Norton Media Library Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Chapter 4 Norton Media Library Chapter 4 Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire, to 1763 Eric Foner

I. Olaudah Equiano

II. Slavery and the Empire The Triangular Trades British manufactured goods were sent to Africa and the colonies Colonial products were sent to Europe Slaves from Africa were sent to the New World Since trade centered upon slavery in some form, free colonists believed that freedom meant in part the power and right to enslave others The Middle Passage The Middle Passage was the voyage across the Atlantic for slaves Slaves were crammed aboard ships for maximum profit The numbers of slaves increased steadily through natural reproduction

II. Slavery and the Empire (con’t) Chesapeake Slavery Three distinct slave systems were well entrenched in Britain’s mainland colonies Chesapeake South Carolina and Georgia Nonplantation societies of New England and the Middle Colonies Chesapeake slavery was based on tobacco Chesapeake plantations tended to be smaller and daily interactions between masters and slaves were more extensive

II. Slavery and the Empire (con’t) Slavery transformed Chesapeake society into an elaborate hierarchy of degrees of freedom large planters yeomen farmers indentured servants; tenant farmers slaves With the consolidation of a slave society, race took on more and more importance as a line of social division Liberties of free blacks were stripped away

II. Slavery and the Empire (con’t) Slavery in the Rice Kingdom South Carolina and Georgia slavery rested upon rice Rice and indigo required large-scale cultivation, worked by slaves The economy of scale for rice was such that plantations were large By 1770, the number of South Carolina slaves had reached 100,000, well over half the colony’s population Georgia was established by a group of philanthropists led by James Oglethorpe in 1733

II. Slavery and the Empire (con’t) Slavery in the North Since the economics of New England and the Middle Colonies were based on small farms, slavery was far less important Given that slaves were few and posed little threat to the white majority, laws were less harsh than in the South Slaves did represent a sizable percentage of urban laborers, particularly in New York and Philadelphia

III. Slave Culture and Slave Resistance African-Americans The greatest melting pot in American history was the making of an African-American people Most slaves in the eighteenth century were African by birth

III. Slave Culture and Slave Resistance (con’t) African-American Cultures In the Chesapeake, slaves learned English, were part of the Great Awakening, and were exposed to white culture In South Carolina and Georgia, two very different black societies emerged Rice plantations remained distinctly African Urban servants assimilated into Euro-American culture

III. Slave Culture and Slave Resistance (con’t) Resistance to Slavery A common thread for African-Americans was the desire for freedom Many slaves ran away to Florida or cities The first eighteenth-century slave uprising occurred in New York City in 1712 Stono Rebellion of 1739 in South Carolina

IV. An Empire of Freedom British Patriotism Despite the centrality of slavery to its empire, eighteenth-century Great Britain prided itself on being the world’s most advanced and freest nation Britons shared a common law, a common language, a common devotion to Protestantism, and a common enemy in France Britons believed that wealth, religion, and freedom went together

IV. An Empire of Freedom (con’t) The Rights of Englishmen Central to this sense of British identity was the concept of liberty British liberty was simultaneously a collection of specific rights, a national characteristic, and a state of mind Britons believed that no man, even the king, was above the law

IV. An Empire of Freedom (con’t) The Language of Liberty All eighteenth-century Britons “reveled in their worldwide reputation for freedom” It was common for ordinary folk to evoke “liberty” when protesting “in the streets” Republican Liberty Republicanism called for the virtuous elite to give themselves to public service Country Party was critical of the corruption of British politics Cato’s Letters were widely read by the American colonists

IV. An Empire of Freedom (con’t) Liberal Freedom The leading philosopher of liberty was John Locke Lockean ideas included individual rights, the consent of the governed, and the right of rebellion against unjust or oppressive government Locke’s ideas excluded many from their full benefits in the eighteenth century, but they opened the door for many people to challenge later the limitations on their own freedom Republicanism and liberalism would eventually come to be seen as alternative understanding of freedom

V. The Public Sphere The Right to Vote Ownership of property was a common qualifier for voting in the colonies Suffrage was much more common in the colonies than in Britain Property qualification for holding office was far higher than for voting By the mid-eighteenth century the typical officeholder was considerably richer than the norm when the century began

V. The Public Sphere (con’t) Colonial Government During the first half of the eighteenth century the colonies were largely left to govern themselves The colonial elected assemblies exercised great influence over the appointed officials

V. The Public Sphere (con’t) The Rise of the Assemblies Elected assemblies became dominant and assertive in colonial politics in the eighteenth century The most powerful assembly was Pennsylvania followed by Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and South Carolina Leaders of the assemblies found in the writing of the English Country Party a theory that made sense of their own experience

V. The Public Sphere (con’t) Politics in Public The American gentry was very active in the discussion of politics, particularly through clubs Widespread literacy and the proliferation of newspapers encouraged the political discourse Freedom of Expression and Its Limits Freedom of speech was a relatively new idea Freedom of the press was generally viewed as dangerous After 1695, the government could not censor print material and colonial newspapers defended freedom of the press as a central component of liberty

