Essay about The Slave Trade in Colonial America - 4298 Words

The Slave Trade in Colonial America The first blacks in the American Colonies were brought in, like many lower-class whites, as indentured servants. Most indentured servants had a contract to work without wages for a master for four to seven years, after which they became free. Blacks brought in as slaves, however, had no right to eventual freedom. The first black indentured servants arrived in Jamestown in the colony of Virginia in 1619. They had been captured in Africa and were sold at auction in Jamestown. After completing their service, some black indentured servants bought property. But racial prejudice among white colonists forced most free blacks to remain in the lowest level of colonial†¦show more content†¦Many slaves in those colonies worked as skilled and unskilled labourers in factories, homes, and shipyards and on fishing and trading ships. During the mid-1600s, the colonies began to pass laws called slave codes. In general, these codes prohibited slaves from owning weapons, receiving an education, meeting one another or moving about without the permission of their masters, and testifying against white people in court. Slaves received harsher punishments for some crimes than white people. A master usually received less punishment for killing a slave than for killing a free person for the same reason. Slaves on small farms probably had more freedom than plantation slaves, and slaves in urban areas had fewer restrictions in many cases than slaves in rural areas. Slavery in the American South By the early 1800s, more than 700,000 slaves lived in the South. They accounted for about a third of the regions people. By 1860, the slave states had about 4 million slaves. Slaves outnumbered whites in South Carolina and made up over half the population in both Maryland and Virginia. Slavery began to develop even deeper roots in the South after Eli Whitney of Massachusetts invented his cotton gin in 1793. This machine removed the seeds from cotton as fast as 50 people working by hand andShow MoreRelatedColonial American Slavery Essay examples1458 Words   |  6 Pagesof slavery in the development of early America is an extremely complex, yet vitally important part of American History. There are hundreds of thousands of documents, debates, and historical studies available today. According to Ms. Goetz, the assistant professor of history at Rice University, who states, in The Southern Journal of History, that in addition to geographic and chronological diversity in the America’s, assessment of experiences of colonial slaves is extremely complex, â€Å"especially inRead MoreTriangular trade.970 Words   |  4 PagesAnalyze the role of slavery and Triangular trade in the Colonial mercantile structure and for the primitive accumulation of Capital that a llowed the take off of Capitalism? The slave trade originated in a shortage of labor in the New World. 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