Chapter 4Slavery, Freedom, and the

Struggle for Empire to 1763

AMERICAN SLAVERY, AMERICAN FREEDOM—THE PARADOX

Slavery and Empire

•The greatest contradiction of the eighteenth century was the simultaneous expansion of the British empire, (celebrated by Britons for its unique commitment to liberty), and slavery.

Transatlantic Slave Trade

• The transatlantic slave trade flourished in the 1700s. In this century alone arrived more than half of the estimated 7.7 million Africans transported to the New World between 1492 and 1820. The immensely profitable slave trade was a vital part of world commerce. In the eighteenth-

century British empire, slavery, not wage labor, was the norm.

Valued consumer products

• Slave plantations contributed greatly to British economic development, and the first mass consumer goods in international trade, namely sugar, rice, coffee, and tobacco, were produced by slaves and stimulated the growth of the slave trade.

The Triangular Trade

• Though the Caribbean continued to be the British empire’s commercial center and the crown’s major revenue producer, slave-grown products from the mainland increased as a share of Atlantic trade. The Atlantic ocean’s triangular trading routes carried British manufactured goods to Africa and the colonies, brought to Europe colonial products including tobacco, indigo, sugar, and rice, and shipped slaves from Africa to the Americas.

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.1 Atlantic Trading Routes

Slavery and Empire

• Africa and the Slave Trade/The Middle Passage

• In the eighteenth century, slavery in West African

societies shifted from being a minor to a central

institution. Most West African rulers participated in the

slave trade. The slave trade made Africa a major

market for European goods, especially textiles and guns

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.2 The Slave Trade in The Atlantic World, 1460–1770

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyAn architect’s plan for a slave ship

Olaudah Equiano

Harewood House, Leeds

Slavery in the Chesapeake

• By the mid-eighteenth century, there were three distinct slave systems in British North America:1-tobacco-based plantation slavery in the Chesapeake, 2-rice-based plantation slavery in South Carolina and Georgia, and 3-non-plantation slavery in New England and the Middle Colonies.

The tobacco plantations of the Chesapeake, where nearly half of the region’s population in 1770 were slaves, was the largest and oldest of the three. Extending deep inland, slavery in Virginia existed on large plantations and many small farms.

Chesapeake Slavery

Indian Slavery in Early Carolina

• The rice plantation system of slavery that developed in South Carolina and Georgia first relied on Indian slaves, some of whom the colony exported, along with deerskins and furs. Some tribes, like the Creeks, first participated in the Indian slave trade, starting wars with other tribes just to secure captives for the trade.

The South Carolina Rice Kingdom

Rice cultivation in the low country of South Carolina prompted the importation of African slaves there, and led to a growing racial divide between whites and blacks. South Carolina was the first colony to have a black majority. Africans, familiar with the crop at home, actually taught the colonists how to grow rice.

Rice cultivation also developed in Georgia, founded in 1733 by philanthropists led by James Oglethorpe, a wealthy reformer who favored the abolition of slavery. Oglethorpe wanted to create a colony in which the “worthy poor” of England could find economic opportunity; the British government wanted the colony as a defensive barrier against the Spanish and their Indian allies in Florida.

Slavery in Georgia

Slavery in Georgia• Although the colony initially banned liquor

and slaves, many of its settlers wanted both, and by the 1740s, colonists were appealing for the English liberty of self-government in order to have slaves. In 1751, Georgia’s proprietors surrendered the colony to the crown, which repealed the ban on slavery and liquor.

Slavery in the North

• Compared to the plantation areas, New England and the middle colonies were mostly areas of small farms where slavery was not central. Slaves were only a small percentage of the population, and even wealthy families rarely owned more than one slave. Slaves worked as farm labor, in artisan shops, on the docks, and as personal servants.

