1619
The other crucial event that would play a role in the
development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown.
A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in
1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal
position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years labor
in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a
racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680's. (A
Brief History of Jamestown, The Association for the Preservation
of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, VA 23220, email: apva@apva.org,
Web published February, 2000)
The legend has been repeated endlessly that the first blacks in
Virginia were "indentured servants," but there is no hint of
this in the records. The legend grew up because the word slave
did not appear in Virginia records until 1656, and statutes
defining the status of blacks began to appear casually in the
1660s. The inference was then made that blacks called servants
must have had approximately the same status as white indentured
servants. Such reasoning failed to notice that Englishmen, in
the early seventeenth century, used the work servant when they
meant slave in our sense, and, indeed, white Southerners
invariably used servant until 1865 and beyond. Slave entered the
Southern vocabulary as a technical word in trade, law and
politics. (Robert McColley in Dictionary of Afro-American
Slavery, Edited by Randall M. Miller and John David Smith,
Greenwood Press, 1988 pp 281)
Jamestown had exported 10 tons of tobacco to Europe and was a
boomtown. The export business was going so well the colonists
were able to afford two imports which would greatly contribute
to their productivity and quality of life. 20 Blacks from Africa
and 90 women from England. The Africans were paid for in food;
each woman cost 120 pounds of tobacco. The Blacks were bought as
indentured servants from a passing Dutch ship low on food, and
the women were supplied by a private English company. Those who
married the women had to pay their passage--120 pounds of
tobacco. (Gene Barios, Tobacco BBS: tobacco news )
With the success of tobacco planting, African Slavery was
legalized in Virginia and Maryland, becoming the foundation of
the Southern agrarian economy. (The Concise Columbia
Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS
Bookshelf.)
Although the number of African American slaves grew slowly at
first, by the 1680s they had become essential to the economy of
Virginia. During the 17th and 18th centuries, African American
slaves lived in all of England's North American colonies. Before
Great Britain prohibited its subjects from participating in the
slave trade, between 600,000 and 650,000 Africans had been
forcibly transported to North America. ("Immigration," Microsoft
Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)
Following the arrival of twenty Africans aboard a Dutch
man-of-war in Virginia in 1619, the face of American slavery
began to change from the "tawny" Indian to the "blackamoor"
African in the years between 1650 and 1750. Though the issue is
complex, the unsuitability of Native Americans for the labor
intensive agricultural practices, their susceptibility to
European diseases, the proximity of avenues of escape for Native
Americans, and the lucrative nature of the African slave trade
led to a transition to an African based institution of slavery.
During this period of transition, however, the colonial "wars"
against the Pequots, the Tuscaroras, the Yamasees, and numerous
other Indian nations led to the enslavement and relocation of
tens of thousands of Native Americans. In the early years of the
eighteenth century, the number of Native American slaves in
areas such as the Carolinas may have been as much as half of the
African slave population. During this transitional period,
Africans and Native Americans shared the common experience of
enslavement. In addition to working together in the fields, they
lived together in communal living quarters, produced collective
recipes for food and herbal remedies, shared myths and legends,
and ultimately became lovers. The intermarriage of Africans and
Native Americans was facilitated by the disproportionality of
African male slaves to females (3 to 1) and the decimation of
Native American males by disease, enslavement, and prolonged
wars with the colonists.
As Native American societies in the Southeast were primarily
matrilineal, African males who married Native American women
often became members of the wife's clan and citizens of the
respective nation. As relationships grew, the lines of
distinction began to blur. The evolution of red-black people
began to pursue its own course; many of the people who came to
be known as slaves, free people of color, Africans, or Indians
were most often the product of integrating cultures. In areas
such as Southeastern Virginia, The Low Country of the Carolinas,
and Silver Bluff, S.C., communities of Afro-Indians began to
spring up. The depth and complexity of this intermixture is
revealed in a 1740 slave code in South Carolina: all Negroes and
Indians, (free Indians in amity with this government, and
Negroes, mulattos, and mustezoes, who are now free, excepted)
mulattos or mustezoes who are now, or shall hereafter be in this
province, and all their issue and offspring...shall be and they
are hereby declared to be, and remain hereafter absolute slaves.
(Patrick Minges, Beneath the Underdog: Race, Religion and the
"Trail of Tears" Union Seminary Quarterly Review Email: pm47@columbia.edu
Union Theological Seminary, New York )
Millions of Native Americans were also enslaved, particularly in
South America. In the American colonies in 1730, nearly 25
percent of the slaves in the Carolinas were Cherokee, Creek, or
other Native Americans. From the 1500s through the early 1700s,
small numbers of white people were also enslaved by kidnapping,
or for crimes or debts. SUGGESTED READINGS: Herbert Klein's,
African Slavery in Latin American and the Caribbean (1986);
Ramon Gutierrez's When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away:
Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico 1500-1846 (1991);
Great Documents in American Indian History (1995), edited by
Wayne Moquin; J. McIver Weatherford's Native Roots: How the
Indians Enriched America (1991); Native Heritage: Personal
Accounts by American Indians 1790-Present (1995), edited by
Arlene Hirschfelder; Robert Edgar Conrad's Children of God's
Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (1983);
and Sidney Mintz's and Richard Price's An Anthropological
Approach to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective
(1981). (Ten Myths, Half-truths and Misunderstandings about
Black History, Ethnic NewsWatch SoftLine Information, Inc.,
Stamford, CT) ( For more information about the history of the
contact between Native Americans, Africans and Americans of
African descent, see the work done by Patrick Minges, Union
Theological Seminary )
Also see: Winthrop Jordan's White Over Black_ (see the index to
find the relevant pages), and in an old publication by Almon
Wheeler Lauber called Indian Slavery in Colonial Times within
the Present Limits of the United States, Columbia University
Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Columbia
University, 1913
In the Americas, there were added dimensions to this resistance,
especially reactions to the racial characteristics of chattel
slavery. This fundamental difference from the condition of
slaves in Africa emerged gradually, although the roots of racial
categories were established early. Acts of resistance that
combined indentured Irish workers, African slaves, and Amer-Indian
prisoners did occur, although in the end these alliances
disintegrated. Furthermore, slaves did not consolidate ethnic
identifications on the basis of color, but it was widely
understood that most blacks were slaves and no slaves were
white. Although there were black, mulatto and American-born
slave owners in some colonies in the Americas, and many whites
did not own slaves, chattel slavery was fundamentally different
in the Americas from other parts of the world because of the
racial dimension. (Hilary McD. Beckles, "The Colors of Property:
Brown, white and Black Chattels and their Responses to the
Colonial Frontier", Slavery and Abolition, 15, 2 (1994), 36-51.
Cited by Paul E. Lovejoy in "The African Diaspora: Revisionist
Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under
Slavery" . Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition
and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997))
Tobacco was considered powerful medicine by native Americans.
Cigarettes of today have been adulterated to enhance their
addictive properties. Though ritual varied, "Smoking [by native
Americans] was chiefly done after the evening meal, in the
sweathouse, before going to sleep. It was a social ritual, and
the pipes were passed around the group. A man never let his pipe
out of his sight. Occasionally he would stop for a smoke when on
a journey or when meeting someone on the trail." (Early Uses of
Indian Tobacco in California, California Natural History Guides:
10, Early Uses Of California Plants, By Edward K. Balls,
University Of California Press, Copyright 1962 by the Regents of
the University of California ISBN: 0-520-00072-2 )
In fact, the first twenty "Negar" slaves had arrived from the
West Indies in a Dutch vessel and were sold to the governor and
a merchant in Jamestown in late August of 1619, as reported by
John Rolfe to John Smith back in London. (Robinson, Donald L.
Slavery and the Structure of American Politics, 1765 - 1820. NY:
Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1971) By 1625, ten slaves were
listed in the first census of Jamestown. The first public slave
auction of 23 individuals, disgracefully, was held in Jamestown
square itself in 1638. What were to become the parameters and
properties of the "peculiar institution" were defined in the
Virginia General Assembly from about 1640 onwards. Negro
indenture, then, appears to have been no more than a legal
fiction of brief duration in Virginia. Black freedmen would live
in a legal limbo until the general emancipation in 1864, unable
to stand witness in their own defense against the testimony of
any Euro-American. The General Court dispositions that appear
after 1640 seem to support this contention. Barbados was the
first British possession to enact restrictive legislation
governing slaves in 1644, and other colonial administrations,
especially Virginia and Maryland, quickly adopted similar rules
modeled on it. Whipping and branding, borrowed from Roman
practice via the Iberian-American colonies, appeared early and
with vicious audacity.
One Virginian slave, named Emanuel, was convicted of trying to
escape in July, 1640, and was condemned to thirty stripes, with
the letter "R" for "runaway" branded on his cheek and "work in a
shackle one year or more as his master shall see cause." .
(Robinson, Donald L. Slavery and the Structure of American
Politics, 1765 - 1820. NY: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1971)
Shades of Rome! This was most certainly not a contractually
obligated indentured servant, however oppressed but consistent
with English common law, that could expect release from his
contract after a time. Rather, this was an abject slave, subject
to the court's definition of him as mercantable and movable
"property," as chattel or res, and to his master's virtual whim.
Indeed, the general assembly of Virginia in 1662 passed an act
which directly and consciously invoked Justinian code: partvs
seqvitvr ventram, whereby a child born of a slave mother was
also held to be a slave, regardless of its father's legal
status. (Greene, Lorenzo Johnston. The Negro in Colonial New
England. NY: Athaneum Press, 1971) A few years later, the
population of Africans in bondage in Virginia reached about
2,000, and another statute (1667) established compulsory life
servitude, de addictio according to Roman code, for Negroes ...
slavery had become an official institution. (Whitefield,
Theodore Marshall. Slavery Agitation in Virginia, 1829 - 1832.
NY : Negro Universities Press, 1930 Securing the Leg Irons:
Restriction of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia and Maryland,
1625 - 1791. Slavery In Early America's Colonies-- Seeds of
Servitude Rooted in The Civil Law of Rome by Charles P.M. Outwin)
1620
The Pilgrims settled at Plymouth Massachusetts. ". Plymouth, for
the most part, had servants and not slaves, meaning that most
black servants were given their freedom after turning 25 years
old--under similar contractual arrangement as English
apprenticeships." (Were there any blacks on the Mayflower? By
Caleb Johnson member of the General Society of Mayflower
Descendants)
1624
New Amsterdam- The Dutch, who had entered the slave trade in
1621 with the formation of the Dutch West Indies Co., import
blacks to serve on Hudson Valley farms. According to Dutch law,
the children of manumitted (freed) slaves are bound to slavery.
(Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black History
1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1638
The price tag for an African male was around $27, while the
salary of a European laborer was about seventy cents per day.
(Willie F. Page. _The Dutch Triangle: The Netherlands and the
Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664_. Studies in African American
History and Culture. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. xxxv +
262 pp. Bibliographical referen1ces and index. $66.00 (cloth),
ISBN 0-8153-2881-8. Reviewed for H-Review by Dennis R. Hidalgo ,
Central Michigan University)
1640
Whipping and branding, borrowed from Roman practice via the
Iberian-American colonies, appeared early and with vicious
audacity. One Virginian slave, named Emanuel, was convicted of
trying to escape in July, 1640, and was condemned to thirty
stripes, with the letter "R" for "runaway" branded on his cheek
and "work in a shackle one year or more as his master shall see
cause." Charles P.M. Outwin, Securing the Leg Irons: Restriction
of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia and Maryland, 1625 -
1791, footnote taken from Catterall, Helen Honor Tunnicliff.
Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, vol.
I, Cases from the Courts of England, Virginia, West Virginia,
and Kentucky, and vol. IV, Cases from the Courts of New England,
the Middle States, and the District of Columbia. Washington, D.
C., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926 & 1936. Page 77)
1641
Massachusetts colony legalizes slavery. (Underground Railroad
Chronology, National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/boaf/urrtim~1.htm)
1642
Virginia colony enacts law to fine those who harbor or assist
runaway slaves. (Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park
Service). The Virginia law, penalizes people sheltering runaways
20 pounds worth of tobacco for each night of refuge granted.
Slaves are branded after a second escape attempt. (African
American History, Chronology: A Historical Review Major Events
in Black History 1492 thru 1953 )
1649
Black laborers in the Virginia colony still number only 300 (see
1619; 1671). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager
from MS Bookshelf)
Tobacco exports bring prosperity to the Virginia colony.(The
People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
Bookshelf)
1650 For centuries the issue of equal rights presented a major
challenge to the state. Virginia, after all, had been the
primary site for the development of black slavery in the
Americas. By the 1650s some of the indentured servants had
earned their freedom. Because replacements, whether black or
white, were in limited supply and more costly, the Virginia
plantation owners considered the advantages of the "perpetual
servitude" policy exercised by Caribbean landowners. Following
the lead of Massachusetts and Connecticut, Virginia legalized
slavery in 1661. In 1672 the king of England chartered the Royal
African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading
centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown. (Compton's
Encyclopedia Online. http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/)
1650
For centuries the issue of equal rights presented a major
challenge to the state. Virginia, after all, had been the
primary site for the development of black slavery in the
Americas. By the 1650s some of the indentured servants had
earned their freedom. Because replacements, whether black or
white, were in limited supply and more costly, the Virginia
plantation owners considered the advantages of the "perpetual
servitude" policy exercised by Caribbean landowners. Following
the lead of Massachusetts and Connecticut, Virginia legalized
slavery in 1661. In 1672 the king of England chartered the Royal
African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading
centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown. (Compton's
Encyclopedia Online.)
1650
World population estimated 500 million. (GENERAL CHRONOLOGY OF
EVENTS 1994/1995 Leading Edge Research Group)
1651
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, argued from a mechanistic theory
that man is a selfishly individualistic animal at constant war
with others. In the state of nature, life is "nasty, brutish,
and short." (www.sciencetimeline.net presents, marks in the
evolution of western thinking about nature, Assembled by David
Lee, http://www.sciencetimeline.net/1651.htm)
1660
Slavery spread quickly in the American colonies. At first the
legal status of Africans in America was poorly defined, and
some, like European indentured servants, managed to become free
after several years of service. From the 1660s, however, the
colonies began enacting laws that defined and regulated slave
relations. Central to these laws was the provision that black
slaves, and the children of slave women, would serve for life.
This premise, combined with the natural population growth among
the slaves, meant that slavery could survive and grow…("Slavery
in the United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.
Microsoft Corporation.)
The continuing demand for African slaves' labor arose from the
development of plantation agriculture, the long-term rise in
prices and consumption of sugar, and the demand for miners. Not
only did Africans represent skilled laborers, but they were also
experts in tropical agriculture. Consequently, they were
well-suited for plantation agriculture. The high immunity of
Africans to malaria and yellow fever compared with Europeans and
the indigenous peoples made them more suitable for tropical
labor. While white and red labor were used initially, Africans
were the final solution to the acute labor problem in the New
World. (The Economics of the African Slave Trade, By Anika
Francis, The March 1995 Issue of The Vision Online, http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~vision/vis/Mar-95/5284.html)
Slaves were mostly for sugar plantations, diamond mines in
Brazil, house servants, on tobacco farms in Virginia, in gold
mines in Hispaniola and later the cotton industry in the
Southern States of the USA. "The hybridization of sugar cane
between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century made
increasingly large harvests possible." M.E. Descoutilz: Flore
pittoresque et medicale des Antilles. (Vol.4. Paris, 1883) (KURA
HULANDA Museum, Curaçao, http://www.kurahulanda.com/site/museum/museum.html))
Despite this growth in tobacco production, problems in
price-stability and quality existed. In 1660, when the English
markets became glutted with tobacco, prices fell so low that the
colonists were barely able to survive. In response to this,
planters began mixing other organic material, such as leaves and
the sweepings from their homes, in with the tobacco, as an
attempt to make up by quantity what they lost by low prices. The
exporting of this trash tobacco solved the colonists' immediate
cash flow problems, but accentuated the problems of
overproduction and deterioration of quality.[8] As the
reputation of colonial tobacco declined, reducing European
demand for it, colonial authorities stepped in to take
corrective measures. During the next fifty years they came up
with three solutions. First, they reduced the amount of tobacco
produced; second, they regularized the trade by fixing the size
of the tobacco hogshead and prohibiting shipments of bulk
tobacco; finally, they improved quality by preventing the
exportation of trash tobacco. These solutions soon fell through
because there was no practical way to enforce the law. It was
not until 1730, when the Virginia Inspection Acts were passed,
that tobacco trade laws were fully enforced (Middleton, Arthur
Pierce. Tobacco Coast. Newport News, Virginia: Mariners' Museum,
1953.. P. 112-116, Finlayson, Ann. Colonial Maryland. Nashville,
Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc. 1974. P. 66-679. From Economic
Aspects of Tobacco during the Colonial Period 1612-1776, On line
at http://tobacco.org)
1661
A reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law
was directed at white servants -- at those who ran away with a
black servant. The following year, the colony went one step
further by stating that children born would be bonded or free
according to the status of the mother. (Timeline from the PBS
series Africans In America)
1661
Virginia authorities noted that indentured servants were
planning a rebellion and Maryland officials faced a strike
(1663). (Mark Lause American Labor History)
After 1691, freed black slaves were banished from Virginia. (How
the Cradle of Liberty Became a Slave-Owning Nation. By Susan
DeFord, Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, December 10,
1997; Page H01 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/contents/))
1662
A Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life.
." (Slavery in America Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995)
Citing 1662 Virginia statute providing that "[c]hildren got by
an Englishman upon a Negro woman shall be bond or free according
to the condition of the mother". Throughout the late 17th and
early 18th century, several colonial legislatures adopted
similar rules which reversed the usual common law presumptions
that the status of the child was determined by the father. (See
id. at 128 (citing 1706 New York statute); id. at 252 (citing a
1755 Georgia Law)). These laws facilitated the breeding of
slaves through Black women's bodies and allowed for slaveholders
to reproduce their own labor force. (See PAULA GIDDINGS, WHEN
AND WHERE I ENTER: THE IMPACT OF BLACK WOMEN ON RACE AND SEX IN
AMERICA 37 (1984) (noting that "a master could save the cost of
buying new slaves by impregnating his own slave, or for that
matter, having anyone impregnate her"). For a discussion of Race
and Gender see Cheryl I. Harris, Myths of Race and Gender in the
Trials of O.J. Simpson and Susan Smith -- Spectacles of Our
Times)
It was conventional wisdom in the South that the best way to get
a good house servant was to raise one. Often, children were
taken from their parents to sleep in the Big House as well as to
eat, work and play there. Their families were replaced by the
families of their owners, with their position in those families
clearly defined. ("A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of
Black Women In America", by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen
Thompson p 70, cited in TheBlackMarket.com FAQ)
The Laws of Virginia (1662, 1691, 1705) These statutes chart the
development of regulations on the sexual and reproductive lives
of indentured servants and slaves, the growing
institutionalization of slavery, and the construction of racism.
Note the increasingly harsh penalties and how punishments
differed by gender. (To view the laws visit America Past and
Present On Line)
The first known Virginia statute punishing interracial sexual
relations was enacted in 1662. Act XII, 2 Laws of Va. 170, 170 (Hening
1823) (enacted 1662), cited in, Leon Higginbotham, Jr. and
Barbara K. Kopytoff, Racial Purity and Interracial Sex in the
Law of Colonial and Antebellum Virginia, 77 Geo. L.J. 1967
(1989); supra, at 1993. As early as 1691, Virginia had enacted a
statute punishing interracial marriage. Act XVI, Laws of Va. 86,
86-87 (Hening 1812) (enacted 1691), cited in, Higginbotham,
supra, at 1995. The antimiscegenation laws and prohibitions were
the legal manifestations of an often violently enforced taboo
against sexual relations between white women and black men. The
punishment in 1691 for marriage between an English or white
individual and a black, mulatto, or Indian was banishment and
removal from Virginia forever. Id. (The last antimiscegenation
laws in Virginia were overturned in 1967). (UNITED STATES COURT
OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v.
