Reasons for Slavery and Attitude Towards Enslavement (College Board AP® US History)

Summary

Timeline

1661-1667 - Barbados Slave Code enacted

1664 – Maryland passes first anti- amalgamation law 

1680 – Virginia passes Act X 

1702 – New York Slave Code

1739 – Stono Rebellion

1728-1739 – First Maroon War

1738- Fort Mose receives a legal charter

1741 – New York Conspiracy 

The transatlantic slave trade played a pivotal role in the development of British colonies, with around 3.1 million Africans forcibly taken from their homeland and shipped under brutal conditions to the Americas. 

Due to the harsh cramped conditions of the Middle Passage roughly 400,000 people died during the journey. Along with Portugal, Britain was highly active in the slave trade. British and Portuguese colonies received about 70% of the enslaved Africans brought to the Americas. 

As the demand for labor grew in the British colonies, especially for plantation work, laws were enacted to regulate and entrench the institution of slavery, including the 1661-1667 Barbados Slave Code. Over time, the development of legal and cultural systems around slavery grew more entrenched, as colonists' attitudes toward enslavement became more accepting and institutionalized.

Enslavement in the British colonies

• There were several factors which fueled African enslavement in the British colonies including: 

  • European demand for agricultural crops and goods from the colonies

  • manufacturing need for raw materials

    • New England textile mills used cotton grown on southern plantations

  • shortage of enslaved Indigenous people and indentured servants to use as a labor force

  • abundance of available land to be worked

Location and use of enslaved labor:

• New England had the fewest number of enslaved people

• This was due to the size of the farms

  • Small farms required less labor

• Enslaved people in New England and the Middle Colonies performed different types of labor

  • Working in the shipyards of port cities

  • Serving as cooks, maids, carriage drivers or other types of household staff

  • Helping their artisan masters, such as shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, butchers and tanners

• Most enslaved men in the Chesapeake and Southern colonies planted and harvested crops on plantations, including:

  • cotton 

  • indigo

  • rice

  • tobacco

• Enslaved women and children in the Chesapeake and Southern colonies were

  • Maids, cooks, or other types of household staff

  • Grooms that cared for horses

• A large number of enslaved people worked in the sugarcane fields of the British West Indies

  • The plantations were larger than plantations in North America

  • Pregnant women had to work until they had their babies

Chattel slavery and laws promoting slavery

• Chattel slavery in the British colonies was enslavement that defined enslaved human beings as pieces of property that could be bought, sold and given in wills just as farming equipment, household goods, and farm animals

• Forms of chattel slavery were:

  • domestic: performing household duties

  • productive: working in fields or mines

• Enslaved families had no control over the fate of their children, spouses, or other family members

  • Enslavers could sell enslaved people and separate families at any time

• Factors that led to chattel slavery’s growth included:

  • increased wealth, social status, and political power for enslavers

  • racism and white supremacy

• Some experts believe Europeans also used chattel slavery to ensure a colony’s survival

  • Not enough Europeans migrated to colonies because of the high costs of traveling and settling there

  • Without chattel slavery they argue that the colonies would not have survived

Laws promoting slavery

• A slave code in Barbados dated 1661 to 1667 described Africans as heathens, brutes, and dangerous

  • The code classified enslaved Africans as chattel property with no rights

• An Anti-Amalgamation Law in Maryland in 1664 forbade Black men from marrying English women

  • Delaware, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia then passed similar laws

• Act X in Virginia in 1680 banned enslaved Africans from carrying weapons of any kind or leaving their enslaver’s plantation without permission

  • General Assembly passed the act to prevent enslaved Africans from rebelling

• An additional act in Virginia in 1682 was also passed to prevent enslaved Africans from rebelling

  • The act prevented enslaved Africans from being in locations other than their enslaver’s plantation for more than four hours at a time

• The 1702 Slave Code in New York gave enslavers the authority to punish enslaved people in any way that didn’t kill them

  • It also prohibited enslaved people from engaging in trade or meeting in groups of more than three people

Resistance by the enslaved

• Through acts of resistance, enslaved people hoped to retain a sense of dignity, agency, and self-respect

• They wanted to retain cultural customs, such as languages, art, and naming traditions 

  • Gullah in South Carolina, was a dialect of English and several African languages 

  • Enslaved people continued to make sweetgrass baskets as they did in West Africa to store food and sort rice

  • They named their children with the names of their ancestors 

• Enslaved people had different forms of covert resistance, such as:

  • pretending to be sick

  • working slowly

  • hiding objects in the home 

  • breaking tools and equipment 

  • producing items that were low quality or sloppy

  • damaging crops

• There were also forms of overt resistance:

  • Theft (tools, fabric and wool, food, etc.)

  • Arson (setting buildings or other property on fire)

  • Running away and then returning

  • Escaping permanently

Examples of resistance

First Maroon War

• Took place from 1728−1739

• More and more enslaved people rebelled against the British and then disappeared to live in the Maroon communities

• Ended with the Maroons receiving 

  • freedom 

  • ownership of their land

  • the authority to govern themselves 

Stono Rebellion

• Named for its location near the Stono River in Charleston, South Carolina

• Largest enslaved uprising in British North America

• In 1739, an enslaved man named Jeremy led about 20 enslaved people to raid a firearms shop

  • Other enslaved people joined, and the group grew to about 60 people

  • Some enslaved people did not join the group willingly

• The group killed more than 20 white people, including some overseers, as they moved south toward Spanish Florida 

• White colonists chased the group 

• Within hours, the white colonists killed or captured the enslaved people. 

  • They executed survivors or sold them to enslavers in the West Indies 

New York Conspiracy of 1741

• Authorities accuse enslaved people and lower-class white colonists of setting fires as part of a plot to take over New York City

  • lower-class white colonists: suspected of wanting to take over city government

  • enslaved people: suspected of helping to set fires in exchange for receiving their freedom

• New York City held trials

  • Police had arrested almost 200 people, charging some white Catholics with being spies

• A young indentured servant who had been offered a large reward testified she knew three enslaved Black men and a group of white people had plotted to burn the city and kill others.

• On the basis of rumors, false confessions and untrue allegations, the judge ordered the execution of about 30 Black people and 4 white people

  • The judge also had 80 more people deported, most of them Black people

  • The court cases did not uncover any specific evidence of a plot    

Fort Mose 

• In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida gave the Fort Mose settlement in St. Augustine the first legal charter for Africans fleeing enslavement in the English colonies

  • An estimated 100 Africans lived at Fort Mose

• To live freely, people had to

  • pledge allegiance to the king of Spain

  • became members of the Catholic Church

  • serve in the military (men)

• The community created a culture that mixed Indigenous, Spanish, and English traditions