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

Table 4.1 Slave population as percentage of total populationof original thirteen colonies, 1770

Slave Culture and Slave ResistanceThe most common form of slave resistance was to run away, and in

some colonies fugitive slaves found it easy to assume the identity of a free black individual. Much less common were slave uprisings. The first occurred in New York in 1712, in which a group of slaves burned buildings, killed whites who arrived, and were later executed, some being tortured and burned alive as a warning to the city’s slave population.

•The Crisis of 1739–1741

Crisis of 1739-1741

• In 1739, the War of Jenkins’ Ear, between England and Spain, prompted a group of South Carolina slaves to seize arms at Stono. They marched toward the safety of Spanish Florida, which offered security to escaped British slaves, killing whites and shouting “Liberty!” as they went. The Stono Rebellion was crushed by colonial militia, and led to the tightening of South Carolina’s slave laws.

Crisis of 1739-1741

• In 1741, in New York City, a panic induced by a series of fires led to rumors that slaves were planning to mount a rebellion with white allies and turn the city over to the Spanish. More than 150 blacks and 20 whites were arrested, and 34 people, including four whites, were executed.

An Empire of Freedom: The British Constitution

• Although slavery was vital to the British Empire, the British people in the eighteenth century believed theirs was the most free and advanced nation in the world.

• Central to the sense of British identity was the concept of liberty.

British Ideas of Liberty

• Britons believed that no man was above the law, not even the king. [Charles I, James II]

• British liberty meant specific rights, a national characteristic, and a state of mind.

The Language of Liberty

• The language of liberty became increasingly identified w/ a general right to resist arbitrary government.

• It was common for “liberty” to be used as a battle cry for the rebellious.

Liberal Freedom

-Liberalism was strongly identified by the philosopher John Locke.-Lockean ideas included individual rights, the consent of the governed, and the right of rebellion against an unjust or oppressive government.

The Public Sphere

• The Right to Vote-• Ownership of property was a

common qualifier for voting in the colonies.

• Suffrage was much more common in the colonies than in Britain.

The Public Sphere

• The Rise of the Assemblies• Elected assemblies became more

assertive in colonial politics during the 18th century.

• Most powerful assembly was in PA, then Mass., NY, VA, and SC.

The Public Sphere

•The Colonial Press•Widespread literacy and the proliferation of newspapers encouraged political discourse.•Bookstores, circulating libraries, and weekly newspapers all contributed to the dissemination of information.

And, in the event that some of you may have forgotten…

• here are the rules for U.S. History quiz/test-taking.

UNIT TEST ON MONDAY SEPT. 22

• Unit test means all four chapters.• In your seat ready to start at second bell.• Anyone not in his seat by second bell will receive

a ZERO.• Anyone talking after the test has been

administered (unless it’s to me,) will receive a ZERO.

• Anyone leaning back or forward in his chair and appearing to communicate with another student, will receive a ZERO.

Test-taking etiquette cont’d

• If you finish your test and talk (unless it’s to me) before EVERYONE has finished, you will receive a ZERO.

• You may talk quietly when I tell you that you may talk. Anyone talking before that will receive a ZERO.

NOTES FOR PERIOD 5

• The following slides contain lecture notes that were intended for the class on Friday. As you know, we did not get to this information, concentrating instead on a PPT about behavior and manners.

• Questions relating to this information will almost certainly be on the test, despite our not having been able to cover the material.

Imperial Rivalries

-The Middle Ground:•The western frontier of British America, particularly the Ohio Valley, was a battleground that saw nearly constant conflict between France, Britain, and their Indian allies, mostly tribes that had been pushed their by European settlement.

The ‘Middle Ground’

•On this “middle ground” between European empires and Indian sovereignty, Indians from various tribes lived together, alongside European traders and missionaries. Indians of the Ohio Valley learned to play the British and French off each against other.

Battle for the Continent

• The Seven Years’ War• In 1749, as white settlers began moving

into the Ohio Valley, Virginia awarded an immense grant of land there to the Ohio Company, who could sell the land to settlers. The grant threatened the Valley’s Indians and caused the French to reinforce their presence.