NORWOOD W. BARBER, (CR-92-30024) Decided: April 5, 1996)
Slavery in the United States was governed by an extensive body
of law developed from the 1660s to the 1860s. Every slave state
had its own slave code and body of court decisions. All slave
codes made slavery a permanent condition, inherited through the
mother, and defined slaves as property, usually in the same
terms as those applied to real estate. Slaves, being property,
could not own property or be a party to a contract. Since
marriage is a form of a contract, no slave marriage had any
legal standing. All codes also had sections regulating free
blacks, who were still subject to controls on their movements
and employment and were often required to leave the state after
emancipation. (American Treasures of the Library of Congress:
MEMORY, Slavery in the Capitol, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm009.html)
Slaves charged with crimes in Virginia were tried in special
non-jury courts created in 1692. The purpose of the courts was
not to guarantee due process but to set an example speedily.
"Those slaves who attacked white people or property usually
acted with a purpose and not just on impulse," wrote Philip J.
Schwarz, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who has
studied slave courts. "Many killings, poisonings, thefts, uses
of arson and attempts to rebel were efforts to oppose the means
of maintaining slavery." The courts could resort to hideous
punishments to reassert white authority. Offending slaves were
hung, burned at the stake, dismembered, castrated and branded in
addition to the usual whippings. White fear of black rebellion
was a constant undercurrent. (How the Cradle of Liberty Became a
Slave-Owning Nation. By Susan DeFord, Special to The Washington
Post Wednesday, December 10, 1997; Page H01 http://www.washingtonpost.com)
1663
Maryland Settlers pass law stipulating that all imported blacks
are to be given the status of slaves. Free white women who marry
black slaves are to be slaves during the lives of their spouses,
Ironically, children born of white servant women and blacks are
regarded as free by a 1681 law. (The Negro Almanac a reference
work on the Afro American, compiled and edited by harry A Ploski,
and Warren Marr, II. Third Edition 1978 Bellwether Publishing)
1663/09/13
First serious recorded slave conspiracy in Colonial America
takes place in Virginia. A servant betrayed plot of white
servants and Negro slaves in Gloucester County, Virginia. (Major
Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower,
http://www.afroam.org/history/slavery/revolts.html)
1664
Slavery sanctioned by law; slaves to serve for life. (MD info
from Maryland A Chronology & Documentary Handbook, 1978 Oceana
Publications, Inc. And Maryland Historical Chronology )
1664
Maryland passes a law making lifelong servitude for black slaves
mandatory to prevent them from taking advantage of legal
precedents established in England which grant freedom under
certain conditions, such as conversion to Christianity. Similar
laws are later passed in New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas and
Virginia. (The History Place, Early Colonial Era Beginnings to
1700 Chronology)
1664
Slavery introduced into law in Maryland, the law also prohibited
marriage between white women and black men. This particular act
remained in effect for over 300 years, and between 1935 and 1967
the law was extended to forbid the marriage of Malaysians with
blacks or whites. The law was finally repealed in 1967.
(Maryland State Archive, THE ARCHIVISTS' Record Series of the
Week, Phebe Jacobsen "Colonial Marriage Records" Bulldog Vol. 2,
No. 26 18 July 1988)
There had been a number of marriages between white women and
slaves by 1664 when Maryland passed a law which made them and
their mixed-race children slaves for life, noting that "divers
freeborne English women forgettfull of their free Condicon and
to the disgrace of our Nation doe intermarry with Negro Slaves"
[Archives of Maryland, 1:533-34]. (FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF
MARYLAND AND DELAWAREINTRODUCTION By Paul Heinegg, p.heinegg@worldnet.att.net
This is the history of the free African American communities of
Maryland and Delaware during the colonial period as told through
their family histories. http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Intro_md.htm)
Also see 1681.
Throughout most of the colonial period, opposition to slavery
among white Americans was virtually nonexistent. Settlers in the
17th and early 18th centuries came from sharply stratified
societies in which the wealthy savagely exploited members of the
lower classes. Lacking a later generation's belief in natural
human equality, they saw little reason to question the
enslavement of Africans. As they sought to mold a docile labor
force, planters resorted to harsh, repressive measures that
included liberal use of whipping and branding. ("Slavery in the
United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft
Corporation.)
One characteristic which set American slavery apart was its
racial basis. In America, with only a few early and
insignificant exceptions, all slaves were Africans, and almost
all Africans were slaves. This placed the label of inferiority
on black skin and on African culture. In other societies, it had
been possible for a slave who obtained his freedom to take his
place in his society with relative ease. In America, however,
when a slave became free, he was still obviously an African. The
taint of inferiority clung to him. Not only did white America
become convinced of white superiority and black inferiority, but
it strove to impose these racial beliefs on the Africans
themselves. Slave masters gave a great deal of attention to the
education and training of the ideal slave, In general, there
were five steps in molding the character of such a slave: strict
discipline, a sense of his own inferiority, belief in the
master's superior power, acceptance of the master's standards,
and, finally, a deep sense of his own helplessness and
dependence. At every point this education was built on the
belief in white superiority and black inferiority. Besides
teaching the slave to despise his own history and culture, the
master strove to inculcate his own value system into the
African's outlook. The white man's belief in the African's
inferiority paralleled African self hate. (Norman Coombs, The
Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. CHAPTER 3,
CHAPTER 3, The Shape of American Slavery).
The psychological impact on the individual of slavery contrasted
to that of individuals who survived the Nazi holocaust, In
Stanley M. Elkins thinking, the concentration camps were a
modern example of a rigid system controlling mass behavior.
Because some of those who experienced them were social
scientists trained in the skills of observation and analysis,
they provide a basis for insights into the way in which a
particular social system can influence mass character. While
there is also much literature about American slavery written
both by slaves and masters, none of it was written from the
viewpoint of modern social sciences. However, Elkins postulates
that a slave type must have existed as the result of the attempt
to control mass behavior, and he believes that this type
probably bore a marked resemblance to the literary stereotype of
"Sambo." Studying concentration camps and their impact on
personality provides a tool for new insights into the working of
slavery, but, warns Elkins, the comparison can only be used for
limited purposes. Although slavery was not unlike the
concentration camp in many respects, the concentration camp can
be viewed as a highly perverted form of slavery, and both
systems were ways of controlling mass behavior
The concentration camp experience began with what has become
labeled as shock procurement. As terror was one of the many
tools of the system, surprise late-night arrests were the
favorite technique. Camp inmates generally agreed that the train
ride to the camp was the point at which they experienced the
first brutal torture. Herded together into cattle cars, without
adequate space, ventilation, or sanitary conditions, they had to
endure the horrible crowding and the harassment of the guards.
When they reached the camp, they had to stand naked in line and
undergo a detailed examination by the camp physician. Then, each
was given a tag and a number. These two events were calculated
to strip away one's identity and to reduce the individual to an
item within an impersonal system. (for critic of Stanley M.
Elkins see Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America,
Twayne Press, 1972. CHAPTER 3, Slavery and the Formation of
Character and Slavery, The Problem in American Institutional and
Intellectual Life, by Stanley M. Elkins. University of Chicago)
"Two days before embarkation, the head of every male and female
is neatly shaved; and, if the cargo belongs to several owners,
each man's brand is impressed on the body of his irrespective
Negro. This operation is performed with pieces of silver wire,
or small irons fashioned into the merchant's initials, heated
just hot enough to blister without burning the skin. When the
entire cargo is the venture of but one proprietor, the branding
is always dispensed with. "On the appointed day, the barracoon
or slave-pen is made joyous by the abundant 'feed' which
signalizes the negro's last hours in his native country. The
feast over, they are taken alongside the vessel in canoes; and
as they touch the deck, they are entirely stripped, so that
women as well as men go out of Africa as they came into
it-naked. This precaution, it is understood, is indispensable;
for perfect nudity, during the whole voyage, is the only means
of securing cleanliness and health. In this state they are
immediately ordered below, the men to the hold and the women to
the cabin, while boys and girls are, day and night, kept on
deck, where their sole protection from the elements is a sail in
fair weather, and a tarpaulin in foul. "At meal time they are
distributed in messes of ten. Thirty years ago, when the Spanish
slave trade was lawful, the captains were somewhat ceremoniously
religious than at present, and it was then a universal habit to
make the gangs say grace before meat, and give thanks
afterwards. In our days, however, they dispense with this
ritual… This over, a bucket of salt water is served to each mess
by way of 'finger glasses' for the ablution of hands, after
which a kidd-either of rice, farina, yams, or beans-according to
the tribal habit of the negroes, is placed before the squad. In
order to prevent greediness or inequality in the appropriation
of nourishment, the process is performed by signals from a
monitor, whose motions indicate when the darkies shall dip and
when they shall swallow." (Debow's review, Agricultural,
commercial, industrial progress and resources./ vol. 18, iss. 3,
Mar 1855, New Orleans, The African Slave Trade (pp. 297-305) )
"At sundown, the process of stowing the slaves for the night is
begun. The second mate and boatswain descend into the hold, whip
in hand, and range the slaves in their regular places; those on
the right side of the vessel facing forward, and lying in each
other's lap, while those on the left are similarly stowed with
their faces towards the stern. In this way each negro lies on
his right side, which is considered preferable for the action of
the heart. In allotting places, particular attention is paid to
size, the taller being selected for the greatest breadth of the
vessel, while the shorter and younger are lodged near the bows.
When the cargo is large and the lower deck crammed, the
supernumeraries are disposed of on deck, which is securely
covered with boards to shield them from moisture. The strict
discipline of nightly stowage is, of course, of the greatest
importance in slavers, else every negro would accommodate
himself as if he were a passenger. "In order to insure perfect
silence and regularity during night, a slave is chosen as
constable from every ten, and furnished with a 'cat' to enforce
commands during his appointed watch. In remuneration for his
services, which, it may be believed, are admirably performed
whenever the whip is required, he is adorned with an old shirt
or tarry trousers. Now and then, billets of wood are distributed
among the sleepers, but this luxury is never granted until the
good temper of the negroes is ascertained, for slaves have often
been tempted to mutiny by the power of arming themselves with
these pillows from the forest." (Debow's review, Agricultural,
commercial, industrial progress and resources./ vol. 22, iss. 6,
June 1857, New Orleans, The Middle Passage; or, Suffering of
Slave and Free Immigrants: pp 570-583 )
Even the most abstract ideals of the [German] SS, such as their
intense German nationalism and anti-Semitism, were often
absorbed by the old [concentration camp] inmates-a phenomenon
observed among the politically well-educated and even among the
Jews themselves. The final quintessence of all this was seen in
the "Kapo" the prisoner who had been placed in a supervisory
position over his fellow inmates. These creatures, many of them
professional criminals, not only behaved with slavish servility
to the SS, but the way in which they often out did the SS in
sheer brutality became one of the most durable features of the
concentration-camp legend. (Slavery, The Problem in American
Institutional and Intellectual Life, by Stanley M. Elkins.
University of Chicago, first 1959 third edition 1976 page 113
see also Bettelheim, "Individual and Mass Behavior," and Elie
Cohen, "Human Behavior," pp. 18p-93, for a discussion of
anti-Semitism among the Jews".)
When the vessels arrive at their destined port, the Negroes are
again exposed naked to the eyes of all that flock together, and
the examination of their purchasers. Then they are separated to
the plantations of their several masters, to see each other no
more. Here you may see mothers hanging over their daughters,
bedewing their naked breasts with tears, and daughters clinging
to their parents, till the whipper soon obliges them to part.
And what can be more wretched than the condition they then enter
upon? Banished from their country, from their friends and
relations for ever, from every comfort of life, they are reduced
to a state scarce anyway preferable to that of beasts of burden.
In general, a few roots, not of the nicest kind, usually yams or
potatoes, are their food; and two rags, that neither screen them
from the heat of the day, nor the cold of the night, their
covering. Their sleep is very short, their labour continual, and
frequently above their strength; so that death sets many of them
at liberty before they have lived out half their days. The time
they work in the West Indies, is from day-break to noon, and
from two o'clock till dark; during which time, they are attended
by overseers, who, if they think them dilatory, or think
anything not so well done as it should be, whip them most
unmercifully, so that you may see their bodies long after wealed
and scarred usually from the shoulders to the waist. And before
they are suffered to go to their quarters, they have commonly
something to do, as collecting herbage for the horses, or
gathering fuel for the boilers; so that it is often past twelve
before they can get home. Hence, if their food is not prepared,
they are sometimes called to labour again, before they can
satisfy their hunger. And no excuse will avail. If they are not
in the field immediately, they must expect to feel the lash. Did
the Creator intend that the noblest creatures in the visible
world should live such a life as this? (Thoughts Upon Slavery,
John Wesley, Published in the year 1774, John Wesley: Holiness
of Heart and Life, 1996 Ruth A. Daugherty)
Africa occupies just over 20 percent of the earth's land surface
and has roughly 20 percent of the world's population, but
European slave traders in the 17th century and the next will
decimate the continent by exporting human chattels and
introducing new diseases. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by
James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)
The transatlantic slave trade produced one of the largest forced
migrations in history. From the early 16th to the mid-19th
centuries, between 10 million and 11 million Africans were taken
from their homes, herded onto ships where they were sometimes so
tightly packed that they could barely move, and sent to a
strange new land. Since others died before boarding the ships,
Africa's loss of population was even greater. ("Slavery in the
United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft
Corporation.)
While Ghana was the headquarters of the African slave trade,
Tropical America was the real center of the trade. Thirty-six of
the forty-two slave fortress were located in Ghana. Aside from
Ghana, slaves were shipped from eight coastal regions in Africa
including Senegambia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia
region, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, Central
Africa, and Southeast Africa (from the Cape of Good Hope to the
Cape of Delgado, including Madagascar). The slave trade had the
greatest impact upon central and western African. According to
James Rawley, West Africa supplied 3/5ths of the slaves for
exportation between 1701-1810. Half of the slaves were exported
to South America, 42% to the Caribbean Islands, 7% to British
North America, and 2% to Central America. (The Economics of the
African Slave Trade, By Anika Francis, The March Issue of The
Vision Online)
The Bight of Biafra was one of the most important sources of
enslaved Africans sent to the Americas in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. Indeed, the forced transport of
considerable numbers of Igbo-speaking slaves and others from the
interior of the Bight of Biafra across the Atlantic was a
central development in the emergence of relatively cohesive
ethnic groups in the African diaspora. Igbo, "Moko", "Bibi" and
other ethnic groups have been identified in many parts of the
Americas, most especially in Jamaica, the tidewater areas of
Maryland and Virginia, and other anglophone colonies.
Nonetheless, little research has been undertaken to explore the
cultural and historical continuities and disjunctures in this
population displacement. Moreover the repercussions of the
trans-Atlantic slave trade on the interior of the Bight of
Biafra during the period of heaviest population displacement in
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries remain poorly
understood. (Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The
Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora.
Conference to hosted by His Excellency, Governor Chimaroke
Nnamini, Enugu State, Nigeria at the Nike Lake Resort, Enugu,
Nigeria, July 10-14, 2000. For additional information, contact:
Professor Carolyn Brown, Department of History, Rutgers
University.)
PROJECTED EXPORTS OF THAT PORTION OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH
SLAVE TRADE HAVING IDENTIFIABLE REGION OF COAST ORIGIN IN
AFRICA, 1711-1810.
· Senegambia (Senegal-Gambia)* 5.8%
· Sierra Leone 3.4%
· Windward Coast (Ivory Coast)* 12.1%
· Gold Coast (Ghana)* 14.4%
· Bight of Benin (Nigeria)* 14.5
· Bight of Biafra (Nigeria)* 25.1%
· Central and Southeast Africa (Cameroon- N.Angola)* 24.7% *
The countries in parentheses are rough approximations to help
you find the location on a modern map. "Were these people called
by that name during that time in that place?" Excluding some
nomadic and semi-nomadic groups.
· SENEGAMBIA: Wolof, Mandingo, Malinke, Bambara, Papel, Limba,
Bola, Balante, Serer, Fula, Tucolor
· SIERRA LEONE: Temne, Mende, Kisi, Goree, Kru.
· WINDWARD COAST (incl. Liberia): Baoule, Vai, De, Gola
(Gullah), Bassa, Grebo.
· GOLD COAST: Ewe, Ga, Fante, Ashante, Twi, Brong
· BIGHT OF BENIN & BIGHT OF BIAFRA Combined (sorry): Yoruba,
Nupe, Benin, Dahomean (Fon), Edo-Bini, Allada, Efik, Ibibio,
Ijaw, Ibani,Igbo(Calabar) CENTRAL &
· SOUTHEAST AFRICA: BaKongo, MaLimbo, Ndungo, BaMbo, BaLimbe,
BaDongo, Luba, Loanga, Ovimbundu, Cabinda, Pembe, Imbangala,
Mbundu, BaNdulunda
Please send comments (see web page below) on whether the
following groups should be included as a "Ancestral group" of
African Americans, and in what region: Fulani, Tuareg, Dialonke,
Massina, Dogon, Songhay, Jekri, Jukun, Domaa, Tallensi, Mossi,
Nzima, Akwamu, Egba, Fang, and Ge. (Compid by Kwame Bandele from
information in P.D. Curtin's book, "Atlantic Slave Trade" p.
221. http://www.panix.com/~mbowen/sf/faq054.htm)
(Graphic from Kids Zone, The countries of Africa and http://library.advanced.org/10320/Tour.htm)
In the 1700s the coasts of West Africa had three main divisions
controlled by Europeans in their effort to monopolize the slave
trade. The three divisions were SENEGAMBIA, UPPER GUINEA, and
LOWER GUINEA. SENEGAMBIA'S two navigable rivers, the Senegal and
the Gambia, were controlled by the French and the English,
respectively. The West Africans who became slaves from the
SENEGAMBIA included the Fula, Wolof, Serer, Felup, and the
Mandingo. UPPER GUINEA had a two thousand miles coastline from
the Gambia south and east to the Bight of Biafra. This coastline
was also designated the Windward Coast because of the heavy
winds on the shore. The West Africans who became slaves from the
UPPER GAMBIA included the Baga and Susu from French Guinea, the
Chamba from Sierra Leone, the Krumen from the Grain Coast, and
the Fanti and the Ashanti from the Gold Coast, commonly referred
to today as Ghana. East of the Volta River was the Slave Coast
which was so named because the slave trade was at its height
there since the African kings (Slattees) permitted Europeans to
compete equally for Africans to become slaves. Those West
Africans who became slaves from this region included Yoruban,
Ewe, Dahoman, Ibo, Ibibio, and the Efik. LOWER GUINEA had
fifteen hundred miles of coastline from Calabar to the southern
desert. The West Africans who became slaves from this region
were all Bantus. The trading of Africans from the West Coast
provided an economic boon for the Europeans. The trading of
Africans from the West Coast produced the heinous Middle
passage. The trading of Africans from the West Coast produced
the African American! (Connections: A Culturally Historical
Prospective of West African to African American, by Kelvin
Tarrance, Revised: May 3, 1996 http://asu.alasu.edu/academic/advstudies/2b.html)
Slave brokers believed that there were traits of the various
African peoples and the preferences of the slave brokers for
slaves from specific groups. Colonists always held some view of
which tribes produced the most desirable slaves, and this
preferred tribal affiliation changed depending on the work and
the era. The docile Gold Coast slave was the preferred worker
for a while before the Senegambians were elevated to an equal
status. The Ashanti were more likely to seek revenge on their
oppressor, which put them among the least sought-after tribes.
(Margaret Washington's chapter on the Gullahs in Edward
Countryman, ed. How Did American Slavery Begin? Boston: St.
Martins, 1999. x + 150 pp. Bibliographical references. $35.00
(cloth), ISBN 0-312-21820-6; $11.95 (paper), ISBN 0-312-18261-9.
