The Development of Slavery in the English Colonies

Critical Analysis Essay

Slavery gradually developed in the English North American colonies. Slavery became an institution because, during the colonial times, it was a very agrarian centered economy and society. The amount of labor it took to run the massive plantations demanded more than what any one family could do so in order to keep their society functioning slavery became a popular thing. The Natives were never a reliable source for labor because they would often fall ill to the diseases brought with the Europeans to the English colonies making the colonists seek other means of labor. Initially indentured servants provided most of the labor in the English colonies. The Thirty Year's War had left Europe's economy depressed, and many skilled and unskilled laborers were without work. A new life in the New World offered a glimmer of hope and explains how one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants. The life of an indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, but it wasn't slavery. There were several laws that protected their rights but the punishment handed out was far worse than for non-servants. An indentured servant typically worked for four to seven years to pay for their passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues but their contracts could be extended for breaking the law or even becoming pregnant if you were a female. Indentured servitude became less popular because the increase in transatlantic shipping made it easier for people to emigrate to the English colonies debt free, therefore no longer forcing them to become servants. As servitude grew less popular the cost to employ an indentured servant rose, and many landowners felt threatened by newly freed slaves demands for land. These perceived threats and the cost contributed to the decline of the institution and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun.

African slaves are what the colonists turned to in order to meet the need for laborers. Slavery did not become popular over night contrary to what I believed before taking this American History class. It was a gradual process that started in the late seventeenth century and by the mid-eighteenth century all of the english colonies had a slave population. In early 1670 , many of the English settlers in Carolina had came from Barbados. They not only brought enslaved Africans with them but the beginnings of a legal code and a social system that accepted race slavery. As new colonies with a greater acceptance of race slavery were founded, the older colonies continues to grow not only in size but acceptance also. Most Africans arrived several dozen at a time aboard small boats and privateers from the Caribbean. All of these servants, no matter what their origin, could hope to obtain their own land and the personal independence that goes with private property. Soon European countries competed to transport and exploit African labor and West African leaders proved willing to engage in profitable trade with them as more New World planters had the money to purchase new workers from across the ocean. Before long the contacts became more regular, the departures more frequent, the routes more familiar, the sales more efficient. Their ruthless competition pushed up the volume of transatlantic trade from Africa and drove down the relative cost of individual Africans in the New World at a time when the price of labor from Europe was rising.

All these large and gradual changes would still not have brought about the terrible transformation to race slavery, had it not been for several other crucial factors. One being the mounting fear of colonial leaders sensing discontent and cooperation among poor and unfree colonists. Europeans and Africans worked together, intermarried, ran away together, and shared common resentments toward the well-to-do. Since the number of poor and unfree greatly outnumbered the authorities it was quickly decided that in order to control the labor force it must be divided. Lifetime servitude could be enforced by removing Christian conversion as a prospect for freedom. A more sweeping solution, however, involved removing religion altogether as a factor in determining servitude. Therefore, another fundamental key to the terrible transformation was the shift from changeable spiritual faith to unchangeable physical appearance as a measure of status. The dominant English soon began to view Africans not as “ heathen people” but as “black people” and began to refer to themselves not as Christians but as white people. This social shift soon found its way into their colonial laws. Within one generation the definition of who could be a slave changed from someone who was not a christian to someone who was not European in appearance. It was a small but monumental step from saying that black people could be enslaved to saying they