchequer fines, provided they be men of trust and
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diligence.
—From The New Laws of the Indies, ed. Henry Stevens. London: The Chiswick Press,
1893.
Document 3
Source: Diagram showing deck plans and cross-sections of British slave ship Brookes,
1788
Credit: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-34160]
Document 4
Source: An early, religious condemnation of slavery by Samuel Sewall, a Massachusetts
printer and judge, c. 1700
Forasmuch as liberty is in real value next to life, none ought to part with it themselves, or
deprivate others of it, but upon most mature consideration.
The numerousness of slaves at this day in the province, and the uneasiness of them under
their slavery, has put many upon thinking whether the foundation of it be firmly and well
laid, so as to sustain the vast weight that is built upon it. It is most certain that all men, as
they are the sons of Adam, are coheirs, and have equal right unto liberty, and all other
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outward comforts of life. . . .
Originally and naturally, there is no such thing as slavery. Joseph was rightfully no more
a slave to his brethren than they were to him; and they had no more authority to sell him
than they had to slay him. . . .
And all things considered, it would conduce more to the welfare of the province to have
white servants for a term of years than to have slaves for life. Few can endure to hear of a
Negro's being made free, and indeed they can seldom use their freedom well; yet their
continual aspiring after their forbidden liberty renders them unwilling servants. And
there is such a disparity in their conditions, color, and hair that they can never embody
with us and grow up into orderly families, to the peopling of the land, but still remain in
our body politic as a kind of extravasat[ed] blood. . . . Moreover, it is too well known
what temptations masters are under to connive at the fornication of their slaves, lest they
should be obliged to find them wives, or pay their fines. . . .
It is likewise most lamentable to think, how in taking Negroes out of Africa and selling
of them here, that which God has joined together men do boldly rent asunder—men from
their wives, parents from their children. How horrible is the uncleanness, mortality, if
not murder, that the ships are guilty of that bring great crowds of these miserable men
and women. Methinks, when we are bemoaning the barbarous usage of our friends and
kinfolk in Africa, it might not be unseasonable to inquire whether we are not culpable in
forcing the Africans to become slaves among ourselves. And it may be a question
whether all the benefit received by Negro slaves will balance the account of cash laid out
upon them, and for the redemption of our own enslaved friends out of Africa, besides all
the persons and estates that have perished there.
—From Samuel Sewall's The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial. Boston: Bartholomew
Green and John Allen printers, 1700.
Document 5
Source: A selection of slave laws from early Virginia, 1667
Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a Negro
woman should be slave or free, be it therefore enacted and declared by this present Grand
Assembly, that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according
to the condition of the mother; and that if any Christian shall commit fornication with a
Negro man or woman, he or she so offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the
former act.
December 1662
Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the
charity and piety of their owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptism,
should by virtue of their baptism be made free, it is enacted and declared by this Grand
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Assembly, and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptism does not alter the
condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; that diverse masters, freed from
this doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity by permitting
children, through slaves, or those of greater growth if capable, to be admitted to that
sacrament.
September 1667
Whereas it has been questioned whether servants running away may be punished with
corporal punishment by their master or magistrate, since the act already made gives the
master satisfaction by prolonging their time by service, it is declared and enacted by this
Assembly that moderate corporal punishment inflicted by master or magistrate upon a
runaway servant shall not deprivate the master of the satisfaction allowed by the law, the
one being as necessary to reclaim them from persisting in that idle course as the other is
just to repair the damages sustained by the master.
September 1668
Whereas the only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their
master, mistress, or overseer cannot be inflicted upon Negroes, nor the obstinacy of many
of them be suppressed by other than violent means, be it enacted and declared by this
Grand Assembly if any slave resists his master (or other by his master's order correcting
him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not
be accounted a felony, but the master (or that other person appointed by the master to
punish him) be acquitted from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that
premeditated malice (which alone makes murder a felony) should induce any man to
destroy his own estate.
October 1669
—William Waller Hening, Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all the Laws of
Virginia. Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, 1809-1823.
Document 6
Source: Excerpt about caste and race in eighteenth century Latin America, 1748
The class of Negroes is not the least numerous, and is divided into two parts; the free and
the slaves. These are again subdivided into Creoles and Bozares, part of which are
employed in the cultivation of the haciendas, or estancias. Those in the city are obliged
to perform the most laborious services, and pay out of their wages a certain quota to their
masters, subsisting themselves on the small remainder. The violence of the heat not
permitting them to wear any clothes, their only covering is a small piece of cotton stuff
about their waist; the female slaves go in the same manner. Some of these live at the
estancias, being married to the slaves who work there; while those in the city sell in the
markets all kind of eatables.
—Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, A Voyage to South America. Vol. 1. London: 1772.
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Document 7
Source: Olaudah Equiano writes about his experience of the Middle Passage, 1789
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave
ship which was then riding at anchor and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with
astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was
immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew, and I was
now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits and that they were going to
kill me. . . .
I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and
there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so
that with the loathsomeness of the stench and crying together, I became so sick and low
that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for
the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered
me eatables, and on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands and laid
me across I think the windlass and tied my feet while the other flogged me severely. I
had never experienced anything of this kind before, and although not being used to the
water I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless if I could
have gotten over the nettings I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and
besides, the crew used to watch very closely over those of us who were not chained
down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor
African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not
eating. This indeed was often the case with myself. . . .
—Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or
Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. 2 vols. London, 1789.
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