Reviewed for H-Survey by Brian D. McKnight , from H-NET BOOK
REVIEW Published by H-Survey@h- net.msu.edu (November, 1999))
Imperial African States that we know about mostly developed
along the Sahel ("Corridor") which was the major trade route
between East and West Africa. The Sahel "shore" was seen as a
"coastline" on the great expanse of the Sahara Desert. (Map
found at The Ohio State University Libraries Black Studies
Library Website sources given as Ancient African Kingdoms,
Margaret Shinnie DT25 .S5 1970. A History of the African People,
Robert W. July DT20 .J8 1992, The History Atlas of Africa Samuel
Kasule. G2446.S1 K3 1998 http://aaas.ohio-state.edu/)
The African Diaspora Map - I This map is the result of almost 20
years research by Joseph Harris, Distinguished Professor,
Department of History, Howard University, Washington. The
purpose of the map is to show the general direction of the
prinicpal sea routes of Arab, European and American trade in
African slaves up to 1873. (Mapping Africa, Africa and the
Diaspora Movement, The Kennedy Center African Odyssey)
The study of the African component of slave resistance may
appear to be the exception to the general state of slave
studies, which has tended to pay more attention to the European
influences on the Americas rather than the continuities with
African history. Palmares is identified as an "African" kingdom
in Brazil; an early and important example of the quilombos and
palenques of Latin America which also often revealed a strong
African link (See the excellent studies in Richard M. Price,
ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas,
2nd ed. (Baltimore, 1979); Patterson, "Slavery and Slave
Revolts," 289-325.) In Jamaica, enslaved Akan are identified
with rebellion and marronage; they are considered responsible
for setting the course of cultural development among the
maroons. (Monica Schuler, "Akan Slave Rebellions in the British
Caribbean", Savacou, 1 (1970), 8-31. Also see Mavis C. Campbell,
The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655- 1796 (Trenton, N.J., 1990); and
Barbara Klamon Kopytoff, "The Development of Jamaican Maroon
Ethnicity," Caribbean Quarterly, 22 (1976), 33-50.) Despite the
identification of the ethnic factor, however, most studies of
slave resistance fail to examine the historical context in
Africa from which these rebellious slaves came. Whether or not
there were direct links or informal influences that shaped
specific acts of resistance simply has not been determined in
most cases.
Because the African background has been poorly understood,
perhaps, scholars have tended to concentrate on the European
influences which shaped the agenda of slave resistance. Eugene
Genovese, for example, has argued that there was a fundamental
shift in the patterns of resistance by slaves at the end of the
eighteenth century, which he correlated with the French
Revolution and the destruction of slavery in St. Domingue.
(Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American
Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World Baton Rouge,
1979). Before the 1790s, according to Genovese, slave resistance
tended to draw inspiration from the African past, but the
content of that past remains obscure in Genovese's vision. With
the spread of revolutionary doctrines in Europe and the
Americas, slaves acquired elements of a new ideology that
reinforced their resistance to slavery. The process of
creolization, which introduced slaves to European thought,
brought the actions of slaves more into line with the
revolutionary movement emanating from Europe.
Genovese's interpretation further highlights the problem of
identifying the impact of African history on the development of
the diaspora. Scholars who are not well versed in African
history seem to have a cloudy image of the African contribution
to resistance and the evolution of slave culture. Perhaps it is
to be expected, therefore, that European influence is more easy
to recognize than African influence. For Genovese, following the
earlier lead of C.L.R. James, (C. L. R. James, The Black
Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution,
New York, rev. ed., 1963). the French Revolution had such an
obvious impact on the St. Domingue uprising that the African
dimension is not relevant. As Thornton has demonstrated,
however, even the uprising in St. Domingue had its African
antecedents, especially the legacy of the Kongo civil war. (John
K. Thornton, "`I am the Subject of the King of Congo': African
Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution," Journal of World
History, 4:2 (1993), 181-214) Moreover, influences from Africa
remained a strong force in the struggle against slavery well
after the 1790s, especially in Brazil and Cuba, where there was
a continuous infusion of new slaves from Africa, often from
places where slaves had been coming for some time. The complex
blending of African and European experiences undoubtedly changed
over time, but until African history is studied in the diaspora,
it will be difficult to weigh the relative importance of the
European and African traditions. (The African Diaspora:
Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion
under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in Studies in the World History of
Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).)
Both images above. Go to URL below to zoom in on detailed and
exact locations. During the 1700s when the Atlantic slave trade
was flourishing, West Africans accounted for approximately
two-thirds of the African captives imported into the Americas.
The coastal ports where these Africans were assembled, and from
where they were exported, are located on this mid-18th-century
map extending from present-day Senegal and Gambia on the
northwest to Gabon on the southeast.
This decorated and colored map illustrates the dress, dwellings,
and work of some Africans. The map also reflects the
international interest in the African trade by the use of Latin,
French, and Dutch place names. Many of the ports are identified
as being controlled by the English (A for Anglorum), Dutch (H
for Holland), Danish (D for Danorum), or French (F). Guinea
propia, nec non Nigritiae vel Terrae Nigrorum maxima pars .
..Nuremberg: Homann Hereditors, 1743, Hand-colored, engraved
map., Geography and Map Division. (http://international.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart1.html#0101)
Similar map, of West Africa, 1754. (Not displayed here, but
click on this URL. Snelgrave voyaged to West Africa as a slaver
from 1704 to 1729-30. (Source, William Snelgrave, "A New Map of
that Part of Africa called the Coast of Guinea," in Snelgrave, A
New Account of Guinea (London, 1754).), (Acknowledgement, The
John Carter Brown Library, Brown Univ. (IMAGES OF THE
TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE Trade, A media database compiled by Jerome
S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr, Presented by the Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities)
Another slave route map is Slave Trade Map of Equatorial Afirca
as the piece appeared in the English Abolitionist periodical,
The Anti Slavery Reporter and Aborigines Friend, Series IV No.
8-9, 1881-1882 (http://www.ipl.org/ref/timeline/slavemap.htm for
details from this map, which shows all of Africa.)
The slave trade from Africa is said to have uprooted as many as
20 million people from their homes and brought them to the
Americas. Slavery had existed as a human institution for
centuries, but the slaves were usually captives taken in war or
members of the lowest class in a society. The black African
slave trade, by contrast, was a major economic enterprise. It
made the traders rich and brought an abundant labor supply to
the islands of the Caribbean and to the American Colonies.
(Compton's Encyclopedia Online)
The Methodist theologian, John Wesley, described how slaves were
generally procured, carried to, and treated in, America. 1.
First. In what manner are they procured? Part of them by fraud.
Captains of ships, from time to time, have invited Negroes to
come on board, and then carried them away. But far more have
been procured by force. The Christians, landing upon their
coasts, seized as many as they found, men, women, and children,
and transported them to America. It was about 1551 that the
English began trading to Guinea; at first, for gold and
elephants' teeth; but soon after, for men. In 1556, Sir John
Hawkins sailed with two ships to Cape Verd, where he sent eighty
men on shore to catch Negroes. But the natives flying, they fell
farther down, and there set the men on shore, "to burn their
towns and take the inhabitants." But they met with such
resistance, that they had seven men killed, and took but ten
Negroes. So they went still farther down, till, having taken
enough, they proceeded to the West Indies and sold them. 2. It
was some time before the Europeans found a more compendious way
of procuring African slaves, by prevailing upon them to make war
upon each other, and to sell their prisoners. Till then they
seldom had any wars; but were in general quiet and peaceable.
But the white men first taught them drunkenness and avarice, and
then hired them to sell one another. Nay, by this means, even
their Kings are induced to sell their own subjects. So Mr.
Moore, factor of the African Company in 1730, informs us: "When
the King of Barsalli wants goods or brandy, he sends to the
English Governor at James's Fort, who immediately sends a sloop.
Against the time it arrives, he plunders some of his neighbours'
towns, selling the people for the goods he wants. At other times
he falls upon one of his own towns, and makes bold to sell his
own subjects." So Monsieur Brue says, "I wrote to the King,"
(not the same,) "if he had a sufficient number of slaves, I
would treat with him. He seized three hundred of his own people,
and sent word he was ready to deliver them for the goods." He
adds: "Some of the natives are always ready" (when well paid)
"to surprise and carry off their own countrymen. They come at
night without noise, and if they find any lone cottage, surround
it and carry off all the people." Barbot, another French factor,
says, "Many of the slaves sold by the Negroes are prisoners of
war, or taken in the incursions they make into their enemies'
territories. Others are stolen. Abundance of little Blacks, of
both sexes, are stolen away by their neighbours, when found
abroad on the road, or in the woods, or else in the corn-fields,
at the time of year when their parents keep them there all day
to scare away the devouring birds." That their own parents sell
them is utterly false: Whites, not Blacks, are without natural
affection! (Thoughts Upon Slavery, John Wesley, Published in the
year 1774, John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life, 1996 Ruth A.
Daugherty)
People have asked why Africans themselves engaged in the slave
trade. Given the function of slavery in African societies, the
origin of their participation is not too difficult to
understand.
First and foremost, slavery was not confused with the notion of
superiority and inferiority, a notion later invoked as
justification for black slavery in America. On the contrary, it
was not at all uncommon for African owners to adopt slave
children or to marry slave women, who then became full members
of the family. Slaves of talent accumulated property and in some
instances reached the status of kings; Jaja of Opobo (in
Nigeria) is a case in point. Lacking contact with American
slavery, African traders could be expected to assume that the
lives of slaves overseas would be as much as they were in
Africa; they had no way of knowing that whites in America
associated dark colors with sub-human qualities and status, or
that they would treat slaves as chattels generation after
generation. When Nigeria's Madame Tinubu, herself a
slave-trader, discovered the difference between domestic and
non-African slavery, she became an abolitionist, actively
rejecting what she saw as the corruption of African slavery by
the unjust and inhumane habits of its foreign practitioners and
by the motivation to make war for profit on the sale of
captives. (On Slavery By Femi Akomolafe. 1994, The retrospective
history of Africa, Hartford Web Publishing)
The mortality rate among these new slaves ran very high. It is
estimated that some five percent died in Africa on the way to
the coast, another thirteen percent in transit to the West
Indies, and still another thirty percent during the three-month
seasoning period in the West Indies. This meant that about fifty
percent of those originally captured in Africa died either in
transit or while being prepared for servitude. Even this
statistic, harsh as it is, does not tell the whole story of the
human cost involved in the slave trade. Most slaves were
captured in the course of warfare, and many more Africans were
killed in the course of this combat. The total number of deaths,
then, ran much higher than those killed en route. Many Africans
became casualty statistics, directly or indirectly, because of
the slave trade. Beyond this, there was the untold human sorrow
and misery borne by the friends and relatives of those Africans
who were torn away from home and loved ones and were never seen
again. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne
Press, 1972. CHAPTER 2 The Human Market, The Slave Trade)
It was obvious, however, that the victims of the modern slave
trade could not be said to have been acquired directly in war.
They had been purchased from African rulers who had seized them
in raids whose only purpose had been to acquire this valuable
human commodity for the insatiable European market. To this, the
advocates of the trade replied by claiming that the Africans
purchased by the traders had originally been taken prisoner in
"just" wars between Africans. The speciousness of this argument
was evident from the beginning. But most slavers accepted what
they claimed were African assurances that their human
merchandise had indeed been "saved" in a just war, on the
principle that it is not up to the purchaser to discover if the
goods he is buying have been acquired legitimately or not. In
this way slavery remained linked, throughout its 300-year
history, to internecine African warfare. Thomas seems to imply
that Africans, since they were involved in the trade, must take
some measure of the blame for it. This can hardly be denied.
What Thomas overlooks, though, is the degree to which the
European slave trade contributed to the situation from which it
benefited. The abolitionists had always been fully aware of the
possible impact of the trade upon Africa. "The slave trade,"
bewailed Granville Sharp, one of the earliest of the English
abolitionists, in 1776, "preyed upon the ignorance and brutality
of unenlightened nations, who are encouraged to war with each
other for this very purpose." The consequences of this for the
continent have only just begun to be examined, but there is
sufficient evidence to suggest that at least some of the horrors
that modern African rulers continue to inflict upon their
peoples, and that African states continue to inflict upon one
another, can be linked not only to the disastrous process of
de-colonization, but also to the long experience of the European
slave trade. Modern slavers were faced with a further problem:
religion. (Anthony Pagden he Slave Trade, Review of Hugh Thomas'
Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The New Republic; 12-22-1997)
"I have no hesitation in saying, that three fourths of the
slaves sent abroad from Africa are the fruit of native wars,
fomented by the avarice and temptation of our own race. I cannot
exculpate any commercial nation from this sweeping censure. We
stimulate the negro's passions by the introduction of wants and
fancies never dreamed of by the simple native, while slavery was
an institution of domestic need and comfort alone. But what was
once a luxury has now ripened into an absolute necessity; so
that MAN, in truth, has become the coin of Africa, and the
'legal tender' of a brutal trade." (Debow's review,
Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources./
vol. 18, iss. 3, Mar 1855, New Orleans, The African Slave Trade
(pp. 297-305) )
African selling slaves to a European, 19th cent. (?), Source
Isabelle Aguet, A Pictorial History of the Slave Trade (Geneva:
Editions Minerva, 1971), plate 3, p. 18; from Hull Museums,
original source not identified (IMAGES OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC
SLAVE Trade, A media database compiled by Jerome S. Handler and
Michael L. Tuite Jr, Presented by the Virginia Foundation for
the Humanities)
The history of the Atlantic trade in Africa involves trade
routes penetrating deeper and deeper into Africa, in part
because people near the coast learned to defend themselves.
Coastal powers like Kongo and Benin actually lost territory.
When a series of slaving states emerged in the 17th and early
18th century, all were in the interior. Oyo was a cavalry state
centered north of the forest. Asante was in the forest but well
north of the coast, able to control trade routes to different
colonial forts. Segou was in western Mali. Futa Jallon was in
the mountains of central Guinea. Trade routes in central Africa
also penetrated deep into the heart of Africa. The Matamba of
Queen Nzinga became a valuable trading partner only after it
moved from the coast to a location deep in the interior of
Africa. The Igbo developed a different a kind of trading system,
but the largest numbers of slaves probably came from densely
populated areas of central and northern Igboland. Where the
coastal people were successful, it was as middlemen and agents
of the trade. (comments by Martin Klein Re: Gates and African
involvement in the slave trade on the Listserv Steven Mintz, U.
Houston)
Africans cooperated with Europeans in the slave trade, and some
slaves transported to America were already of the slave class.
But most slaves were simply hostages of the trade, and very few
were slaves before. A set of political and military
circumstances that the Portuguese, the Dutch, and other
Europeans imposed on the West Africans forced many African
kingdoms to cooperate with the slave trade. Stronger nations had
driven many coastal kingdoms from the interior before the
arrival of the Europeans. Yet with the coming of European tools
and weaponry as payment for African slaves, these coastal
kingdoms found themselves in power positions and began
slave-raiding expeditions against their former enemies. European
slave traders used these rivalries to increase tensions among
the African kingdoms for their own mercenary purposes. By
fomenting war between kingdoms and by introducing superior arms
to those cooperating with the trade, the Europeans obligated
many unwilling kingdoms to collaborate with them or face
enslavement themselves--raid or be raided. The "most abominable
aspect of the slave trade, was fueled by the idea that Africans,
even children, were better off Christianized under a system of
European slavery than left in Africa amid tribal wars, famines
and paganism" (p. 218). (Willie F. Page. _The Dutch Triangle:
The Netherlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664_.
Studies in African American History and Culture. New York:
Garland Publishing, 1997. xxxv + 262 pp. Bibliographical
references and index. $66.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8153-2881-8.
Reviewed for H-Review by Dennis R. Hidalgo, Central Michigan
University)
In reality, slavery is an human institution. Every ethnic group
has sold members of the same ethnic group into slavery. It
becomes a kind of racism; that, while all ethnic groups have
sold its own ethnic group into slavery, Blacks can't do it. When
Eastern Europeans fight each other it is not called tribalism.
Ethnic cleansing is intended to make what is happening to sound
more sanitary. What it really is, is White Tribalism pure and
simple. The fact of African resistance to European Imperialism
and Colonialism is not well known, though it is well documented.
Read, for instance, Michael Crowder (ed.), West African
Resistance, Africana Publishing Corporation, New York, 1971.
Europeans entered Africa in the mid 1400 s and early 1500 s
during a time of socio-political transition. Europeans chose a
favorite side to win between African nations at a war and
supplied that side with guns, a superior war instrument. In its
victory, the African side with guns rounded up captives of war
who were sold to the Europeans in exchange for more guns or
other barter. Whites used these captives in their own slave
raids. These captives often held pre-existing grudges against
groups they were ordered to raid, having formerly been sold into
slavery themselves by these same groups as captives in inter-
African territorial wars. In investigating our history and
capture, a much more completed picture emerges than simply that
we sold each other into slavery. (Did We Sell Each Other Into
Slavery? A Commentary by Oscar L. Beard, Consultant in African
Studies 24 May 1999 )
The slave trade and the movement of identifiable groups of
people have to be tied to specific historical events and
processes in Africa, and it must be demonstrated what was and
what was not transferred to the Americas. From this perspective,
specific historical circumstances determined who was exported
and who was not, and these circumstances might well have
influenced who was active in promoting adjustments under slavery
and preserving knowledge of Africa. The different reasons for
enslavement have to be distinguished as crucial variables in
determining what factors were important to the enslaved
population. Whether an individual became a slave as a result of
war, famine, commercial bankruptcy, judicial punishment, or
religious persecution mattered. The conscious deportation of
political prisoners has to be distinguished from impersonal
transactions in the fairs and market-places of Africa. Instances
of "mistakes" need to be documented as a means of determining
why individuals ended up in the Americas or North Africa who
legally should not have been so enslaved. Such examples include
arbitrary alterations in the terms and conditions of pawnship,
failure to ransom kidnapped victims, and "panyarring", i.e. the
seizure of individuals for debt or other compensation. (cf.
Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy (eds.), Pawnship in Africa:
Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective (Boulder, 1994). Slaves
can be examined as individuals and as recognizable groups of
people who had personal and collective histories. (The African
Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and
Religion under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in Studies in the World
History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).)
Essay argues that slavery existed and sometimes flourished in
Africa before the transatlantic slave trade, but neither the
African continent nor persons of African origin were as
prominent in the world of slaveholding as they would later
become. Second, the capture and sale of slaves across the
Atlantic between 1450 and 1850 encouraged expansion and repeated
transformation of slavery within Africa, to the point that
systems of slavery became central to societies all across the
continent. Third, even after the abolition of the transatlantic
slave trade (largely accomplished by 1850) and the European
conquest of Africa (mostly by 1900), millions of persons
remained in slavery in Africa as late as 1930. (For full reading
see Slavery in Africa, Microsoft, Encarta, Africana content,
1999 Microsoft Corporation)
But what American Slavery eventually developed into was somewhat
unique in several respects. Slavery in other parts of the world
had typically involved prisoners of war, and was considered a
humane alternative to being put to death. Rarely were the
children of those prisoners also placed into slavery. America
had not waged a war with Ireland, nor had it waged a war with
Africa, or with China. And although it had waged several wars
with the Native Americans, they found that Natives made poor
slaves and frequently escaped. America was...after all, their
homeland...their turf. They knew the land far better than these
European upstarts. Many of the Irish came to America voluntarily
to escape the horrid economy and famines of their homeland. They
choose to be here.
African Slaves were brought to America against the choice. They
were kept here against their choice. If they choose to become a
part of "America"...they were denied the choice to exercise
their full access and full rights within America.
And that choice...is what makes the American Slavery of blacks
so unique when compared to most other forms of historical
slavery. America was one of the first nations to declare that
the rights of the individual were paramount, that "all men were
created equal". That a man's freedom to choose was one of his
most sacred freedoms. These concepts contrasted radically with
the idea that a man could be taken from his home, away from his
family, forced to work against his will, and force to breed more
people to be borne into the same life.
It is one thing to be a slave, in a land where few even
understand what "Freedom" truly is, such as the Sudan (which
continues to have slaves even in modern times). But it is a
completely different matter to be a slave, in the "Land of the
Free". (Debunking Dinesh D'souza's "End of Racism". 1998 F.V.
Walton Also read Racism in Modern America for a discussion of
modern Racism )
While many slaves were brutalized to the extent that they died
without entering into meaningful and sustainable forms of social
and cultural interaction with their compatriots, many other
slaves more or less successfully re-established communities,
reformulated their sense of identity, and reinterpreted
ethnicity under slavery and freedom in the Americas. More than
simply the foundation for individual and collective acts of
resistance, these expressions of agency involved the transfer
and adaptation of the contemporary world of Africa to the
Americas and were NOT mere "survivals" of some diluted African
past. Despite the "social death" of which Orlando Patterson
speaks, (Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, Cambridge,
1982). slaves created a new social world that drew on the known
African experience. Certainly the horrors of enslavement, the
rough march to coastal ports and the trauma of the Middle
Passage affected the psychological and medical health of the
enslaved population, but not to the extent imagined by Elkins,
at least not in most cases. While their resurrection from
Patterson's "social death" was distorted by chattel slavery,
many enslaved Africans were none the less fit enough to
participate in the "200 Years' War" of which Patterson also
writes. (Orlando Patterson, "Slavery and Slave Revolts: A
Socio-Historical Analysis of the First Maroon War, Jamaica,
1655-1740", Social and Economic Studies, 19, 3 (1970), 289-325)
(From The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of
Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in
Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and
Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).)