The Seven Years’ War

• The British had fought its rivals France and Spain in three inconclusive wars earlier in the eighteenth century, and to finance these wars Britain’s public expenditures, taxes, and national debt had greatly increased, inspiring discontent at home and in the colonies. The Seven Years’ War saw fighting among these global empires across the entire globe, in what was truly a first world war.

The Seven Years’ War

• It started in 1754 with British efforts to dislodge the French from forts in western Pennsylvania guarding the Ohio Valley. When a small force of soldiers led by George Washington entered the area, conflict ensued.

The Seven Years’ War

• For the first two years of the war, French and Indian forces successfully attacked the frontiers of the British colonies in North America. Only in 1757, under Prime Minster Pitt’s leadership, did the British government turn the tide. Britain funded Prussia and Austria’s campaigns against France and its ally Spain in Europe, while the British struck back in the colonies.

A World Transformed• In the Peace of Paris in 1763, France ceded

Canada to Britain, and received in return the sugar islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Spain ceded Florida to Britain in return for the Philippines and Cuba, which the British had seized during the war. Spain also acquired Louisiana from the French. France’s empire in North America was finished. But attempts to pay for the costs of the war led to events that precipitated the French and the American revolutions.

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.4 Eastern North America after the Peace of Paris, 1763

Battle for the Continent

• Pontiac’s Rebellion• The French defeat upset the balance-of-

power diplomacy that had enabled Indian groups like the Iroquois to maintain a degree of autonomy, and they saw Britain’s victory and its colonies as a threat. The French conceded lands that Indians controlled to the British, without their consent.

Pontiac’s Rebellion

• The Treaty of Paris had caused confusion about land claims, control of the fur trade, and tribal relations in general. In 1763, Indians in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes regions rebelled against British rule.

• Although named Pontiac’s rebellion after an Ottawa warrior, in fact Neolin, a Delaware religious prophet, inspired much of the rebellion with visions that urged Indians to reject European technologies, commercial relations, and alcohol, and to expel the British from their lands. He also encouraged Indians of different tribes to consider themselves all Indians, forging a pan-Indian identity for the first time.

Neolin’s (?) Rebellion

Proclamation of 1763

• By the end of 1763, British forces had quelled the rebellion. But the British government tried to quiet tensions between white settlers in the colonies and Indians by declaring the Proclamation of 1763 prohibiting further colonial settlement in the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, which were reserved for Indians.

Proclamation of 1763

• It also banned the sale of Indian lands to private individuals, allowing sales only to colonial governments. The new policy enraged settlers and speculators who wanted these lands, and many colonists, including George Washington, ignored the policy and purchased land anyways, illegally. Not solving the issue of westward expansion, the act instead exacerbated settler-Indian relations.

Battle for the Continent

• Pennsylvania and the Indians• The Seven Years’ War changed all the

American colonies, but none more so than Pennsylvania. The war shattered the rule of the old Quaker elite and ended their policy of accommodating the Indians.

Pennsylvania and the Indians

• Many western settlers pushed the colony’s government into a more aggressive stance towards Indians during the war, and the brutal warfare on the colony’s frontier deepened western farmers antagonism towards the Indians.

The End of the “Holy Experiment.”

• During Pontiac’s Rebellion, a group of armed western farmers from Paxton marched on Philadelphia, attacking and massacring Indians along the way. The Paxton Boys successfully pressured the governor into expelling peaceful Indians in that city, and by the end of the 1760s, Penn’s “holy experiment” and his quest for peace between Europeans and Indians was over.

Colonial Identities Emerge

• Although some tensions had arisen between American and British soldiers and officers during the war, the war mostly intensified American colonists’ sense of themselves as Britons, with all the benefits that came from being British. American colonists believed British triumph in the war was a victory for “Protestant freedom” against “Popish slavery.”

The Road to Independence

• France’s defeat reinforced the conflation of British identity with Protestantism and freedom. Soon American colonists would come to believe that they could no longer protect their particularly British liberties within the British empire.

• They would soon set out on a road that led to INDEPENDENCE.