WHAT DOES THIS GRAPHIC
TELL YOU ABOUT SLAVERY
DURING THE COLONIAL
PERIOD??
Slavery in the Colonies:
America’s Birth Defect
Origins of Slavery in America
• 1619 first African slaves brought to Jamestown
Colony by Dutch slave traders
• Cheap labor source for growing colonies
• Africans were workers without rights
• 1641 Slavery legalized – people as property
• By 1776 20% of the inhabitants of the 13
colonies were slaves
•
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery
The Justification of Slavery
• Racist belief system
– One race is superior to another
• Whites are superior to non-whites
– EG: Native Americans – displaced and slaughtered
African Natives – stolen from homeland, bought and sold as
property, enslaved
• Dehumanization
– Property not People
• Economic Gain vs. Moral Rightness
– $$ outweigh any moral considerations
Triangular Trade
The first leg of the triangle was from a European port to Africa, in
which ships carried supplies for sale and trade, such as copper,
cloth, trinkets, guns and ammunition. When the ship arrived, its
cargo would be sold or bartered for slaves.
On the second leg, the slaves were loaded on the ships which made
the journey of the Middle Passage from Africa to the Caribbean or
to American Colonies, where the slaves were sold.
The ships were then cleaned, drained, and loaded with export
goods – American tobacco, cotton, and hemp; Caribbean sugar,
rum, molasses – for the third leg, the return voyage from America
or the Caribbean to Europe
Triangular Trade Route
Slave
Trading
Regions of
West Africa
1500-1800
Colonial Slaving Grounds
Stealing Souls
Stealing Souls
House of Slaves: Goree Island, Senegal
The “Door of No Return”
The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage
Slave Markets
Slave Markets
Colonial
Slave
Auction
Advertisement
Colonial
Slave
Auction
Advertisement
Slavery in the Regions
House Slaves
Field Slaves
Slave Codes
• Laws in each Colony which defined the
status of slaves and the rights of masters.
• These codes gave slave-owners absolute
power over the enslaved.
Slave Codes
• Virginia, 1705 "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.”
Slave Codes
• South Carolina 1712 "Be it therefore enacted, by
his Excellency, William, Lord Craven, Palatine....
and the rest of the members of the General
Assembly, now met at Charles Town, for the
South-west part of this Province, and by the
authority of the same, That all negroes,
mulattoes, mestizo's or Indians, which at any
time heretofore have been sold, or now are held
or taken to be, or hereafter shall be bought and
sold for slaves, are hereby declared slaves; and
they, and their children, are hereby made and
declared slaves..."