The oppression of European masters and the pull of the
international market for primary products may have set the
conditions of slaves in the Americas, but in adjusting to these
conditions, enslaved Africans nonetheless reinterpreted African
issues and modified useful institutions in their quest to make
sense out of their conditions and to establish a new identity in
the diaspora. This identity began in the context of events and
experiences in Africa but over time and after generations
evolved into the pan-African identity of Peter Tosh's lyrics:
"Anywhere you come from, as long as you're a black man, you're
an African". ("African", from Peter Tosh, "Equal Rights", 1977
from The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of
Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery Paul E. Lovejoy in
Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and
Emancipation, II, 1 (1997).)
There was a direct connection between the rise of racism and the
slave trade. An ideology was needed to justify the
transportation of millions of blacks. David Hume, the Scottish
philosopher, argued that blacks had the same intelligence as
orangutans. This exposes the contradictory nature of the
emerging capitalist society, which on the one hand hailed the
ideas of the French and American revolutions - equality and
unalienable rights - yet at the same time depended on the
horrendous trade in human flesh. The American president Adams,
at the end of the American Revolution which had been expected to
abolish slavery, declared they had 'got the wolf by the ears but
they daren't let it go.' World capitalism couldn't progress
without a massive expansion of slavery in the American South.
Implicit in the argument that comes from Hugh Thomas is the idea
that the Atlantic slave trade grew out of the slavery that
already existed in African and Islamic societies prior to the
1700s. Essentially, he portrays slavery as a bad idea which was
made worse by Europeans. Slavery, he argues, was a universal
feature of ancient societies, but it was not racially based -
slaves were the spoils of war. He fails to recognise that the
Atlantic slave trade was unique because of the role it played in
the emergent capitalist system. There were class divisions in
pre-capitalist societies. But in ancient Africa slaves were more
like serfs - they were not barred from marrying the chief's
daughter, or from owning property, or even rising to be
governors. Two factors prevented African societies developing in
the same way as Europe. Neither was to do with any inherent
inferiority in those societies. In many ways Africa had been
more advanced than Europe. In 1066, as Harold lost his eye, the
complex infrastructure of Great Zimbabwe was in full force,
controlling the movement of cattle on a vast scale. But the very
success of cities such as Timbuktu, Benin and Mali meant there
was no drive to develop production. Secondly, tsetse fly and
poor soil ruled out the introduction of the plough and the
possibility of higher agricultural yields that would parallel
European development. There were constant crises in many African
states, civil wars and famine - but in no way were these the
killing grounds of the West Indian plantations. (The real
history of slavery, - a review of Hugh Thomas, The History of
the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870, Weyman Bennett, Issue 217 of
SOCIALIST REVIEW Published March 1998)
The Atlantic slave-trade was different from all these earlier
slavery in several respects. Most enormously important is that
it was the first form of slavery that was solely motivated by
commercial incentives. In earlier times slaves were used as
domestic workers and soldiers, since there were no plantations
or industrial factories where millions of slave-labor was
needed. The African slave-trade was a capitalist invention.
Readers are directed to Slavery and Capitalism by Eric Williams.
It was the large-scale capitalist mode of production which
required cheap labors that induced the slave trade. It was the
Industrial Revolution in Europe that made it necessary to
traffic in human lives on a colossal scale.
Slaves in earlier times enjoyed social and individual rights -
like marriage, freedom to raise a family, speak their language
and worship their gods, rights which were denied the African
slaves exported to the Americas. Africans captured and taken
into the new world were stripped of all their personality and
humanity - they could not even bear their own names.
It was capitalism that introduced chattel-slavery. "In the
welter of philosophical arguments for and against the slave
trade, the one cogent and inescapable argument in favor of it is
easily hidden: in spite of its risks, illegality, and blighted
social status, slave trading was enormously profitable. Despite
the popular assertion that free labor was cheaper, the price of
slaves continued to go up and to compensate for the risks of the
trade." - (The Slaver's Log Book, original manuscript by Captain
Theophilus Conneau, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976, p. iv.) (On
Slavery By Femi Akomolafe. 1994, The retrospective history of
Africa, Hartford Web Publishing)
The spread of European power around the globe was a sign of the
superiority of the white race: "everywhere it has shown itself
to be the most intellectual and industrious." But blacks had
"not made known their existence by remarkable works, by superior
monuments in the political field, literature, science or
industry.... it ignores glory." The enslavement of blacks was a
sign of their stupidity, for they allowed themselves to "be
duped, enchained and sold even by men less strong."(9) Courtet
de l'Isle, a reader of Virey and a Saint-Simonian, also asserted
that the success of the European slave raiders in Africa was a
sign of their incontestable superiority.
White superiority was so deeply ingrained in the racist thinking
of the early nineteenth century that all cultural achievements
were credited to whites. Thus, the accomplishments of Chinese
and Japanese cultures-state structures and written traditions
that Europeans respected because of their outward similarity to
European institutions - were attributed to earlier, European
influences. The racial explanation for the rise and fall of
civilizations did not have to wait for Count Gobineau in the
mid-nineteenth century; as early as 18l4, Peyroux de la
Coudrenière stated that ancient Greece declined because it had
become racially impure, mixing its blood with that of blacks.
The increasingly refined means of defining human races that had
developed in the eighteenth century led to the notion that races
were significant human divisions. Some early classifiers such as
Buffon had made clear that the classification of certain groups,
races, and sub-species was done for the convenience of the
observer and had no intrinsic value, but this was soon
forgotten, even by Buffon himself. Instead, it was thought that
races were significant biological divisions of humanity and that
race, in turn, had profound effects on the social, political,
and other collective achievements of the group making up a
particular race.
Saint-Simon hoped to find in biology a clue to human variation;
science, he was sure, would unlock the mysteries of human
societies. And, in the works of contemporary physiologists,
Saint-Simon found confirmed the doctrines of racial inequality.
Blacks were at different levels of civilization, Saint-Simon
stated, because they were biologically inferior to whites.
Auguste Comte, the influential founder of positivism and
originally a disciple of Saint-Simon, thought that the
superiority of European material culture over that of other
continents might be due to a difference in the brain structure
of whites. (W.B. Cohen, The French encounter with Africans
1530-1880 (1980), chap.8, pp.210-2, Scientific Racism, PART ONE)
The attempt to legitimate slavery was a powerful contributing
factor in the spread of modern racism. For modern slaves were
almost all Africans, and the fact that the Africans were black
made it possible to defend their enslavement in terms of the
color of their skin. One argument, widespread at a time when
most people were prepared to accept the literal truth of the
Bible, took the Africans to be the descendants of Canaan. In the
biblical account of the peopling of the world by the sons of
Noah after the Flood, Canaan was condemned to be "a servant of
servants unto his brethren," because his father Ham had seen
"the nakedness of his father"; and Canaan was believed to have
settled in Africa. Noah's curse served conveniently to explain
the color of the Africans' skin and their supposed "natural"
indebtedness to the other nations of the world, particularly to
the Europeans, the alleged descendants of Japheth, whom God had
promised to "enlarge." This reading of the Book of Genesis
merged easily into a medieval iconographic tradition in which
devils were always depicted as black. Later pseudo-scientific
theories would be built around African skull shapes, dental
structure, and body postures, in an attempt to find an
unassailable argument--rooted in whatever the most persuasive
contemporary idiom happened to be: law, theology, genealogy, or
natural science--why one part of the human race should live in
perpetual indebtedness to another. (Anthony Pagden The Slave
Trade, Review of Hugh Thomas' Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
The New Republic; 12-22-1997)
Slavery was established, regulated, supported and sanctioned by
the Bible. It was a common practice during the time of both the
Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the Christian Scriptures
(New Testament). It continued into the modern era in many
countries around the world. In North America, most slaves were
Afro-American. However, others were Caucasian or Native
American. An abolition movement began during the late 17th
century. It was created and initially supported by: Those
denominations which traced their roots back to the Anabaptist
movements (Mennonites, Quakers, etc.) A very few other
Christians, and groups of Christians Rationalists and other
non-Christians . (John Wijngaards, "The Theology of Slavery" )
The institution of slavery got mentioned several times in the
Christian Bible: 'Moreover of the children of the strangers that
do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their that
are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be
your possession.' (Leviticus, 25, 44-46). 'If thou buy an Hebrew
servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh year he
shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he
shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall
go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she
have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall
be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the
servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my
children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring
him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or
unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through
with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.' (Exodus XXI,
2-6). These are just two of the examples of the Hebrew god's
opinion of slavery. The quotations are from the Christian bible.
(On Slavery By Femi Akomolafe. 1994, The retrospective history
of Africa, Hartford Web Publishing, )
The Abolitionist movement emphasized Jesus' and St. Paul's
general statements concerning love, the equality of all persons,
and the "Golden Rule" (treating one's fellow humans as one
expects to be treated by others). At first, the vast bulk of
Christian groups and individuals supported slavery, citing the
many Biblical passages as justification. The Abolitionist
movement grew slowly, as an increasing percentage of Christians
realized that even though slavery was condoned and regulated by
passages throughout the Bible, it was profoundly immoral.
(SLAVERY Overview. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance)
The slavery spoken of by the bible is mainly chattel slavery.
The bible represents it as instituted by god (GEN. 9.25),
perpetuated and extended by him in many commandments and
regulated in many laws. This state of affairs was not changed by
the new testament, takes slavery for granted and ruled, "slaves,
obey your masters" (EPH. 6.5, COL. 3.22, TIT. 2.9). ("On
Slavery: "Biblical Versus Secular Ethics", HOFFMANN, R JOSEPH
(ED), 69-77. Author: SMITH, MORTON Journal Name: BUFFALO,
PROMETHEUS,)
For an analysis of the bible's teachings on Slavery from one
modern fundamentalist Christian perspective, read on; "If the
Bible is from God, why did it tolerate the institution of
slavery?" " The slavery tolerated by the Scriptures must be
understood in its historical context. Old Testament laws
regulating slavery are troublesome by modern standards, but in
their historical context they provided a degree of social
recognition and legal protection to slaves that was advanced for
its time (Exodus 21:20-27; Leviticus 25:44-46)" "20 If a man
beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as
a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be
punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the
slave is his property. 22 "If men who are fighting hit a
pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely, but there is no
serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's
husband demands and the court allows.. (see 1997 RBC
Ministries--Grand Rapids, MI 49555-0001 http://www.gospelcom.net/rbc/questions/bible/slavery/slave.shtml)
For more on religion in this Chronology see 1831)
Journal article refutes the notion that Protestantism
contributed to harsher treatment of slaves in North America,
compared to Catholic South America. The Anglican Church in
Virginia underwent 50 years of debate regarding the desirability
of providing religious instruction to slaves. Several church
leaders and political officials were involved in the ongoing
discussion, including scientist Robert Boyle, Bishop Henry
Compton, William and Mary College President James Blair,
Governor Edmund Andros, and Lieutenant Governor Alexander
Spotswood. Ultimately, efforts to convert slaves to Christianity
were thwarted by the landowners and slaveholders who served as
the church vestry in most parishes. Fearful that if blacks were
converted they could no longer, as Christians, be enslaved,
these men successfully opposed efforts to convert their valuable
chattel. Based on writings of William Berkeley, Alexander
Spotswood correspondence, Anglican Church documents and
manuscripts, the Virginia Statutes, House of Burgesses journals,
and the Executive Journals of Colonial Virginia; 83 notes, 6
illus. (Anesko, Michael. SO DISCREET A ZEAL: SLAVERY AND THE
ANGLICAN CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 1680-1730. Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography 1985 93 (3): 247-278.)
Lucille Clifton also has a tremendously powerful poem on the
Middle Passage available on the "Language of Life" video
produced by Moyers and PBS. It can also be found in the book,
_Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep: An Anthology of Poetry by African
Americans Since 1945_ (Little, Brown, and Company, 1994). The
text of the poem can be found on- line. (Dave Nathanson in a
posting in SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU)
Height of Atlantic SlaveTrade: Between the years 1650 and 1900,
historians estimate that at least 28 million Africans were
forcibly removed from central and western Africa as slaves (but
the numbers involved are controversial). A human catastrophe for
Africa, the world African Slave Trade was truly a "Holocaust."
THE HOLOCAUST: Muslim traders exported as many as 17 million
slaves to the coast of the Indian Ocean, to the Middle East, and
to North Africa. African slave exports via the Red Sea,
trans-Sahara, and East Africa/Indian Ocean to other parts of the
world between 1500-1900 totaled at least 5 million Africans sent
into bondage.
Between 1450 and 1850, at least 12 million Africans were shipped
from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean--the notorious "Middle
Passage"-- primarily to colonies in North America, South
America, and the West Indies.. 80% of these kidnapped Africans
(or at least 7 million) were exported during the 18th century,
with a mortality rate of probably 10- 20% on the ships enroute
for the Americas. Unknown numbers (probably at least 4 million)
of Africans died in slave wars and forced marches before being
shipped. Within central Africa itself, the slave trade
precipitated migrations: coastal tribes fled slave- raiding
parties and captured slaves were redistributed to different
regions in Africa.
African slave trade and slave labor transformed the world. In
Africa, slave trade stimulated the expansion of powerful West
African kingdoms. In the Islamic world, African slave labor on
plantations, in seaports, and within families expanded the
commerce and trade of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. In the
Americas, slave labor became the key component in trans-Atlantic
agriculture and commerce supporting the booming capitalist
economy of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the greatest demand
in the Americas coming from Brazil and the sugar plantations of
the Caribbean.(Cora Agatucci's African Timeline, Central Oregon
Community College)
Throughout the first half of 18th century, France and England
battled for control of the Guinea Coast. In Lower Guinea, the
British`s main adversary was the Dutch. But when the Dutch
Company was liquidated, the British soon gained control of the
entire Ivory, Grain, and Gold Coasts. France, Britain's main
adversary in Upper Guinea, soon lost interest because of lack of
profits. The sparsely populated Upper Guinea coast did not
provide enough slaves. In addition, interior ethnic groups were
very hostile to European influence. By the mid-18th century,
Britain had full control of West African trade. In addition, the
British won the Assiento, the sole license to ship black slaves
from Africa to Spanish controlled territories in America, in the
Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. British dominance in the slave trade
began a new period of change in the European/African
relationship. The English would begin to explore, conquer and
rule African peoples. The Age of Trade shifted into the Age of
Colonization. (TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE 1450-1750 ThinkQuest)
1667/09 -ACT III.
An act declaring that baptisme of slaves doth not exempt them
from bondage.[The passage of this statute indicates that
Christianity was important to the concept of English identity.
Legislators decided that slaves born in Virginia could not
become free if they were baptized, but masters were encouraged
to Christianize their enslaved laborers.] WHEREAS some doubts
have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the
charity and piety of their owners made pertakers of the blessed
sacrament of baptisme, should by vertue of their baptisme be
made ffree; It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly,
and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptisme doth
not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or
ffreedome; that diverse masters, ffreed from this doubt, may
more carefully endeavour the propagation of christianity by
permitting children, though slaves, or those of greater growth
if capable to be admitted to that sacrament. Source: Hening,
ed., The Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 260. (Selected Virginia
Statutes relating to Slavery from Virtual Jamestown)
A (Virginia) act declared that "Baptisme doth not alter the
condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome." (Slavery
in America, Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995)
1669
In 1669, for example, the colonial Virginia Assembly declared
that, if a Negro slave died at the hands of a master who used
"extremity of correction" to overcome the slave's "obstinacy,"
it was not murder. In "An act about the casuall killing of
slaves," lawmakers reasoned that no man would deliberately
destroy his own property. (How the Cradle of Liberty Became a
Slave-Owning Nation, By Susan DeFord, Special to The Washington
Post, Wednesday, December 10, 1997; Page H01)
Beyond the notorious "correction law of 1669," several other
Virginia laws increasingly debased the lives of Africans,
enslaved or free. Once, for example, newly baptized slaves could
sue for their freedom and often won it. That right was curtailed
when the Assembly declared that Christianity did not merit
freedom. Other new laws said slaves could not marry, own
property, carry weapons, assemble in groups or leave their
plantations without signed passes from their masters. If slaves
ran away, they could be hunted and killed and their master
compensated from the public treasury. Neither slave nor free
black could strike a white person, vote, hold office or testify
in court against a white person.
October 1669-ACT I.
An act about the casuall killing of slaves. [Colonial leaders
decided that corporal punishment was the only way in which a
master could correct a slave since his or her time of service
could not be extended. This law represents the loss of legal
protection for a slave's life in Virginia. It also was the first
of several laws passed during the last thirty years of the
seventeenth century that reduced the personal rights of black
men and women.] WHEREAS the only law in force for the punishment
of refractory servants resisting their master, mistris or
overseer cannot be inflicted upon negroes, nor the obstinacy of
many of them by other then violent meanes supprest, Be it
enacted and declared by this grand assembly, if any slave resist
his master (or other by his masters order correcting him) and by
the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his
death shall not be accompted ffelony, but the master (or that
other person appointed by the master to punish him) be acquit
from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that prepensed
malice(which alone makes murther ffelony) should induce any man
to destroy his owne estate. (Source: Hening, ed., The Statutes
at Large, vol. 2, p. 270.) (Selected Virginia Statutes relating
to Slavery from Virtual Jamestown)
1670
Virginia- Voting rights are removed from recently freed slaves
and indentured servants. All non-Christians imported to the
territory, "by shipping," are to be slaves for life, whereas
those who enter by land are to serve until the age of 30 if they
are adult men and women when their period of servitude
commences. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in
Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-
Davis)
1660
Slavery spread quickly in the American colonies. At first the
legal status of Africans in America was poorly defined, and
some, like European indentured servants, managed to become free
after several years of service. From the 1660s, however, the
colonies began enacting laws that defined and regulated slave
relations. Central to these laws was the provision that black
slaves, and the children of slave women, would serve for life.
This premise, combined with the natural population growth among
the slaves, meant that slavery could survive and grow even after
slave imports were outlawed in 1808. ("Slavery in the United
States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft
Corporation.)
1660
Despite this growth in tobacco production, problems in
price-stability and quality existed. In 1660, when the English
markets became glutted with tobacco, prices fell so low that the
colonists were barely able to survive. In response to this,
planters began mixing other organic material, such as leaves and
the sweepings from their homes, in with the tobacco, as an
attempt to make up by quantity what they lost by low prices. The
exporting of this trash tobacco solved the colonists' immediate
cash flow problems, but accentuated the problems of
overproduction and deterioration of quality.[8] As the
reputation of colonial tobacco declined, reducing European
demand for it, colonial authorities stepped in to take
corrective measures. During the next fifty years they came up
with three solutions. First, they reduced the amount of tobacco
produced; second, they regularized the trade by fixing the size
of the tobacco hogshead and prohibiting shipments of bulk
tobacco; finally, they improved quality by preventing the
exportation of trash tobacco. These solutions soon fell through
because there was no practical way to enforce the law. It was
not until 1730, when the Virginia Inspection Acts were passed,
that tobacco trade laws were fully enforced (Middleton, Arthur
Pierce. Tobacco Coast. Newport News, Virginia: Mariners' Museum,
1953.. P. 112-116, Finlayson, Ann. Colonial Maryland. Nashville,
Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc. 1974. P. 66-679. On line at From
Economic Aspects of Tobacco during the Colonial Period
1612-1776)
1661
A reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law
was directed at white servants -- at those who ran away with a
black servant. The following year, the colony went one step
further by stating that children born would be bonded or free
according to the status of the mother. (Timeline from the PBS
series Africans In America)
1662
A Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life.
