There is no Such Thing as Rest: Slavery in US



There is no Such Thing as Rest: Slavery in US

The Central Idea

When one human being owns another human being, controlling that person's life and liberty, that condition is known as slavery. Slavery has existed throughout history in many parts of the world. Slavery in the United States have not been legal since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, but it played a significant role in the development of the country. Its effects linger today in the form of racism and racial inequity (Bergad & Laird, 2007).

Discussion

The history of slavery in the United States dates back to the early fourteenth century. Spain and Portugal, two wealthy European countries, began the practice of capturing Africans in their homeland and forcing them to become slaves in Europe. Europeans took slavery to the Caribbean and the West Indies when they conquered those lands in the late sixteenth century, and the practice eventually migrated to the American colonies. In 1619, a Dutch ship brought the first 20 Africans to Jamestown in colonial America. Required to work for a certain time, those Africans received in exchange transportation, room, and board during their indentured servitude and then received land and freedom once their period of servitude was up. Africans were, however, brought to America involuntarily (Berlin, 1998).

Not all servants in the American colonies were African, but attitudes in the 1600s began to disfavor the servants who were. In 1640, three servants escaped from their Virginia master but were captured. A Virginia court ordered two of the servants, who were European, to work for their master another year before being freed. The third servant, who was African, was ordered to serve his master for the rest of his life (Davis, 2008).

African slaves became preferable to European servants. Colonists in the Caribbean and the West Indies were enjoying massive agricultural production, thanks largely to the use of slaves brought by ship from Africa. Virginia colonists interested in achieving the same prosperity passed a law in 1661 that not only recognized African slaves but deemed that any child born to a slave was also a slave. Other colonies passed similar laws. A market for African slaves grew quickly in the American colonies. The slave trafficking industry developed, with Dutch and even fellow Africans capturing Africans, putting them in manacles and transporting them in crowded, unsanitary ships to North America (Kolchin, 1993).

The treatment of slaves in the American colonies varied depending largely on the colony's economy. Northern colonies, with an economy dependent primarily on exports, did not have a substantial need for slaves, although slaves and slave trading did exist there. In the middle colonies, such as Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey, domestic slaves were common; farms in this region were small, and it was not common for these farmers to own slaves. In the southern colonies—Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia—the economy relied on large-scale production of agriculture, including tobacco, rice, and eventually ...