1. SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES

2. The introduction of Africans to the English colonies in America occurred in Virginia when in 1619 a Dutch ship captain stopped in Jamestown in need of provisions. Onboard were 20 West Africans whom he offered in exchange for the goods he needed, but because the Africans had been Christianized, English law did not allow them to be sold as slaves so they became servants instead.

3. Virginia plantation owners however wanted more than servants. They wanted slaves to work long hard hours in the tobacco fields.

4. How did slavery become legal in America? In 1640, a Virginia judge sentenced an indentured African servant to life enslavement as punishment for running away. Then in 1662, a law provided that an African baby born in Virginia had the status of free or slave depending on its mother. Then finally in 1705, a Virginia law designated slaves as real property that could be inherited as part of an owners estate.

5. Importing African slaves to work on Virginia’s tobacco plantations quickly became common, but England’s other colonies would need workers too. To meet the need for cheap labor they would turn to indentured servants. These were immigrants – usually poor white and young who agreed to work for servants for anyone paying their way to the colonies.

6. They worked as indentured servants for 4 to 7 years after which they would become a free person as the other colonists. Indentured servants didn’t always satisfy the people they worked for often refusing to do certain kinds of work and they often ran away before their indenture was worked off. Many landowners preferred using African slaves to work their plantations because they worked harder, they did not have to replace them every few years, and it was harder for them to run away because of their skin color.

7. In 1672, England chartered the Royal African Company to supply slaves from Africa to her colonies in North America and the West Indies. A system known as the triangular trade took place. Here New England rum was shipped directly to Africa, where it was sold for payment in newly captured slaves, who were taken to the West Indies and sold to sugarcane planters. Money from the sale of the salves was used in making more rum.

9. Most captured African slaves did not end up in the Americas however, most would end up in Brazil, West Indies, or Mexico were they would work in mines or sugar plantations.

10. SLAVERY IN GEORGIA The trustees had intended that there be no slavery in Georgia and Oglethorpe vigorously opposed any attempts to bring in slaves. In December 1738 a group of Savannah colonists known as “Malcontents” petitioned the trustees to allow slaves in Georgia.

11. They argued that they could never raise enough products to export without help. Other Georgians objected to slavery and in January 1739, Scottish settlers at Darien asked the trustees to keep their ban on slavery because having slaves would take away the white settlers will to work hard.

12. They also said, “It is shocking to human nature, that any race of mankind should be sentenced to perpetual slavery… freedom to them must be as dear as to us.” The trustees rejected the Savannah petition but slaves were brought in anyway because some rented them from their Carolina owners or simply snuck them in.

13. Georgia’s colonists argued that the climate was too hot for white farm workers and rice could be raised only by black workers. Finally in 1750 the trustees gave in.

14. SLAVE CODES The growing number of slaves in the colony resulted in laws known as slave codes to govern their behavior and regulate their treatment. The 1770 Slave Code provided that:

15. 1. The offspring of slaves were to remain absolute slaves and to be the personal property of their owners. 2. slaves could not travel outside the town or plantation limits without a ticket signed by a responsible person or they would be whipped. 3. If a slaves struck a white person they slave would suffer after trial and conviction any punishment the justice thought fit not extending to life or limb for the 2nd offense punishment was death.

16. 1. any person employing a slave on the Lord’s Day except in work of absolute necessity must forfeit 10 shillings. anyone teaching a slave to write or read would forfeit a sum of 20 pounds.