." (Slavery in America Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995 )
Citing 1662 Virginia statute providing that "[c]hildren got by
an Englishman upon a Negro woman shall be bond or free according
to the condition of the mother"). Throughout the late 17th and
early 18th century, several colonial legislatures adopted
similar rules which reversed the usual common law presumptions
that the status of the child was determined by the father. See
id. at 128 (citing 1706 New York statute); id. at 252 (citing a
1755 Georgia Law). These laws facilitated the breeding of slaves
through Black women's bodies and allowed for slaveholders to
reproduce their own labor force. (See Paula Giddings, When And
Where I Enter: The Impact Of Black Women On Race And Sex In
America 37) (1984) (noting that "a master could save the cost of
buying new slaves by impregnating his own slave, or for that
matter, having anyone impregnate her"). For a discussion of Race
and Gender see Cheryl I. Harris, Myths of Race and Gender in the
Trials of O.J. Simpson and Susan Smith -- Spectacles of Our
Times)
1662
The Laws of Virginia (1662, 1691, 1705) These statutes chart the
development of regulations on the sexual and reproductive lives
of indentured servants and slaves, the growing
institutionalization of slavery, and the construction of racism.
Note the increasingly harsh penalties and how punishments
differed by gender. (To view the laws visit (America Past and
Present On Line)
Slavery in the United States was governed by an extensive body
of law developed from the 1660s to the 1860s. Every slave state
had its own slave code and body of court decisions. All slave
codes made slavery a permanent condition, inherited through the
mother, and defined slaves as property, usually in the same
terms as those applied to real estate. Slaves, being property,
could not own property or be a party to a contract. Since
marriage is a form of a contract, no slave marriage had any
legal standing. All codes also had sections regulating free
blacks, who were still subject to controls on their movements
and employment and were often required to leave the state after
emancipation. (American Treasures of the Library of Congress:
MEMORY, Slavery in the Capitol)
1663
Maryland, Settlers pass law stipulating that all imported blacks
are to be given the status of slaves. Free white women who marry
black slaves are to be slaves during the lives of their spouses,
Ironically, children born of white servant women and blacks are
regarded as free by a 1681 law. (The Negro Almanac a reference
work on the Afro American, compiled and edited by harry A
Ploski, and Warren Marr, II. Third Edition 1978 Bellwether
Publishing)
1663/09/13
First serious recorded slave conspiracy in Colonial America
takes place in Virginia. A servant betrayed plot of white
servants and Negro slaves in Gloucester County, Virginia. (Major
Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower)
1664
Slavery sanctioned by law; slaves to serve for life. (MD info
from Maryland A Chronology & Documentary Handbook, 1978 Oceana
Publications, Inc. And Maryland Historical Chronology)
Throughout most of the colonial period, opposition to slavery
among white Americans was virtually nonexistent. Settlers in the
17th and early 18th centuries came from sharply stratified
societies in which the wealthy savagely exploited members of the
lower classes. Lacking a later generation's belief in natural
human equality, they saw little reason to question the
enslavement of Africans. As they sought to mold a docile labor
force, planters resorted to harsh, repressive measures that
included liberal use of whipping and branding. ("Slavery in the
United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft
Corporation.)
One characteristic which set American slavery apart was its
racial basis. In America, with only a few early and
insignificant exceptions, all slaves were Africans, and almost
all Africans were slaves. This placed the label of inferiority
on black skin and on African culture. In other societies, it had
been possible for a slave who obtained his freedom to take his
place in his society with relative ease. In America, however,
when a slave became free, he was still obviously an African. The
taint of inferiority clung to him. Not only did white America
become convinced of white superiority and black inferiority, but
it strove to impose these racial beliefs on the Africans
themselves. Slave masters gave a great deal of attention to the
education and training of the ideal slave, In general, there
were five steps in molding the character of such a slave: strict
discipline, a sense of his own inferiority, belief in the
master's superior power, acceptance of the master's standards,
and, finally, a deep sense of his own helplessness and
dependence. At every point this education was built on the
belief in white superiority and black inferiority. Besides
teaching the slave to despise his own history and culture, the
master strove to inculcate his own value system into the
African's outlook. The white man's belief in the African's
inferiority paralleled African self hate. (Norman Coombs, The
Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. Chapter 3,
Chapter 3, The Shape of American Slavery)
The psychological impact on the individual of slavery contrasted
to that of individuals who survived the Nazi holocaust, In
Stanley M. Elkins thinking, the concentration camps were a
modern example of a rigid system controlling mass behavior.
Because some of those who experienced them were social
scientists trained in the skills of observation and analysis,
they provide a basis for insights into the way in which a
particular social system can influence mass character. While
there is also much literature about American slavery written
both by slaves and masters, none of it was written from the
viewpoint of modern social sciences. However, Elkins postulates
that a slave type must have existed as the result of the attempt
to control mass behavior, and he believes that this type
probably bore a marked resemblance to the literary stereotype of
"Sambo." Studying concentration camps and their impact on
personality provides a tool for new insights into the working of
slavery, but, warns Elkins, the comparison can only be used for
limited purposes. Although slavery was not unlike the
concentration camp in many respects, the concentration camp can
be viewed as a highly perverted form of slavery, and both
systems were ways of controlling mass behavior
The concentration camp experience began with what has become
labeled as shock procurement. As terror was one of the many
tools of the system, surprise late-night arrests were the
favorite technique. Camp inmates generally agreed that the train
ride to the camp was the point at which they experienced the
first brutal torture. Herded together into cattle cars, without
adequate space, ventilation, or sanitary conditions, they had to
endure the horrible crowding and the harassment of the guards.
When they reached the camp, they had to stand naked in line and
undergo a detailed examination by the camp physician. Then, each
was given a tag and a number. These two events were calculated
to strip away one's identity and to reduce the individual to an
item within an impersonal system. (see work of Stanley M. Elkins
in Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne
Press, 1972. Chapter 3, Slavery and the Formation of Character)
1664
Slavery introduced into law in Maryland, the law also prohibited
marriage between white women and black men. This particular act
remained in effect for over 300 years, and between 1935 and 1967
the law was extended to forbid the marriage of Malaysians with
blacks or whites. The law was finally repealed in 1967.
(Maryland State Archive, The Archivists Record Series of the
Week, Phebe Jacobsen "Colonial Marriage Records" Bulldog Vol. 2,
No. 26 18 July 1988 )
Africa occupies just over 20 percent of the earth's land surface
and has roughly 20 percent of the world's population, but
European slave traders in the 17th century and the next will
decimate the continent by exporting human chattels and
introducing new diseases. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by
James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)
The transatlantic slave trade produced one of the largest forced
migrations in history. From the early 16th to the mid-19th
centuries, between 10 million and 11 million Africans were taken
from their homes, herded onto ships where they were sometimes so
tightly packed that they could barely move, and sent to a
strange new land. Since others died before boarding the ships,
Africa's loss of population was even greater. ("Slavery in the
United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft
Corporation.)
Projected Exports Of That Portion Of The French And English
Slave Trade Having Identifiable Region Of Coast Origin In
Africa, 1711-1810
· Senegambia (Senegal-Gambia)* 5.8%
· Sierra Leone 3.4%
· Windward Coast (Ivory Coast)* 12.1%
· Gold Coast (Ghana)* 14.4%
· Bight of Benin (Nigeria)* 14.5
· Bight of Biafra (Nigeria)* 25.1%
· Central and Southeast Africa (Cameroon- N.Angola)* 24.7%
· * The countries in parentheses are rough approximations to
help you find the location on a modern map.
"Were these people called by that name during that time in that
place?" Excluding some nomadic and semi-nomadic groups
· Senegambia (Senegal-Gambia): Wolof, Mandingo, Malinke,
Bambara, Papel, Limba, Bola, Balante, Serer, Fula, Tucolor
· Sierra Leone: Temne, Mende, Kisi, Goree, Kru.
· Windward Coast (Ivory Coast) (incl. Liberia): Baoule, Vai, De,
Gola (Gullah), Bassa, Grebo.
· Gold Coast (Ghana): Ewe, Ga, Fante, Ashante, Twi, Brong
· Bight Of Benin & Bight Of Biafra Combined (sorry): Yoruba,
Nupe, Benin, Dahomean (Fon), Edo-Bini, Allada, Efik, Ibibio,
Ijaw, Ibani,Igbo(Calabar)
· Central & Southeast Africa: BaKongo, MaLimbo, Ndungo, BaMbo,
BaLimbe, BaDongo, Luba, Loanga, Ovimbundu, Cabinda, Pembe,
Imbangala, Mbundu, BaNdulunda
Please send comments (see web page below) on whether the
following groups should be included as a "Ancestral group" of
African Americans, and in what region: Fulani, Tuareg, Dialonke,
Massina, Dogon, Songhay, Jekri, Jukun, Domaa, Tallensi, Mossi,
Nzima, Akwamu, Egba, Fang, and Ge. (Compid by Kwame Bandele from
information in P.D. Curtin's book, "Atlantic Slave Trade" p.
221).
In the 1700s the coasts of West Africa had three main divisions
controlled by Europeans in their effort to monopolize the slave
trade. The three divisions were Senegambia, Upper Guinea and
Lower Guinea. Senegambia's two navigable rivers, the Senegal and
the Gambia, were controlled by the French and the English,
respectively. The West Africans who became slaves from the
Senegambia included the Fula, Wolof, Serer, Felup, and the
Mandingo. Upper Guinea had a two thousand miles coastline from
the Gambia south and east to the Bight of Biafra. This coastline
was also designated the Windward Coast because of the heavy
winds on the shore. The West Africans who became slaves from the
Upper Gambia included the Baga and Susu from French Guinea, the
Chamba from Sierra Leone, the Krumen from the Grain Coast, and
the Fanti and the Ashanti from the Gold Coast, commonly referred
to today as Ghana. East of the Volta River was the Slave Coast
which was so named because the slave trade was at its height
there since the African kings (Slattees) permitted Europeans to
compete equally for Africans to become slaves. Those West
Africans who became slaves from this region included Yoruban,
Ewe, Dahoman, Ibo, Ibibio, and the Efik. Lower Guinea had
fifteen hundred miles of coastline from Calabar to the southern
desert. The West Africans who became slaves from this region
were all Bantus. The trading of Africans from the West Coast
provided an economic boon for the Europeans. The trading of
Africans from the West Coast produced the heinous Middle
passage. The trading of Africans from the West Coast produced
the African American! (Connections: A Culturally Historical
Prospective of West African to African American, by Kelvin
Tarrance, Revised: May 3, 1996)
The slave trade from Africa is said to have uprooted as many as
20 million people from their homes and brought them to the
Americas. Slavery had existed as a human institution for
centuries, but the slaves were usually captives taken in war or
members of the lowest class in a society. The black African
slave trade, by contrast, was a major economic enterprise. It
made the traders rich and brought an abundant labor supply to
the islands of the Caribbean and to the American Colonies.
(Compton's Encyclopedia Online )
The mortality rate among these new slaves ran very high. It is
estimated that some five percent died in Africa on the way to
the coast, another thirteen percent in transit to the West
Indies, and still another thirty percent during the three-month
seasoning period in the West Indies. This meant that about fifty
percent of those originally captured in Africa died either in
transit or while being prepared for servitude. Even this
statistic, harsh as it is, does not tell the whole story of the
human cost involved in the slave trade. Most slaves were
captured in the course of warfare, and many more Africans were
killed in the course of this combat. The total number of deaths,
then, ran much higher than those killed en route. Many Africans
became casualty statistics, directly or indirectly, because of
the slave trade. Beyond this, there was the untold human sorrow
and misery borne by the friends and relatives of those Africans
who were torn away from home and loved ones and were never seen
again. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne
Press, 1972. Chapter 2 The Human Market, The Slave Trade)
It was obvious, however, that the victims of the modern slave
trade could not be said to have been acquired directly in war.
They had been purchased from African rulers who had seized them
in raids whose only purpose had been to acquire this valuable
human commodity for the insatiable European market. To this, the
advocates of the trade replied by claiming that the Africans
purchased by the traders had originally been taken prisoner in
"just" wars between Africans. The speciousness of this argument
was evident from the beginning. But most slavers accepted what
they claimed were African assurances that their human
merchandise had indeed been "saved" in a just war, on the
principle that it is not up to the purchaser to discover if the
goods he is buying have been acquired legitimately or not. In
this way slavery remained linked, throughout its 300-year
history, to internecine African warfare. Thomas seems to imply
that Africans, since they were involved in the trade, must take
some measure of the blame for it. This can hardly be denied.
What Thomas overlooks, though, is the degree to which the
European slave trade contributed to the situation from which it
benefited. The abolitionists had always been fully aware of the
possible impact of the trade upon Africa. "The slave trade,"
bewailed Granville Sharp, one of the earliest of the English
abolitionists, in 1776, "preyed upon the ignorance and brutality
of unenlightened nations, who are encouraged to war with each
other for this very purpose." The consequences of this for the
continent have only just begun to be examined, but there is
sufficient evidence to suggest that at least some of the horrors
that modern African rulers continue to inflict upon their
peoples, and that African states continue to inflict upon one
another, can be linked not only to the disastrous process of
de-colonization, but also to the long experience of the European
slave trade. Modern slavers were faced with a further problem:
religion. (Anthony Pagden he Slave Trade, Review of Hugh Thomas'
Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The New Republic; 12-22-1997)
Africans cooperated with Europeans in the slave trade, and some
slaves transported to America were already of the slave class.
But most slaves were simply hostages of the trade, and very few
were slaves before. A set of political and military
circumstances that the Portuguese, the Dutch, and other
Europeans imposed on the West Africans forced many African
kingdoms to cooperate with the slave trade. Stronger nations had
driven many coastal kingdoms from the interior before the
arrival of the Europeans. Yet with the coming of European tools
and weaponry as payment for African slaves, these coastal
kingdoms found themselves in power positions and began
slave-raiding expeditions against their former enemies. European
slave traders used these rivalries to increase tensions among
the African kingdoms for their own mercenary purposes. By
fomenting war between kingdoms and by introducing superior arms
to those cooperating with the trade, the Europeans obligated
many unwilling kingdoms to collaborate with them or face
enslavement themselves--raid or be raided. The "most abominable
aspect of the slave trade, was fueled by the idea that Africans,
even children, were better off Christianized under a system of
European slavery than left in Africa amid tribal wars, famines
and paganism" (p. 218). (Willie F. Page. _The Dutch Triangle:
The Netherlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664_.
Studies in African American History and Culture. New York:
Garland Publishing, 1997. xxxv + 262 pp. Bibliographical
references and index. $66.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8153-2881-8.
Reviewed for H-Review by Dennis R. Hidalgo, Central Michigan
University)
Essay argues that slavery existed and sometimes flourished in
Africa before the transatlantic slave trade, but neither the
African continent nor persons of African origin were as
prominent in the world of slaveholding as they would later
become. Second, the capture and sale of slaves across the
Atlantic between 1450 and 1850 encouraged expansion and repeated
transformation of slavery within Africa, to the point that
systems of slavery became central to societies all across the
continent. Third, even after the abolition of the transatlantic
slave trade (largely accomplished by 1850) and the European
conquest of Africa (mostly by 1900), millions of persons
remained in slavery in Africa as late as 1930. (For full reading
see Slavery in Africa, Microsoft, Encarta, Africana content,
1999 Microsoft Corporation)
But what American Slavery eventually developed into was somewhat
unique in several respects. Slavery in other parts of the world
had typically involved prisoners of war, and was considered a
humane alternative to being put to death. Rarely were the
children of those prisoners also placed into slavery. America
had not waged a war with Ireland, nor had it waged a war with
Africa, or with China. And although it had waged several wars
with the Native Americans, they found that Natives made poor
slaves and frequently escaped. America was...after all, their
homeland...their turf. They knew the land far better than these
European upstarts. Many of the Irish came to America voluntarily
to escape the horrid economy and famines of their homeland. They
choose to be here.
African Slaves were brought to America against the choice. They
were kept here against their choice. If they choose to become a
part of "America"...they were denied the choice to exercise
their full access and full rights within America.
And that choice...is what makes the American Slavery of blacks
so unique when compared to most other forms of historical
slavery. America was one of the first nations to declare that
the rights of the individual were paramount, that "all men were
created equal". That a man's freedom to choose was one of his
most sacred freedoms. These concepts contrasted radically with
the idea that a man could be taken from his home, away from his
family, forced to work against his will, and force to breed more
people to be borne into the same life.
It is one thing to be a slave, in a land where few even
understand what "Freedom" truly is, such as the Sudan (which
continues to have slaves even in modern times). But it is a
completely different matter to be a slave, in the "Land of the
Free". ( Debunking Dinesh D'souza's "End of Racism". 1998 F.V.
Walton Also read Racism in Modern America for a discussion of
modern Racism )
The attempt to legitimate slavery was a powerful contributing
factor in the spread of modern racism. For modern slaves were
almost all Africans, and the fact that the Africans were black
made it possible to defend their enslavement in terms of the
color of their skin. One argument, widespread at a time when
most people were prepared to accept the literal truth of the
Bible, took the Africans to be the descendants of Canaan. In the
biblical account of the peopling of the world by the sons of
Noah after the Flood, Canaan was condemned to be "a servant of
servants unto his brethren," because his father Ham had seen
"the nakedness of his father"; and Canaan was believed to have
settled in Africa. Noah's curse served conveniently to explain
the color of the Africans' skin and their supposed "natural"
indebtedness to the other nations of the world, particularly to
the Europeans, the alleged descendants of Japheth, whom God had
promised to "enlarge." This reading of the Book of Genesis
merged easily into a medieval iconographic tradition in which
devils were always depicted as black. Later pseudo-scientific
theories would be built around African skull shapes, dental
structure, and body postures, in an attempt to find an
unassailable argument--rooted in whatever the most persuasive
contemporary idiom happened to be: law, theology, genealogy, or
natural science--why one part of the human race should live in
perpetual indebtedness to another. (Anthony Pagden he Slave
Trade, Review of Hugh Thomas' Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
The New Republic; 12-22-1997)
For an analysis of the bible's teachings on Slavery from one
modern fundamentalist Christian perspective, read on; "If the
Bible is from God, why did it tolerate the institution of
slavery?" " The slavery tolerated by the Scriptures must be
understood in its historical context. Old Testament laws
regulating slavery are troublesome by modern standards, but in
their historical context they provided a degree of social
recognition and legal protection to slaves that was advanced for
its time (Exodus 21:20-27; Leviticus 25:44-46) "20 If a man
beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as
a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be
punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the
slave is his property. 22 "If men who are fighting hit a
pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely, but there is no
serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's
husband demands and the court allows.. (see 1997 RBC
Ministries--Grand Rapids, MI 49555-0001 For more on religion in
this Chronology see 1831)
Journal article refutes the notion that Protestantism
contributed to harsher treatment of slaves in North America,
compared to Catholic South America. The Anglican Church in
Virginia underwent 50 years of debate regarding the desirability
of providing religious instruction to slaves. Several church
leaders and political officials were involved in the ongoing
discussion, including scientist Robert Boyle, Bishop Henry
Compton, William and Mary College President James Blair,
Governor Edmund Andros, and Lieutenant Governor Alexander
Spotswood. Ultimately, efforts to convert slaves to Christianity
were thwarted by the landowners and slaveholders who served as
the church vestry in most parishes. Fearful that if blacks were
converted they could no longer, as Christians, be enslaved,
these men successfully opposed efforts to convert their valuable
chattel. (Based on writings of William Berkeley, Alexander
Spotswood correspondence, Anglican Church documents and
manuscripts, the Virginia Statutes, House of Burgesses journals,
and the Executive Journals of Colonial Virginia; 83 notes, 6
illus. (Anesko, Michael. SO Discreet A Zeal: Slavery And The
Anglican Church In Virginia 1680-1730. Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography 1985 93 (3): 247-278.)
Lucille Clifton also has a tremendously powerful poem on the
Middle Passage available on the "Language of Life" video
produced by Moyers and PBS. It can also be found in the book,
_Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep: An Anthology of Poetry by African
Americans Since 1945_ (Little, Brown, and Company, 1994). The
text of the poem can be found here. ( Dave Nathanson in a
posting in SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU)
Height of Atlantic SlaveTrade:
Between the years 1650 and 1900, historians estimate that at
least 28 million Africans were forcibly removed from central and
western Africa as slaves (but the numbers involved are
controversial). A human catastrophe for Africa, the world
African Slave Trade was truly a "Holocaust."
THE HOLOCAUST:
· Muslim traders exported as many as 17 million slaves to the
coast of the Indian Ocean, to the Middle East, and to North
Africa. African slave exports via the Red Sea, trans-Sahara, and
East Africa/Indian Ocean to other parts of the world between
1500-1900 totaled at least 5 million Africans sent into
bondage.
