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..."