V. The Public Sphere (con’t) The Trial of Zenger John Peter Zenger went on trial in 1735 for seditious libel Found not guilty The outcome promoted the ideas that the truth should always be permitted and that free expression ought to be allowed

V. The Public Sphere (con’t) The American Enlightenment Americans sought to apply to political and social life the scientific method of careful investigation based on research and experiment Deists and natural laws embodied the spirit of the American enlightenment Benjamin Franklin Thomas Jefferson

VI. The Great Awakening Religious Revivals The Great Awakening was a series of local events united by a commitment to a more emotional and personal Christianity than that offered by existing churches The Great Awakening was led by flamboyant preachers like Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

VI. The Great Awakening (con’t) The Preaching of Whitefield English minister George Whitefield is credited with sparking the Great Awakening He believed that God was merciful The Great Awakening enlarged the boundaries of liberty

VI. The Great Awakening (con’t) The Awakening’s Impact The Great Awakening inspired criticism of many aspects of colonial society A few preachers explicitly condemned slavery, but most masters managed to reconcile Christianity and slaveholding The Great Awakening expanded the circulation of printed material in the colonies

VII. Imperial Rivalries Spain in North America On paper a vast territorial empire, Spanish North America actually consisted of a few small and isolated urban clusters Despite establishing religious missions and presidios, the population in Spanish North America remained low

VII. Imperial Rivalries (con’t) California Spain ordered the colonization of California in response to a perceived Russian threat Junipero Serra founded the first mission in San Diego in 1769 California was a mission frontier The French Empire The French empire expanded in the early eighteenth century The French tended to view North America as a place of cruel exile for criminals and social outcasts

VIII. Battle for the Continent The Middle Ground Indians were constantly being pushed from their homes into a “middle ground” between European empires and Indian sovereignty The government of Virginia granted an immense land grant in 1749 to the Ohio Company

VIII. Battle for the Continent (con’t) The Seven Years’ War The war began in 1754 as the British tried to dislodge the French from western Pennsylvania For two years, the war went against the British The tide of war turned in 1757 with the coming of British Prime Minister William Pitt The Peace of Paris in 1763 resulted in the expulsion of France from North America

VIII. Battle for the Continent (con’t) Pontiac’s Rebellion With the removal of the French, the balance of power diplomacy that had enabled groups like the Iroquois to maintain a significant degree of autonomy was eliminated In 1763 Indians launched a revolt against British rule Neolin spoke of a pan-Indian identity To avoid further Indian conflicts, London issued the Proclamation of 1763

VIII. Battle for the Continent (con’t) Pennsylvania and the Indians The war deepened the hostility of western Pennsylvania farmers toward Indians and witnessed numerous indiscriminate assaults on Indian communities The Paxton Boys demanded that Indians be removed from Pennsylvania Colonial Identities Colonists emerged from the Seven Years’ War with a heightened sense of collective identity The war also strengthened colonists’ pride in being members of the British empire

The Triangular Trades • pg. 124

The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, 1460–1770 • pg. 126

European Empires in North America, ca. 1750 • pg. 152

Eastern North America after the Peace of Paris, 1763 • pg. 154

Table 4.1 • pg. 131

fig04_02.jpg Page 121: The title page of Olaudah Equiano’s account of his life, the best-known narrative by an eighteenth-century slave. The portrait of Equiano in European dress and holding a Bible challenges stereotypes of blacks as “savages” incapable of becoming civilized. Reproduced from the Collection of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-54026

fig04_06.jpg Page 123: An architect’s plan for a slave ship. These drawings illustrate the conditions under which slaves endured the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. Reproduced from the Collection of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-44000

fig04_14.jpg Page 137: The Polling, by the renowned eighteenth-century British artist William Hogarth, satirizes the idea that British elections are decided by the reasoned deliberations of upstanding property owners. Inspired by a corrupt election of 1754, Hogarth depicts an election scene in which the maimed and dying are brought to the polls to cast ballots. At the center, lawyers argue over whether a man who has a hook for a hand can swear on the Bible. By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane's Museum

fig04_15.jpg Page 139: An anonymous engraving depicting a 1764 Pennsylvania election suggests the intensity of political debate in the Middle Colonies. Credit: American Antiquarian Society.

fig04_17_1.jpg Page 145: A portrait of Benjamin Franklin in fur hat and spectacles, dated 1777, depicts him as a symbol of America. Bettmann/CORBIS

fig04_20.jpg Page 151: The cover of a magazine published in Pennsylvania in 1758 depicts English and French attempting to trade with an Indian. The Frenchman offers a tomahawk and musket, the Englishman a Bible and cloth. Reproduced from the Collection of the Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-5309

fig04_22.jpg Page 157: The Paxton Expedition, a 1764 engraving depicting Pennsylvania farmers who marched on Philadelphia demanding the expulsion of Indians from the colony. I.N. Stokes Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, The New York Public Library; Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

fig04_21.jpg Page 158: Benjamin Franklin produced this famous cartoon in 1754, calling on Britain’s North American colonies to unite against the French. Library of Congress

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Give Me Liberty! An American History End chap. 4 W. W. Norton & Company Independent and Employee-Owned This concludes the Norton Media Library Slide Set for Chapter 4 Give Me Liberty! An American History by Eric Foner