· Between 1450 and 1850, at least 12 million Africans were
shipped from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean--the notorious
Middle Passage"-- primarily to colonies in North America, South
America, and the West Indies.. 80% of these kidnapped Africans
(or at least 7 million) were exported during the 18th century,
with a mortality rate of probably 10-20% on the ships enroute
for the Americas.
· Unknown numbers (probably at least 4 million) of Africans died
in slave wars and forced marches before being shipped. Within
central Africa itself, the slave trade precipitated migrations:
coastal tribes fled slave-raiding parties and captured slaves
were redistributed to different regions in Africa.
· African slave trade and slave labor transformed the world. In
Africa, slave trade stimulated the expansion of powerful West
African kingdoms. In the Islamic world, African slave labor on
plantations, in seaports, and within families expanded the
commerce and trade of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. In the
Americas, slave labor became the key component in trans-Atlantic
agriculture and commerce supporting the booming capitalist
economy of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the greatest demand
in the Americas coming from Brazil and the sugar plantations of
the Caribbean.
(Cora Agatucci's African Timeline, Central Oregon Community
College, )
Throughout the first half of 18th century, France and England
battled for control of the Guinea Coast. In Lower Guinea, the
British`s main adversary was the Dutch. But when the Dutch
Company was liquidated, the British soon gained control of the
entire Ivory, Grain, and Gold Coasts. France, Britain's main
adversary in Upper Guinea, soon lost interest because of lack of
profits. The sparsely populated Upper Guinea coast did not
provide enough slaves. In addition, interior ethnic groups were
very hostile to European influence. By the mid-18th century,
Britain had full control of West African trade. In addition, the
British won the Assiento, the sole license to ship black slaves
from Africa to Spanish controlled territories in America, in the
Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. British dominance in the slave trade
began a new period of change in the European/African
relationship. The English would begin to explore, conquer and
rule African peoples. The Age of Trade shifted into the Age of
Colonization.(Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade 1450-1750 ThinkQuest )
1667
A Virginia act declared that "Baptisme doth not alter the
condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome. (Slavery
in America Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995)
1670
Virginia- Voting rights are removed from recently freed slaves
and indentured servants. All non-Christians imported to the
territory, "by shipping," are to be slaves for life, whereas
those who enter by land are to serve until the age of 30 if they
are adult men and women when their period of servitude
commences. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in
Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis
)
1671
Virginia- A law is enacted providing for a bounty on the heads
of "Maroons" black fugitives who form communities in the
mountains, swamps, and forests of southern colonies. Many Maroon
communities attack towns and plantations. (Chronology: A
Historical Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953
by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis )
Maroon societies (also "marron," "cimarron,") were bands or
communities of fugitive slaves who had succeeded in establishing
a society of their own in some geographic area, usually
difficult to penetrate, where they could not easily be surprised
by soldiers, slave catchers, or their previous owners. Africans
enslaved in Spanish New World territories were most likely to
run away and form such communities. Maroon societies were of
several degrees of stability. At the least stable end were the
gangs of runaway men who wandered within a region, hiding
together, and who sustained themselves by raids or by prevailing
upon their friends and relatives for food. Other societies
included both men and women and might have developed a trade
relationship with outsiders. Some maroon societies felt
themselves safe enough to plant crops and attempt at least a
semi-permanent settlement. The threat of maroons emerging from
their hiding places to merge with slaves in revolt was another
concept that troubled slave owners. (The Underground Railroad In
American History National Park Service)
1672
English merchants form the Royal Company to exploit the African
slave trade. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager
from MS Bookshelf)
In 1660, the English government chartered a company called the
"Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa." At first the
company was mismanaged, but in 1663 it was reorganized. A new
objective clearly stated that the company would engage in the
slave trade. To the great dissatisfaction of England's
merchants, only the Company of Royal Adventurers could now
engage in the trade.
The Company did not fare well, due mainly to the war with
Holland, and in 1667, it collapsed. But out of its ashes emerged
a new company: The Royal African Company
Founded in 1672, the Royal African Company was granted a similar
monopoly in the slave trade. Between 1680 and 1686, the Company
transported an average of 5,000 slaves a year. Between 1680 and
1688, it sponsored 249 voyages to Africa.
Still, rival English merchants were not amused. In 1698,
Parliament yielded to their demands and opened the slave trade
to all. With the end of the monopoly, the number of slaves
transported on English ships would increase dramatically -- to
an average of over 20,000 a year. By the end of the 17th
century, England led the world in the trafficking of slaves.
(Timeline from the PBS series Africans In America )
1676
Dutch traders buy black slaves at 30 florins each in Angola and
sell 15,000 per year in the Americas at 300 to 500 florins each.
(The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
Bookshelf)
Regarding Jewish investment in the Dutch West India Company
(WIC), which had a monopoly of the Dutch slave trade in the 17th
Century, Jews accounted for a share of 1.3% of the founding
capital. When the Governor of New Amsterdam (now New York)
attempted to bar the entrance of Jewish refugees from Brazil,
Jewish investors accounted for about 4% of the investors in the
WIC. Jews could not, of course, participate in the management of
the WIC. (Seymour Drescher citing what will appear in a
collective volume on Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the
West, forthcoming from Berghahn Books. From "The history of
slavery, the slave trade, abolition and emancipation"
SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU> 20-AUG-1998 08:27:34.45)
"Jews established their most significant niche in the trade as
purchasers of lower-priced slaves, or "refuse slaves." These
were usually the weakest or unhealthiest of the Africans who
landed in Jamaica. Such slaves were re-exported to colonial
systems in the islands, or to the South American coast. For a
time Sephardic Jews may have had a business advantage deriving
from their familiarity with the Spanish language and prior trade
links to "New Christian" merchants - descendants of Jews - in
mainland South American ports. In any event, Jews in Jamaica
purchased up to 6% or 7% of all Africans landed by the Royal
African Company at the end of the 17th century, just when their
co-religionists in London reached the peak of their own
involvement with the trade." (Review by Seymour Drescher in the
forward 01/06/99 of a book by Eli Faber, "A Painstaking Rebuttal
To an Incendiary Charge" A Historian Sets the Record Straight on
Slavery) (Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record
Straight 1998 New York University Press)
1675 - 1676
Bacon's Rebellion "[We must defend ourselves] against all
Indians in general, for that they were all Enemies." This was
the unequivocal view of Nathaniel Bacon, a young, wealthy
Englishman who had recently settled in the backcountry of
Bacon's Virginia. The opinion that all Indians were enemies was
also shared by a many other Virginians, especially those who
lived in the interior. It was not the view, however, of the
governor of the colony, William Berkeley.
Berkeley was not opposed to fighting Indians who were considered
enemies, but attacking friendly Indians, he thought, could lead
to what everyone wanted to avoid: a war with "all the Indians
against us." Berkeley also didn't trust Bacon's intentions,
believing that the upstart's true aim was to stir up trouble
among settlers, who were already discontent with the colony's
government.
Bacon attracted a large following who, like him, wanted to kill
or drive out every Indian in Virginia. In 1675, when Berkeley
denied Bacon a commission (the authority to lead soldiers),
Bacon took it upon himself to lead his followers in a crusade
against the "enemy." They marched to a fort held by a friendly
tribe, the Occaneechees, and convinced them to capture warriors
from an unfriendly tribe. The Occaneechees returned with
captives. Bacon's men killed the captives They then turned to
their "allies" and opened fire.
Berkeley declared Bacon a rebel and charged him with treason.
Just to be safe, the next time Bacon returned to Jamestown, he
brought along fifty armed men. Bacon was still arrested, but
Berkeley pardoned him instead of sentencing him to death, the
usual punishment for treason.
Still without the commission he felt he deserved, Bacon returned
to Jamestown later the same month, but this time accompanied by
five hundred men. Berkeley was forced to give Bacon the
commission, only to later declare that it was void. Bacon, in
the meantime, had continued his fight against Indians. When he
learned of the Governor's declaration, he headed back to
Jamestown. The governor immediately fled, along with a few of
his supporters, to Virginia's eastern shore.
Each leader tried to muster support. Each promised freedom to
slaves and servants who would join their cause. But Bacon's
following was much greater than Berkeley's. In September of
1676, Bacon and his men set Jamestown on fire.
The rebellion ended after British authorities sent a royal force
to assist in quelling the uprising and arresting scores of
committed rebels, white and black. When Bacon suddenly died in
October, probably of dysentery, Bacon's Rebellion fizzled out.
Bacon's Rebellion demonstrated that poor whites and poor blacks
could be united in a cause. This was a great fear of the ruling
class -- what would prevent the poor from uniting to fight them?
This fear hastened the transition to racial slavery. (Timeline
from the PBS series Africans In America )
All the Indians about the Chesapeake Bay were made tributary to
the whites as the result of a campaign against them by Nathaniel
Bacon, who defeated and nearly exterminated them in a battle
fought on the present site of the city of Richmond, VA (Richard
Sylvester, District of Columbia Police, Washington DC 1894, Page
2)
Bacon's Rebellion illustrates class dynamics in the colonies. In
1676 landless, poor, and frontier colonists and other residents
of Virginia were mobilized by a wealthy demagogue, Nathaniel
Bacon. The rebels set Jamestown ablaze and took over the
colonial government. Britain sent an army to restore law and
order. The rebellion was a popular, anti-aristocratic
uprising--but not just that. The rebels had grievances against
their rich and powerful rulers in the east. The elite of
seventeenth century Virginia already owned huge tracts within
the colony. It served their interests to minimize conflict with
Native Americans, so the colonial government they controlled set
limits on the settlers' drive west. The rebellion began when
Bacon defied the Governor's order by leading attach on friendly
Native American villages, stealing furs, slaughtering the
inhabitants or taking them into slavery. What the rebels mainly
sought was freedom to secure land by killing or driving Native
Americans further west. (Lyons, David, The balance of injustice
and the War of Independence.., Vol. 45, Monthly Review,
04-01-1994, pp. 17)
Nathaniel Bacon prepared to lead the largest insurrection
against a colonial government until the American Revolution,
many of the men marching alongside Bacon were black slaves and
former black servants. (Lorena S. Walsh. _From Calabar to
Carter's Grove: The History of a Virginia slave Community_.
Colonial Williamsburg Studies in Chesapeake History and Culture.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997. Xxii + 335
pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliographical references, and index.
$34.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8139-1719-0. Reviewed for H-Review by
Karen R. Utz , History Department, University of
Alabama-Birmingham)
Journal article states that a central paradox and a challenge to
historians of America's colonial past is the simultaneous rise
of liberty and equality and the rise of slavery. With particular
attention to Jefferson's Virginia, the author offers a tentative
resolution of the paradox. In keeping with general 18th-century
commonwealth notions, Jefferson feared the presence of large
numbers of landless and dependent poor people as antithetical to
political liberty and social well-being. Yet, this is what was
happening in Virginia before Bacon's Rebellion. Large numbers of
young, armed, single white men found themselves working for
wages and without much prospect of becoming landowners. They
became a source of peril in the society and invited repressive
measures by government. Black slavery reduced the need to import
white servants, opened opportunities for whites who remained,
and enabled Virginia to build its free political institutions
upon slavery. 78 notes. (Morgan, Edmund S. Title: Slavery And
Freedom: The American Paradox. Journal citation: Journal of
American History 1972 59(1): 5-29.)
1680
The system of American slavery developed and became codified
beginning in the mid-seventeenth century; by about 1680, it was
fully established. Under this system, a slave was chattel--an
article of property that could be bought, punished, sold,
loaned, used as collateral, or willed to another at an owner's
whim. Slaves were not recognized as persons in the eyes of the
law; thus they had no legal rights. Slaves could not legally
marry, own property, vote, serve as witnesses, serve on juries,
or make contracts. The offspring of female slaves also belonged
to their owners, regardless of whom their fathers were. (Theresa
Anne Murphy, Scholarship On Southern Farms And Plantations 1996
American Studies Department of George Washington University, for
the National Park Service Web Page on Slavery)
Since the beginning of the 20th century, historians have
disagreed as to whether slavery in colonial Virginia was made
politically and psychologically acceptable by an inherent racism
among white Europeans, or if slavery emerged as a result of
economic factors and racism developed as a consequence of it.
What evidence there is indicates that the enslavement of
Africans was due to economic requirements for labor, to the
inability of Africans to resist slavery, and to European beliefs
that Africans were an inferior branch of humanity, suited by
their characteristics and circumstances to be lifelong slaves.
Based on contemporary philosophical and legal writings, and
secondary sources; 130 notes. (Vaughan, Alden T. The Origins
Debate: Slavery And Racism In Seventeenth Century Virginia.
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 1989 97 (3):
311-354.)
While there was much sentiment in North America supporting
marriages among slaves, and there was much animosity against
masters who separated families through sale, the law was
unambiguous on this point. Slaves were property, and therefore
could not enter into contracts including contracts of marriage.
Jurists also noted that to prevent the sale of separate members
of a family would lower the sale price, and this was to tamper
with a man's property. Therefore, property rights had to be
placed above marriage rights. In contrast, in South America the
Church insisted that slave unions be brought within the
sacrament of marriage. The Church also strove to limit
promiscuous relationships between slaves as well as between
masters and slaves, and it encouraged marriage instead of
informal mating. Also, the law forbade the separate sale of
members of the family, husband, wife, and children under the age
of ten. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America,
Twayne Press, 1972. Chapter 3b, North American and South
American Slavery)
Typical sermons admonished slaves to be obedient, not to steal,
and to remember that "what faults you are guilty of towards your
masters and mistresses, are faults done against God himself, who
hath set your masters and mistresses over you in His own stead,
and expects that you will do for them just as you would do for
Him. ("Plantation Agriculture in Southeast USA by Jim Jones West
Chester University of Pennsylvania, Cause in African History to
1875 taught Fall 1997; The Decision To Become A Planter. See
also John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life
in the Antebellum South, New York: Oxford University Press,
1979)
Farming in North America, for example, developed out of
traditional farming in the Old World. Corn was soon seen to be a
valuable crop and became the dominant grain raised. Tobacco,
cotton, and rice, which require many hands to tend, stimulated
slavery. (Compton's Encyclopedia Online)
1688
Germantown, Pennsylvania- Mennonite Quakers sign an anti-slavery
resolution, the first formal protest against slavery in the
Western Hemisphere. In 1696 Quakers importing slaves are
threatened with expulsion from the Society. (Chronology: A
Historical Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953
by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis )
1692/06/10
Bridget Bishop was hanged in Salem, Massachusetts, the first
official execution of the Salem witch trials. Bridget Bishop "I
am no witch. I am innocent. I know nothing of it." Following her
death, accusations of witchcraft escalated, but the trials were
not unopposed. Several townspeople signed petitions on behalf of
accused people they believed to be innocent. (The Salem Witch
Trials 1692 A Chronology of Events )
1698
Parliament opens the slave trade to British merchants, who will
in some cases carry on a triangular trade from New England to
Africa to the Caribbean islands to New England. The merchant
vessels will carry New England rum to African slavers, African
slaves on "the middle passage" to the West Indies, and West
Indian sugar and molasses to New England for the rum
distilleries. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James
Trager from MS Bookshelf)
The colonists imported their manufactured goods from Britain,
payment for which had to be made in sterling funds. The
colonists gained control over sterling funds as the result of
their exports. In the Southern colonies trade between the
colonies and Great Britain was direct. A Virginia planter might
export his tobacco to Britain, consigning it to a commission
merchant who would sell it and place the proceeds to the
Virginia planters account. The proceeds produced a fund of
sterling money upon which the Virginia planter might draw.
Perhaps he accompanied the shipment of his tobacco with an order
for goods. His correspondent in Britain would buy the goods and
debit his account for the cost. The goods would then be shipped
to the colony when the tobacco ships again returned to Virginia.
Here no more than a bookkeeping transaction was necessary. If,
however, the Virginia planter wished to transfer some of his
balance with his London correspondent to Virginia for use in the
colony, he might draw a bill of exchange on his correspondent
for, say, £100 sterling. The bill was in the nature of an order
to his correspondent to pay £100 sterling. The planter then sold
the bill at the going rate of exchange to a fellow Virginian who
had need of sterling funds to pay an obligation in Britain. The
purchaser forwarded the bill to his creditor in Britain, who
presented it to the correspondent of the Virginia planter for
acceptance--for the custom was to draw bills of exchange payable
thirty days after sight. If the correspondent accepted the bill,
the creditor then held it for thirty days, at the end of which
time he presented it for payment. The rate at which sterling
bills were sold in the colonies was determined at any one time
by the effective supply of, and demand for, sterling bills.
Footnote 11 ( Despite Ernst's statement to the contrary, the
author and Ernst have never been at variance on this point.
Ernst wrote: "In holding rigidly to the quantity theory [of
money] and trying to show how monetary policy influenced overall
price levels, historians have tended to ignore the other forces
at work at the time and to overlook the seasonal, short-run, and
cyclical nature of colonial prices. On the other hand they have
also generally failed to take into account the effect on
exchange rates of swings in the volume of British loans to
America, shifts in British wartime expenditures in the colonies,
and changes in the colonies terms of trade and volume of trade.
The most important example [of this] is Brock, Currency of the
American Colonies, "Ernst, Money and Politics, 6-7. Ernst, in
the paragraph quoted, scarcely does justice to the views
expressed by in Currency of the American Colonies, where many of
the forces that Ernst mentions that affect the price of foreign
exchange are discussed by Brock in his Colonial Currency. One
may consult pages 58, 62-63, and 352. )
The basic question, however, concerning the effect of currency
issues upon exchange rates revolves around the effect of such
issues upon the demand for, or, to a lesser degree, the supply
of, bills of exchange. In the case of New England and the Middle
colonies, where direct trade between the colonies and Britain
was at a minimum, it was necessary for the colonies to have
recourse to a roundabout trade to procure the necessary bills of
exchange and specie to pay their adverse balances with Britain.
(The Colonial Currency, Prices, and Exchange Rates Leslie V.
Brock Professor Emeritus of History, College of Idaho with
Introductory Comments by Ron Michener, Associate Professor
Department of Economics, University of Virginia)
Slave trade from 1701 to 1810 (UC Santa Barbara, The Growth of
the Slave Trade) England North American Colonies- Slave
population is place at 23,000, with 23,000 in the South.
(Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black History
1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1712/04/07
New York Slave revolt. Nine whites killed, Twenty-one slaves
executed. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the
Mayflower) Twenty-three slaves rose up in rebellion because of
mistreatment. They killed nine whites before they were defeated.
The captured slaves were all either hanged or burnt at the
stake. (Dr. Melissa Soldani Africans Americans in America.
history Florida State University)
1705
Virginia- The Assembly declares that "no Negro, mulatto, or
Indian shall presume to take upon him, act in or exercise any
office, ecclesiastic, civil or military." Blacks are forbidden
to serve as witness in court cases and are condemned to
life-long servitude, unless they either been Christians in their
native land or free men in a Christian country. (Chronology: A
Historical Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953
by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1712
A slave revolt at New York ends with six whites killed before
the militia can restore order; 12 blacks are hanged July 4 (six
have hanged themselves). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by
James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
The colonial era witnessed two significant slave rebellions. In
1712, some twenty-five slaves armed themselves with guns and
clubs and set fire to houses on the northern edge of New York
City. They killed the first nine whites who arrived on the scene
and then were killed or captured by soldiers. In the aftermath,
eighteen participants were executed in the most brutal manner
(individuals were burned alive, broken on the wheel, and
subjected to other tortures). The event set a pattern for
subsequent uprisings - the violence of the retribution far
exceeded the mayhem committed by the rebelling slaves. (Slave
Rebellions., The Reader's Companion to American History Edited
by Eric Foner sources used, Herbert Aptheker, American Negro
Slave Revolts (1943); Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to
Revolution (1979) entry date 01-01-1991.)
1713
The South Sea Company receives asientos to import 4,800 African
slaves per year into Spain's New World colonies for the next 30
years. Founded 2 years ago in anticipation of receiving the
asientos, the company is essentially a British finance company,
but it begins the most active period of British participation in
the slave trade (see 1720). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996
by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
1715
Maryland State Constitution enforced slavery. (Lisa Cozzens the
American Revolution)
1715
Black slaves comprise 24 percent of the Virginia colony's
population, up from less than 5 percent in 1671. (The People's
Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
1715
Georgian Style, neoclassical style of architecture and interior
design, popular in Great Britain during the reigns of the first
four Georges, or from about 1715 to 1820. The style developed
from the Roman Palladian style and was largely employed in
domestic architecture and in planned sections of towns.
