Slavery in American Society: Impact and Evolution Essay

Other Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans were the groups thought to be most suitable for the economic demand of labor. Many of the early views of West Africans were received through the bible until written accounts of encounters with these people were made. These written accounts of the encounters of West Africans led to the idea West Africans could be brought over and sold in the Americas to work in chattel slavery. This in turn made them the ultimate choice for the labor force of the English. However the famous sale of twenty Africans to the colonists at Jamestown in 1619 by Dutch slave traders did not equate to the introduction of chattel slavery just yet. Many early African slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants brought in from England. They could work the land for a set number of years then after their term was up be freed and given a piece of land. Indentured servitude was not hereditary but their contract could be sold, bartered, given away or gambled away. These contracts gave away the servant’s labor but it did not give away the servant’s person. Despite this African presence, slavery was slow to arrive in Virginia because the mortality rate for indentured servants was so high during the first decades of the Virginia colony. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until economic considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

The term slave is defined as a person held in servitude as the chattel of another, or one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence. The most well known cases of slavery occurred during the settling of the United States of America. From 1619 until July 1st 1928 slavery was allowed within our country.

The slave trade into the United States began in 1620 with the sale of nineteen Africans to a colony called “Virginia”. These slaves were brought to America on a Dutch ship and were sold as indentured slaves. An Indentured slave is a person who has an agreement to serve for a specific amount of time and will no longer be a servant once that time has passed, they would

From the first settlement of America in 1607, throughout its colonization, and through the Revolutionary War, American citizens owned slaves. They worked in the fields, provided domestic help, performed heavy manual labor, and white settlers depended on them to get the work done. But after these settlers freed themselves from the tyrannical clutches of the British government, many turned their focus to freeing the men they owned. From 1776 onward, American attitudes toward the institution of slavery changed. As the country slowly expanded westward, the opposition of slavery came to the forefront of the nation’s minds, drawing on economic and social ideas, like that of David Wilmot and the American Colonization Society, and on moral implications,

Soon this need for cheap labor was replaced with a need for even cheaper labor. Slavery filled this need, but when Africans arrived to America in 1619, the colonists initially treated them as indentured servants. It was not until 1641 that the first slave codes were passed in the colony of Massachusetts and 20 years later in Virginia, marking the

During early 19th century, the entrenchment of Southern slavery, there was discussion between planters who benefitted from it and abolitionists who fought against it. Most Americans, especially those in Southern states, understood that slavery system could not help parting from their economic and social system. Southern slavery system brought big economical benefits. However, it negatively influenced American society as a whole rather that positively.

During the colonization era, most of the laborers came from Great Britain as indentured servants. An indentured servant is a person that signed a contract to pay for their passage to America by working. They usually worked on a farm since the colonies were based on agriculture. These servants were young laborers that intended on becoming permanent residents of the Chesapeake Bay settlements. Some servant owners treated them the same way they treated their family members, whether it was good or bad. Sometimes, convicted criminals were transported to the colonies as indentured servants instead of being imprisoned. Indentured servants weren’t considered slaves. However, when they came to Virginia they were required to work four to seven years to pay for the cost of their transportation. Some found that the major problem with indentured servants was most of them left after several years after they became skilled. It was estimated that over half of all of the white immigrants came as indentured servants. The number of indentured servants was the highest in the South.

This was the period of post-slavery, early twentieth century, in southern United States where blacks were still treated by whites inhumanly and cruelly, even after the abolition laws of slavery of 1863. They were still named as ‘color’. Nothing much changed in African-American’s lives, though the laws of abolition of slavery were made, because now the slavery system became a way of life. The system was accepted as destiny. So the whites also got license to take disadvantages and started exploiting them sexually, racially, physically, and economically. During slavery, they were sold in the slave markets to different owners of plantation and were bound to be separated from each other. Thus they lost their nation, their dignity, and were dehumanized and exploited by whites.

The colonists did not choose Africans for slavery simply because they were unease by their alien skin tone or because they belittle the people’s lack of civilized background. In fact, the first Africans to arrive from abroad in 1619 were treated the same as the white indentured servants, who could earn their freedom, even a few acres of land, within agreed years of labor. Since cash crops are the fastest and most stable way to wealth, the demand for

With the need for slaves increasing, the importation of slaves increased. Slaves from Africa were being brought to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Having slaves turned out to be

The practice of one person legally owning another is older than this great nation. Using people of color as chattel, a bad habit picked up from our mother country Britain, who got the idea from the Portuguese around the 1400’s (Carey, 2000), was an international affair. There were different types of bondage back then, some even amicable. In “The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis (1984),” David Galenson writes how the indentured servant labor force was a barter system whereby a person of little means might sign on to work on a farm, mine, or even received passage on a ship for a period of time or till the debt is paid and then that person was free to go live her life as a free citizen. With the discovery of the new world, British companies had to invest money up front to get the laborer physically to the work site of the Americas. Galenson poses the use of indentured servants initially in colonial America was out of the pressing and lucrative need for a workforce to tame [the ill-gotten and continue the ongoing capture and occupation of] the now the United States. By as early as 1617, there was a definite belief in the importance of the laborer in the settlement of the Americas and getting laborers to the colonies from Great Britain was quite the

Slavery, especially in America, has been an age old topic of riveting discussions. Specialist and other researchers have been digging around for countless years looking for answers to the many questions that such an activity provided. They have looked into the economics of slavery, slave demography, slave culture, slave treatment, and slave-owner ideology (p. ix). Despite slavery being a global issue, the main focus is always on American slavery. Peter Kolchin effectively illustrates in his book, American Slavery how slavery evolved alongside of historical controversy, the slave-owner relationship, how slavery changed over time, and how America compared to other slave nations around the world.

Slavery in America began from the early 17th century, a slave was someone who could be forced to work from the age of 10 or if they were not so lucky they could be slave when they were 4 years old. Many of the slaves in the North America came from the west coast of Africa. Actually, they were captured by African tribes and some of them were captured by European, and the slave would be traded to European and American merchant. In 1619 slaves ( African Americans ) were brought to Jamestown, Virginia. At the beginning they were an indentured servants instead of slaves, but at the time goes by the owner of this indentured servant saw the beneficial of having a servant without have to pay them and the master could have power

     Slavery in America stems well back to when the new world was first discovered and was led by the country to start the African Slave Trade-Portugal. The African Slave Trade was first exploited for plantations

Farmers, planters, and shopkeepers in the colonies found it very difficult to hire free workers, primarily because it was so easy for potential workers to set up their own farms.” By this, there freedom steered to minimal servants because as England improved their economy, the lower amount people wanted to become servants.