Georgian-style architects included Scottish-English architect
Robert Adam and English architects John Wood the Elder, John
Wood the Younger, Sir William Chambers, and James Gandon. By
1785 the Georgian style was popular in the United States as a
native version called the Federal style. The Georgian style was
superseded in England by the Greek and Gothic revivals of the
19th century. (Encarta 98 Desk Encyclopedia Microsoft
Corporation)
1717
The province of Maryland, in 1717, (ch. 13, s. 5,) passed a law
declaring "that if any free Negro or mulatto intermarry with any
white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any Negro
or mulatto woman, such Negro or mulatto shall become a slave
during life, excepting mulattos born of white women, who, for
such intermarriage, [**38] shall only become servants for seven
years, to be disposed of as the justices of the county court,
where such marriage so happens, shall think fit; to be applied
by them towards the support of a public school within the said
county. And any white man or white woman who shall intermarry as
aforesaid, with any Negro or mulatto, such white man or white
woman shall become servants during the term of seven years, and
shall be disposed of by the justices as aforesaid, and be
applied to the uses aforesaid." the other colonial law to which
we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705, (chap, 6.) It is
entitled "An act for the better preventing of a spurious and
mixed issue," &c.; and it provides, that "if any Negro or
mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the
English or other Christian nation, such Negro or mulatto shall
be severely whipped, at [*409] the discretion of the justices
before whom the offender shall be convicted. (Dred Scott,
Plaintiff In Error, v. John F.A. Sanford. Supreme Court Of The
United States, 60 U.S. 393; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 472; 15 L. Ed. 691;
19 HOW 393, December, 1856)
1720/05/06
South Carolina slave revolt resulted in the death of three
whites. (Dr. Melissa Soldani Africans Americans in America.
history Florida State University))
1721
Onesimes was the property of a Puritan leader. In 1721 Onesimus
developed a cure for the smallpox virus. (The Timeline of
African American Contributions to Science, Technology and
Medicine. University of California, Irvine, by Cynthia Clark )
1723
Virginia Act directs that where any female mulatto or Indian, by
law obliged to serve till thirty or thirty one, shall have a
child during her servitude, such child shall serve the same
master to the same age. (Howell v. Netherland. Supreme Court Of
Virginia, 1770 Va. LEXIS 1; Jeff. 90, April, 1770)
Virginia- The colony enacts laws to limits the increase of free
blacks to those who are born into this class or manumitted by
special acts of the legislature. Free blacks are denied the
right to vote and forbidden to carry weapons of any sort.
(Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black History
1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis ))
1723-82
A Negro slave could not be freed in Virginia except by acts by
the Governor and the Council for "meritorious service." (see
Hening, Vol. 4, p 132). This function was taken over by the
legislature from 1775 on and slaves could be freed only by
special act of the legislature until 1782. The permissive
emancipation stature of 1782 (see Hening, vol. II pp 39 & 40)
allowed a person to free his Negroes provided he, or his estate
if freed by will, were responsible for the support of the sick
or crippled, all females under 18 or over 45, and all males
under 21, or over 45. (Paper Titled About General Washington's
Freed Negroes part of a fax sent by Barbara McMillan of the
Mount Vernon Ladies' Association to the Society of the
Cincinnati. August 26, 1994)
1727: ECONOMY:
"Tobacco notes" Become Legal Tender in Virginia. Tobacco Notes
attesting to quality and quantity of one's tobacco kept in
public warehouses are authorized as legal tender in Virginia.
Used as units of monetary exchange throughout 18th Century. The
notes are more convenient than the actual leaf, which had been
in use as money for over a century. (Tobacco Timeline by Gene
Borio )
1727
Philadelphia- The Junto, a benevolent association founded by
Benjamin Franklin, opposes slavery. (Chronology: A Historical
Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger
Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1730
Slave conspiracy discovered in Norfolk and Princess Anne
counties, Va. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before
the Mayflower)
1734
The Great Awakening begins in Massachusetts. The movement
spreads to other areas, encouraging new religious fervor among
both blacks and whites. This movement encourages blacks to join
the Methodist and Baptist Churches. (Slavery and Religion in
America: A timeline 1440-1866. By the Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org/ref/timeline/)
1739
South Carolina- Three black revolts occur, resulting in known
deaths to 51 whites and many more slaves. One of the
insurrections led by the slave, Cato, results in death of 30
whites. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black
History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis )
1739/09/09
Slave revolt, Stono, S.C., Sept 9. Twenty-five whites killed
before insurrection was put down. (Major Revolts and Escapes,
Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower)
Cato's Conspiracy, originated in Stono, South Carolina, in 1739.
England at this time was at war with Spain, and a group of about
eighty slaves took up arms and attempted to march to Spanish
Florida, where they expected to find refuge. A battle ensued
when they were overtaken by armed whites. Some forty-four blacks
and twenty-one whites were killed. (Slave Rebellions., The
Reader's Companion to American History Edited by Eric Foner
sources used, Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts
(1943); Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution (1979)
entry date 01-01-1991.)
Escapes into Spanish Florida were among the earliest successful
attempts at freedom and community, beginning near the end of the
1600s and concluding only with Andrew Jackson's march into
Florida to eradicate the "Negro forts." In 1738, the Spanish
governor of Florida offered freedom to British colonial slaves
who escaped to St. Augustine. While Spain had long been part of
the international slave trade and had used slave labor
throughout its colonies, that nation disputed British claims to
Georgia and South Carolina and wanted to keep those colonies as
disrupted as possible. Encouraging runaways was a good way to do
it. After the edict, slaves ran away in groups and singly to
Saint Augustine and nearby Florida villages. Georgia advised its
citizens to keep a sharp lookout for runaways from South
Carolina on their way to Florida and scout boats patrolled the
water routes near the Georgia-Florida border. Many of the
Florida villages consisted of the remnants of Southeastern
Indian tribes, gathered together for survival, who became known
as Seminoles. (From 16 Lathan Algerna Windley, A Profile of
Runaway Slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730 through
1787, in Graham Hodges, ed., Studies in African American History
and Culture (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1995), 27;
Kenneth Porter, "Negroes on the Southern Frontier, 1670-1763,"
Journal of Negro History 53 (January 1948):53-78 cited in The
Underground Railroad In American History by the National Park
Service)
1740
The Slavery system in colonial America was fully developed. A
Virginia law in that year declared slaves to be "chattel
personal in the hands of their owners and possessors for all
intents, construction, and purpose whatsoever." (Slavery in
America Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995 see )
1741
Series of suspicious fires and reports of slave conspiracy led
to general hysteria in New York City, March and April.
Thirty-one slaves, five whites executed. (Major Revolts and
Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower) New Yorkers
charge a "Negro Conspiracy" with having started fires that break
out through March and April. Roman Catholic priests are inciting
slaves to burn the town on orders from Spain, they say; four
whites and 18 blacks are hanged December 31, and 13 blacks are
burned at the stake. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by
James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
Virginia - The colony amends its 1705 law declaring that blacks
cannot serve as witnesses in court cases; it decides, instead,
to admit "any free Negro, mulatto, or Indian being a Christian,"
as a witness in a criminal or civil suit involving another
Negro, mulatto, or Indian. (Chronology: A Historical Review,
Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and
Wanda Neal-Davis)
1748
Records of Washington, Parts of the District of Columbia is Part
of Frederick County which was formed from Prince Georges County.
(Montgomery Country Historical Society)
1749
Fairfax County was dominated by slave labor, the majority of
slaves were held in groups of over twenty slaves by old
established families, and the large slaveholders governed the
county. Much land and many of the slaves wee held by men who
lived outside the Fairfax County. It was a slave empire in the
classic sense. (Fairfax County, Virginia a History. Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors, Fairfax, Virginia, 1978 p 31-32)
Georgia- Prohibitions on the importation of slaves are repealed
in a law which also attempts to protect slaves from cruel
treatment and from being hired out. (Chronology: A Historical
Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger
Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1750
The English Colonies- Slaves population reaches 236,400 with
over 206,000 of the total living south of Pennsylvania. Slaves
comprise about 20% of colonies' population, over 40% of
Virginia's. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in
Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda
Neal-Davis)
1750
Massachusetts has 63 distilleries producing rum made from
molasses supplied in some cases by slave traders who sell it to
the Puritan distillers for the capital needed to buy African
natives that can be sold to West Indian sugar planters (see
1733). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from
MS Bookshelf)
1751/05/15
The Maryland Assembly appoints commissioners to lay a town on
the Potomac River, above the mouth of Rock Creek, on 60 acres of
land to be purchased from George Gordon and George Beall. This
settlement becomes Georgetown. (DC Homepage "Office of Public
Records")
1752
The Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in England
and her colonies.
1752
After the death of his half-brother, George Washington purchased
his sister-in-laws share in the Mount Vernon estate including 18
slaves. The ledgers and account books which he kept show that he
bought slaves whenever possible to replenish the original 18. In
the account books of Washington, the entries show that in 1754
he bought two make and a female; in 1756, two males, two females
and a child, etc. In 1759, the year in which he was married, his
wife Martha, brought him thirty -nine "dower-Negroes." He kept
separate records of these Negroes all his life and mentions them
as a separate unit in his will. Washington purchased his slaves
in Alexandria from Mr. Piper and perhaps in the District in 1770
"went over to Colo. Thos. Moore's Sale and purchased two
Negroes. (Matthew T. Mellon, Early American Views on Negro
Slavery, Boston 1934, 1969)
Mount Vernon - There are 18 slaves at Mount Vernon at the time
George Washington acquires the estate there. Under Washington,
the number grows to 200, Washington's record shows a concern for
their physical welfare, but vacillation about their right to
freedom and his willingness to dispense with their services.
(Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black History
1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1752/11/04
George Washington a member of Alexandria Masonic Lodge No. 22
took the first step into Masonry on November 4, 1752 in
Fredericksburg. (Charles H. Callahan, Washington, The man and
the Mason, George Washington Masonic National memorial
Association, 1913)
1755
After the passage of the Transportation Act in 1718, 50,000
convicts were sentenced to foreign exile in the American
colonies. The bulk were transported to Maryland and Virginia for
sale as servants. By 1755, convicts formed 10% of all adult
white males in four of Maryland's most populous counties.
Although colonists agonized about the presence of such persons
in their midst, they neither worked to cease transportation nor
returned convicts to England unpurchased. Socially, convicts
occupied a position just above black slaves and just below
indentured servants. For the most part, they were ill-treated
and exploited. As free, white, and British, the convicts deeply
resented their lot as servile laborers in the American colonies.
(Ekrich, A. Roger. Exiles In The Promised Land: Covict Labor In
The Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake. Maryland Historical Magazine
1987 82(2): 95-122.)
1758
Slaves on William Byrd III's plantation on the Bluestone River
in Lunenburg County formed the earliest black church in
Virginia. (Colonial Williamsburg's online Historical Almanack.
Cultural & Political Chronology 1750-1783)
Many Africans had little trouble adopting Christianity because
it preached many of the same beliefs that were central to
African religions--supreme being, creation myths,
priest-healers, moral and ethical systems. Christianity's "life
after death" was also attractive because it offered the promise
that they would someday regain contact with their ancestors. A
Baptist missionary to the Yoruba of Nigeria in 1853 observed
that they had words for monotheistic god, sin, guilt, sacrifice,
intercession, repentance, faith, pardon, adoption; and they
believed in heaven and hell. Muslim slaves had even more points
of identification with Christianity, since they were used to a
religion based on a written text, some of which was the same as
that of Christianity (Old Testament). An American minister
reported in 1842 that Muslim Africans called God Allah, and
Jesus Mohammed. According to them, "the religion is the same,
but different countries have different names." ("Plantation
Agriculture in Southeast USA by Jim Jones West Chester
University of Pennsylvania, Cause in African History to 1875
taught Fall 1997 The Decision To Become A Planter. See also John
W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the
Antebellum South, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979)
1758
John Tayloe II completed his great house, Mount Airy, in
Richmond County, Virginia. The design was inspired by James
Gibbs's (1682-1754) pattern book. (Colonial Williamsburg's
online Historical Almanack. Cultural & Political Chronology
1750-1783 )
1759/01/06
Martha married George Washington. The marriage changed George
from an ordinary planter to a substantially wealthy landowner.
He had resigned his commission in the militia and so, George,
Martha, Jacky (4), and Patsy (2) moved into the enlarged and
remodeled Mt. Vernon. (Historic Valley Forge, Who served her?
Martha Washington by the Independence Hall Association)
1761
Slave traders are excluded from the Society of Friends by
American Quakers despite the fact that many Quakers own slaves.
(The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
Bookshelf)
Despite Quaker opposition to slavery, about 4,000 slaves were
brought to Pennsylvania by 1730, most of them owned by English,
Welsh, and Scotch-Irish colonists. The census of 1790 showed
that the number of African-Americans had increased to about
10,000, of whom about 6,300 had received their freedom. The
Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 was the first
emancipation statute in the United States. (Pennsylvania State
History, "The Quacker Province: 1681-1776" Pennsylvania state
Web page, July 22, 1996)
The Quakers were the first group in America to attack slavery.
In his book Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, John
Woolman contended that no one had the right to own another human
being. In 1758 the Philadelphia yearly meeting said that slavery
was inconsistent with Christianity, and in 1775 Quakers played a
dominant role in the formation of the Pennsylvania Society for
the Abolition of Slavery, the first antislavery society in
America. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America,
Twayne Press, 1972. , Chapter 4, All Men Are Created Equal,
Slavery and the American Revolution)
Diane Richardson had a personal interest in this topic: "Two of
my ancestors, Abraham and Isaac Op den Graeff (Updegraff), along
with Pastorious, wrote the first protest against slavery in the
1690s and presented it to their monthly meeting. The monthly
meeting decided that it was too weighty of a question to be
decided, and passed the protest to the Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting. They talked about it, but refused to make any decision
on it. This is pretty much what happened to the issue for nearly
100 years. Some monthly meetings came out very strongly opposed
to slavery, while others tolerated it to some extent until the
1800s. It seems as though the issue would 'take fire' at a
meeting for awhile and then lapse. I imagine some of it had to
do with visits by traveling Quaker preachers, several of whom
were strongly opposed to slavery. (from:
ftp://ftp.msstate.edu/pub/docs/history/afrigen/Slavery/quakers-slavery
posted by Cgka@aol.com See also Gary B Nash and Jean R
Soderlund, "Freedom by Degrees" Oxford NY, 1991 p 43)
1756
The Virginia colony's population reaches 250,000; more than 40
percent are slaves, up from 24 percent in 1715. (The People's
Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)
1759
George Washington, having gained 17,000 acres of farmland and
286 slaves from his new wife, Martha Dandridge Custis (these
added to his own 30 slaves), harvests his first tobacco crop.
The British market is unimpressed with its quality, and by 1761,
Washington is deeply in debt. (Tobacco Timeline by Gene Borio)
1763/02/10
The Treaty of Paris, ending the French and Indian War, was
signed. The French relinquished claims to Canada and all land
east of the Mississippi except New Orleans. (Colonial
Williamsburg's online Historical Almanack. Cultural & Political
Chronology 1750-1783 )
1763/10/07
George III signed the Proclamation of 1763, which restricted
settlement west of the Appalachians and reserved land for the
Indians. Virginians resented limitations on western lands.
(Colonial Williamsburg's online Historical Almanack. Cultural &
Political Chronology 1750-1783)
1763
The war against France and its Native American allies impressed
on Britain the high cost of securing and especially of expanding
colonial settlements. The British government imposed new taxes
on the colonists. [8] To minimize conflict with Native Americans
and reduce its costs, the government sought to check the
colonies' westward expansion. Its Proclamation of 1763
prohibited colonial settlement beyond the crest of the
Appalachians. Its Quebec Act of 1774 invalidated the colonies'
claims to vast Native American lands by assigning territory
north of the Ohio to Quebec. These policies became significant
sources of conflict between the colonists and the Crown. One of
the aims of colonial partisans of independence was to eliminate
the British government's limits on expropriation of Native
American lands. This helps explain why Native Americans sided
mainly with the British against the rebellious colonists, just
as they had mainly sided earlier with the French against the
British and their colonists. From 1. Francis Jennings, "The
Indians' Revolution," in The American Revolution: Explorations
in the History of American Radicalism, ed. Alfred F. Young (De
Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1976 cited in David
Lyons, The balance of injustice and the War of Independence,
Vol. 45, Monthly Review, 04-01-1994, pp 17)
1763/12/01
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) argued the Parsons' Cause before the
Hanover County Court, challenging the Crown's right to nullify
colonial laws. This case brought Henry both popular acclaim and
political leadership. (Colonial Williamsburg's online Historical
Almanack. Cultural & Political Chronology 1750-1783)
1763
Mason and Dixon survey Pennsylvania boundary with Maryland. Part
of the original Mason and Dixon's Line was marked by stones that
bore on one side the arms of Lord Baltimore and on the other
those of William Penn. (Compton's Encyclopedia Online)
1764
Massachusetts- Slave ship captions and merchants oppose efforts
to raise the price of sugar and molasses, declaring them
essential to the slave trade, which they deem the "vital
commerce" of New England. But, representing another viewpoint,
Samuel Adams refuses the offer of a slave for his sick wife.
Though penniless, Adams insists the women be freed before she
enters his house. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events
in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda
Neal-Davis )
1765
Colonial American shipping interests have 28,000 tons of
shipping and employ some 4,000 seamen. Exports of tobacco are
nearly double in value the exports of bread and flour, with
fish, rice, indigo, and wheat next in order of value. The major
shippers are the Cabots and Thomas Russell of Boston, Thomas
Francis Lewis of New York, and Samuel Butler of Providence. (The
People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
Bookshelf)
1765
There were more than 35 newspapers in the colonies. The Stamp
Act tried to impose heavy taxes on printed materials. The Stamp
Act ignited public protests and publishers were happy to oblige
the need for news. Business dominated publishers wanted to
capitalize on potential profits, were against taxation without
representation, and the loss of liberty. (Selected Review Of
Important Media Related Historical Events And Facts. Oklahoma
Baptist University)
1766
Virginia planter-miller George Washington ships an unruly slave
off to the West Indies to be exchanged for a hogshead of rum and
other commodities. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James
Trager from MS Bookshelf.)
By the time of Washington's death, (in 1799) more than 300 (314
given by Mt. Vernon) slaves resided at Mount Vernon. Besides the
field hands, there were blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers,
brickmakers, and spinners. (Compton's Encyclopedia Online)
Though in death Washington willed that his slaves would be freed
upon the death of Martha. The will provided that a special fund,
be set up for the support of the aged and infirm. No evidence
was found that the executors set up a trust fund as specified in
the will. (Paper Titled About General Washington's Freed Negroes
part of a fax sent by Barbara McMillan of the Mount Vernon
Ladies' Association to the Society of the Cincinnati. August 26,
1994, vertical file Society of Cincinnati)
An African American, Samuel Fraunces, was Chief household
Steward to President George Washington and Patriot Member of the
Holland Lodge Number Eight of New York City - 1762. He was a
West Indian black man who was owner and keeper of "Fraunces
Tavern," in the Wall Street area of New York City, between
1762-1765 and from 1789 to 1794. (Masonic Documentation: "Ten
Thousand Famous Masons." Cited in Joseph Mason Andrew Cox, Great
Black men of Masonry, Alpha Books, NY 19822, 1987)
(I)t is usually the large plantations and estates that have been
preserved and memorialized as museums and tourist destinations
in twentieth century America (Thomas Jefferson's house at
Montecello is a very good example of this). When persons wish to
travel to see those places where slaves lived and work, they
usually end up on large estates. The reality is that in North
America--where only about 6% of the slaves transported westward
across the Atlantic from Africa were brought--most slaves lived
on small and medium sized farms and most masters owned few
slaves. In the late eighteenth century, for example, most whites
did not own slaves and more than half of Chesapeake slaveowners
owned fewer than five slaves. Two of the larger slave owners
during this period, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were
among the richest persons in their counties. In 1774 Jefferson
owned 45 slaves who he kept at Montecello and 142 slaves at six
other locations. George Washington held 67 slaves at his own
estate in 1786 and owned another 149 distributed at five other
farms. Even those who owned a large number of slaves, then,
distributed them out into smaller farms rather than
concentrating them all together at one place. This pattern of
small slave holding remained the norm through the nineteenth
century. In 1860, for example, only 2.7% of southern slave
holders owned more than 50 slaves and only 0.1% of slave owners
held 200 or more slaves. What this meant was that slaves were
not concentrated in only a few hands (as in the Caribbean and
South America), but more widely spread. The majority of slave
owners held less than ten slaves. If we look at these statistics
in terms of slaves' experiences, 1/4 of all southern slaves
lived on holdings of 1-9 slaves; 1/2 of all southern slaves on
holdings of 10-49 slaves; and 1/4 of all southern slaves on
holdings of more than 50 slaves.
The primary exception to the norm of small to medium sized
holdings of slaves was the sea coast or Low Country area of
South Carolina and Georgia, where plantations of rice were
generally very large in size and where many slaves lived
together on any one plantation. As a result of these patterns of
slave holding, a characteristic of North American slavery was
the high degree of contact between slaves and masters. When
large numbers of slaves were concentrated on a few plantations,
as they generally were in the Caribbean and South America
(especially Brazil), there were few situations in which masters
and slaves even saw each other. In North America, however,
masters and slaves generally saw each other daily; masters lived
on their farms and worked them along with slaves (as the bosses,
of course) but the pattern of slaveholding created conditions in
which masters and slaves influenced each other culturally and
socially to a much greater extent than elsewhere in the
Americas. The dispersal of slaves on North American farms also
helps to explain why it was so difficult for slaves to unite in
rebellion in North America: they were spread out, not
concentrated. By thinking of huge plantations of the past,
Americans tend to deny the degree to which Africans and
Europeans mixed socially, culturally, and sexually on American
farms. Mixing created lasting features of cultural uniformity
across important cultural differences; it is one of the
distinguishing features of North American slavery in comparison
to slavery in other regions of the Americas. (History Museum of
Slavery in the Atlantic Web site by Pier M. Larson, an assistant
professor of history at the Pennsylvania State University)
For a discussion of sexual relations under slavery see: Katy
Riley, Sex Relations Between Female Slaves And Their Masters
1772/06
Less then two weeks after purchasing slaves for his estate,
Washington signed a resolution framed by the "Association for
the Counteraction of Various Acts of Oppression on the Part of
Great Britain." This resolution read in part, "we will not
import or bring into the Colony, or cause to be imported or
brought into the Colony, either by sea or land, any slaves, or
make sale of any upon commission, or purchase any slave or
slaves that may be imported by others, after the 1st day of
November next, unless the same have been twelve months upon this
continent." It is important to not that his resolution neither
condemns slaveholding or the slave trade. It appears to have
been drafted in a spirit of retaliation and is not in the least
inspired by a moral disapproval. (Matthew T. Mellon, Early
American Views on Negro Slavery, Boston 1934, 1969)
1772 The Somersett case marks a turning point in British
toleration of slavery. James Somersett, one of 10,000 black
slaves in Britain, has escaped from his master and been
apprehended. Britain's Lord Chief Justice William Murray, 67,
Baron Mansfield, rules after some hesitation June 22 that "as
soon as any slave sets foot in England he becomes free" (see
1763; 1787). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager
from MS Bookshelf)
The landmark judgment in the case of Somerset v. Stewart in
England, decided by Lord Mansfield in June of 1772, declared the
state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of
being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only by
positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons,
occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased
from memory: It's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to
support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences,
therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is
allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the
black must be discharged. Thus slavery could not exist in
England, regardless of socioeconomic implications, and the final
push for statutory abolition began, culminating a half century
later an the empire-wide ban. (Charles P.M. Outwin, Securing the
Leg Irons: Restriction of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia
and Maryland, 1625 - 1791, footnote taken from Catterall, Helen
Honor Tunnicliff. Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and
the Negro, vol. I, Cases from the Courts of England, Virginia,
West Virginia, and Kentucky, and vol. IV, Cases from the Courts
of New England, the Middle States, and the District of Columbia.
Washington, D. C., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926 &
1936. Page 15)
1772
George Washington was a member of the House of Burgesses which
drafted a petition to the throne labeling the importation of
slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa "a trade of
great inhumanity" that would endanger the "very existence of
your Majesty's American dominions." And two years later he was
certainly involved in the composition of the July 1774 Fairfax
Resolves one of the resolutions of which recommended that no
slaves should be imported into the British colonies. The
resolutions took the opportunity of "declaring our most earnest
Wishes to see an entire Stop forever put to such a wicked cruel
and unnatural Trade." On the other hand in 1772 Washington
himself purchased five additional slaves for use on his
plantations. (The Papers of George Washington "That Species of
Property": Washington's Role in the Controversy Over Slavery
Dorothy Twohig, Originally Presented at a Conference on
Washington and Slavery at Mount Vernon, October 1994. Note 8
from. John P. Kennedy, ed., Journal of the House of Burgesses of
Virginia, 1770-1772 (Richmond, 1906), 283-84); PGW, Colonial
Series, 10:119-28.)
1773
Massachusetts slaves petitioned legislature for freedom, Jan. 6.
There is a record of 8 petitions during Revolutionary War
period. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the
Mayflower)
The African Lodge of Freemasons, which started up in the 1770s
in Boston under the leadership of Prince Hall, was considered
clandestine by many white Freemasons--although it did receive a
charter from the Grand Lodge in England. Among Freemasons,
Debates about the authenticity of Prince Hall Masonry persisted
into the twentieth century. Two sources you may want to consult:
Charles H. Wesley, _Prince Hall. Life and Legacy._ 1977. Joseph
A. Walkes, Jr., _Black Square and Compass: 200 Years of Prince
Hall Freemasonry._ 1979. (Contributed byJoanna Brooks Department
of English UCLA in Electronic Association in Early American
Studies Wed, 24 Jun 1998 09:01:42 EDT)
The Prince Hall lodges included a number of distinguished
gentlemen on their rosters such as former Supreme Court Justice
Marshall, Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, Dr. Benjamin Hooks
of the NAACP, Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta, and Mayor Coleman
Young of Detroit. Of course, none of these black Masons would be
allowed to visit a white Masonic lodge. (Freemasonry's History
of Racism, 1996 Acacia Press, Incorporated )
1773/03/07
England ordered all colonial governors to cease granting lands
except to veterans of the French and Indian War. In Virginia,
Dunmore gave this order the most liberal interpretation possible
and included colonial troops as well as regular British Army
soldiers. (Colonial Williamsburg's online Historical Almanack.
Cultural & Political Chronology 1750-1783)
1774/05
The Virginia House of Burgesses proposed that an intercolonial
congress meet annually in a "convenient" location to discuss the
united interests of the colonies. (Before the Capitol, Congress
Convened on the Road, by the United States Capitol Historical
Society, Volume 7, Number 1, with Gift Catalog, Spring 1999)
1774/09
The First Continental Congress did agree to a temporary
termination of the importation of Africans into the colonies,
but, in reality, this was a tactical blow against the British
slave trade and not an attack against slavery itself. In an
early draft of the Declaration of Independence, the British king
was attacked for his in involvement in the slave trade, and he
was charged with going against human nature by violating the
sacred rights of life and liberty. However, this section was
deleted. Apparently, Southern delegates feared that this
condemnation of the monarch reflected on them as well. Although
neither slavery nor the slave trade was mentioned in the
Declaration, it did maintain that all men were created equal and
endowed with the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. This seeming ambivalence concerning the future of
slavery on the part of the Continental Congress left Samuel
Johnson's ironic question about American hypocrisy unanswered.
From a logical point of view, the Declaration of Independence
either affirmed the freedom of the African immigrant, or it
denied his humanity. Because each state continued almost as a
separate sovereign entity, the Declaration of Independence
became a philosophical abstraction, and the status of the
African in America was determined independently by each. (The
Black Experience In America. Published electronically by its
author, Norman Coombs, and Project Gutenberg. (C 1993) by Norman
Coombs)
1775
Philadelphia - The Continental Congress bars blacks from the
American Revolutionary army.(Chronology: A Historical Review,
Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and
Wanda Neal-Davis)
About one-fifth of the people of the mainland colonies were of
African ancestry. Unlike Latin America and the West Indies,
North American slaves had a high rate of natural increase. About
250,000 Africans were brought to the mainland colonies before
1775, but the total black population numbered 567,000 on the eve
of independence. Most lived as slaves working on tobacco and
rice plantations in the Southern colonies. Slaves and some free
blacks also lived in the Northern colonies, working on small
farms or in cities. ("American Revolution," Microsoft Encarta 98
Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)
Lord Dunmore, the British governor of Virginia offered to grant
freedom to any slave who ran away from his master and joined the
British army. Earlier that year, in spite of the fact that both
slaves and free men had served at Lexington and Concord, the
colonists had shown an increasing reluctance to have any blacks
serving in their Army. The Council of War, under Washington's
leadership, had unanimously rejected the enlistment of slaves
and, by a large majority, it had opposed their recruitment
altogether. However, the eager response of many slaves to Lord
Dunmore's invitation gradually compelled the colonists to
reconsider their stand. Although many colonists felt that the
use of slaves was inconsistent with the principles for which the
Army was fighting, all the colonies, with the exception of
Georgia and South Carolina, eventually recruited slaves as well
as freedmen. In most cases, slaves were granted their freedom at
the end of their military service. During the war some five
thousand blacks served in the Continental Army with the vast
majority coming from the North. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant
Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. , Chapter 4, All Men
Are Created Equal, Slavery and the American Revolution.)
The Pennsylvania Abolition Society is established to protect
fugitives and freed blacks unlawfully held in bondage.
(Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service)
The first American abolition society is founded in Pennsylvania
to free the slaves, whose population below the Mason-Dixon line
now exceeds 450,000. Black slaves outnumber colonists two to one
in South Carolina, while in Virginia the ratio is about equal.
(The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
Bookshelf)
1775/08/23
George III declared the colonies in a state of rebellion and
threatened to deal harshly with traitors. The Virginia Gazette
printed the proclamation on November 10. (Colonial Williamsburg
Web Site, Cultural & Political Chronology 1750-1783)
1775/10/12-21
British troops raided areas around Norfolk, Virginia. They
captured or destroyed more than 70 cannon hidden by the rebels.
(Colonial Williamsburg Web Site, Cultural & Political Chronology
1750-1783)
1775/10/24
John Adams believes that if the British were to land in Georgia
with "arms and cloth, and proclaim freedom to all the Negroes
who would join his camp, twenty thousand Negroes would join it
from the two Provinces in a fortnight. The Negroes have a
wonderful art of communicating intelligence among themselves; it
will run several hundred miles in a week or fortnight. They say
their only security is this; that all the King's friends, and
tools of government, have large plantations, and property in
Negroes; so that the slaves of the Tories would be lost, as well
as those of the Whigs." (Works of John Adams, vol. 2, p 428 from
MacGregor and Nalty, Blacks in the United States Armed Forces,
Vol. I, 1977)
1775/11/07
British loyalist Lord John, Earl of Dunmore, Governor-General of
the Colony of Virginia, issues Dunmore Proclamation, encouraging
indentured servants and free blacks to enlist in British
service, Virginia blacks began to flee to British lines in the
mistaken belief that British views on slavery varied from those
of the slaves' Virginia masters. Most slaves and free blacks who
fled to the British continued to be employed in a service
capacity, chiefly working as military laborers.[note 10] The
emergence of Dunmore's plan to enlist slaves and offer them
their freedom and Washington's own desperate need for men in the
face of failed recruiting policies and massive desertions,
forced him--and Congress--to reconsider their initial positions
at least in regard to free blacks. Indeed early in the war an
important distinction came to be made in recruiting policies
between slaves and free blacks. By 30 Dec. 1775 Washington had
altered his views to accommodate the situation, issuing orders
that since "Numbers of free Negroes are desirous of enlisting,
he gives leave to the recruiting Officers, to entertain them,
and promises to lay the matter before the Congress, who he
doubts not will approve of it."[note 11] note 10. Virginia
enacted stringent regulations to prevent defection by slaves,
ranging from execution to transportation to the West Indies.
Because the state was required by law to compensate the owners
of executed slaves, a more convenient punishment was a sentence
to labor in the lead mines of remote Fincastle and Montgomery
counties, serving the dual purpose of removing rebellious slaves
and contributing to the war effort. See Sylvia R. Frey, "Between
Slavery and Freedom: Virginia Blacks in the American Revolution,
Journal of Southern History, 49 (1983), 383-85. Indeed the
appalling indifference to the plight of former slaves, hit by
devastating epidemics of smallpox and by overwork and exposure
in British service should not have encouraged enlistment on
either side. Rumors, often unsubstantiated, persisted of slaves
offered for sale by the British. In Virginia at least slaves
were used by the British "as a tool instead of as a weapon"
(ibid., 394-95, 398). (The Papers of George Washington "That
Species of Property": Washington's Role in the Controversy Over
Slavery Dorothy Twohig, Originally Presented at a Conference on
Washington and Slavery at Mount Vernon, October 1994) (Dunmore's
Proclamation in MacGregor and Nalty, Blacks in the United States
Armed Forces, Vol. I, 1977)
Dunmore's strategy was one that he had considered before. In a
1772 report to Lord Dartmouth, the British secretary of state
for the colonies, Dunmore had suggested that in case of war with
foreign powers, the colonists "trembled at the facility that an
enemy would find in procuring Such a body of men." Dunmore had
further expressed a belief that the slaves would rise up in huge
numbers against their masters, "and therefore are ready to join
the first that would encourage them to revenge themselves."
[Gerald W. Mullin, Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in
Eighteenth-Century Virginia (New York, 1972), p. 131.] Shortly
after the Gunpowder Incident in April 1775, Dunmore threatened
the Mayor of Williamsburg by stating that he would destroy the
town and "proclaim liberty" for slaves in response to civil
unrest.
Dunmore misunderstood the slaves' potential motivation. It was
not the opportunity to avenge themselves that caused them to
join the British, it was the desire to secure freedom. Noted
historian Dr. Benjamin Quarles assessed that the slaves
"reserved allegiance for whoever made them the best and most
concrete offer." [Benjamin Quarles, "The Revolutionary War as a
Black Declaration of Independence," in Ira Berlin and Ronald
Hoffman, eds., Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American
Revolution (Charlottesville, Va., 1983) pp. 292-293.] The fact
that Dunmore was basically in exile on board a ship, did little
to motivate large numbers to join him, but, nonetheless, a
considerable number made the attempt. When a slave, owned by
Robert Brent of Northern Neck, escaped, Brent noted that the
slave's action "was long premeditated." Brent also noted that
the slave's escape "was from no cause of complaint . . . but
from a determined resolution to get liberty, as he conceived, by
flying to lord Dunmore." [Virginia Gazette, November 17, 1775,
Supplement.]
The number of slaves that actually joined the British is
questionable. Dr. Quarles estimates that it may have been about
800. It should be noted, however, that other historians now
suggest that this figure may be conservative. Accounts from the
period support the view that there may have been considerably
more. Robert Carter Nicholas, president of the Virginia
Convention, wrote to the Virginia Delegates in Congress that
"many of our Natives it is said have been intimidated and
compelled to join them [the British] and great Numbers of Slaves
from different Quarters have graced their Corps." The British,
he continued, are "using every Art to seduce the Negroes."
(Letter dated Nov. 25, 1775, quoted in Robert L. Scribner and
Brent Terter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia and the Road to
Independence, IV: The Committee of Safety and the Balance of
Forces ([Charlottesville, Va.], 1978), p. 470.)
Edmund Pendleton, wrote to Richard Lee that "letters mention
that slaves flock to him [Dunmore] in abundance; but I hope it
is magnified." (from letter dated Edmund, Virginia)]. Even
George Washington warned, "Dunmore should be instantly crushed.
. . . otherwise like a snowball rolling, his army will get
size." (Pendleton to Lee, Nov. 27, 1775, quoted in Mullin,
Flight and Rebellion, p. 131; Washington to Joseph Reed, Dec.
15, quoted ibid.)
The decision to join Dunmore and support the British cause must
have created tremendous debate and concern throughout the slave
community. What factors influenced whether a slave's allegiance
was given to the British or the colonists? There are a variety
of possible answers. It is likely that the desire for freedom
was so overwhelming that the slaves seized the first viable
offer. It is also possible that the slaves wanted to show that
they were worthy of respect and the rights of citizenry by
remaining faithful to the authority of the British government.
On the other hand, how does one explain the numbers of blacks,
such as Salem Poor, Oliver Cromwell, and Peter Salem, who
whole-heartedly supported the colonists? Were their reasons for
supporting the American cause the same as white patriots?
Possibly. After learning of the death of Crispus Attucks, a free
black killed in the Boston Massacre in March 1770, the colonists
revered him for having lost his life for liberty. But the slaves
must have surely asked, whose liberty? Even as free blacks, the
full rights of citizenry were denied African-Americans.
Generally, they were still subject to the same curfews and laws
that applied to slaves. The only difference between free blacks
and slaves in the 18th century was that free blacks had the
right to own and protect property.
The decision to join the British or support the patriots was one
that surely split some slave families and friendships, just as
it did the white citizenry. The American Revolution, for all
intents and purposes, was a civil war that affected every member
of society in some way. (Colonial Williamsburg Web Site "Don't
Wanna Slave No More: African-American Choices in the American
Revolution1.")
1775/11/15
After a clear victory at Kemp's Landing near Norfolk, Dunmore
issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which declared martial law
and freed "all indented Servants, Negroes, or others . . . that
are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty's
forces." Eventually, several hundred African-Americans joined
his ranks. The governor also raised the king's standard at the
battle site and in Norfolk the next day. (Colonial Williamsburg
Web Site, Cultural & Political Chronology 1750-1783)
1775/12/9
The Battle of Great Bridge was fought between the British 14th
Regiment and Woodford's Virginia forces. British deaths and
injuries were numerous, while only one Virginian was injured.
(Colonial Williamsburg Web Site, Cultural & Political Chronology
1750-1783)
1775-1783
The American Revolution or War of Independence The American
Congress, and individual states. finance their war effort
overwhelmingly by printing money. This eventually leads to
hyperinflation rendering the continentals worthless - but the
Revolution is successful. (A Comparative Chronology of Money
from Ancient Times to the Present Day, 1750 - 1799, Based on the
book: A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day
by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5)
1776
Washington DC records east of Rock Creek changed from the
jurisdiction of Frederick to Montgomery Country Maryland.
(Montgomery County Historical society)
1776
American Revolution. Along "Tobacco Coast" (the Chesapeake), the
Revolutionary War was variously known as "The Tobacco War."
Growers had found themselves perpetually in debt to British
merchants; by 1776, growers owed the mercantile houses millions
of pounds. British tobacco taxes are a further grievance.
Tobacco helps finance the Revolution by serving as collateral
for loans from France. (Tobacco Timeline by Gene Borio )
1776
Britain's House of Commons hears the first motion to outlaw
slavery in Britain and her colonies. David Hartley, 44, calls
slavery "contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man," but
his motion fails (see 1772; Wilberforce, 1787; 1789). (The
People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS
Bookshelf)
1776 Declaration of Independence from Britain. Fifty five
signers, Fifty two of whom were known to be Master Masons.
(Kenton N Harper, History of the Grand Lodge and of Freemasonry
in the District of Columbia. Washington, DC 1911)
"How is it," asked Samuel Johnson, "that we hear the loudest
yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" The British
author was only one of many Europeans who thought it strange
that a nation run by slave owners should be so noisily demanding
its own freedom. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of
America, Twayne Press, 1972. , Chapter 4, All Men Are Created
Equal, Slavery and the American Revolution)
1776
Washington's writings display no need to denigrate black
ability. On the contrary, compared to most of his
contemporaries, Washington readily recognized and applauded the
talents among the enslaved. In early 1776, he received a poem
from a young woman and, "with a view of doing justice to her
great poetical Genius, I had a great Mind to publish the Poem."
In gratitude for her gift, he invited her to visit his
headquarters in Cambridge. The poet was the now famous Phillis
Wheatley, who was then an enslaved Bostonian. In writing of and
to her, Washington made no reference to her race: a remarkable
omission by the standards of his day (and of our own). In
private correspondence during the 1780s and 1790s, Washington
repeatedly expressed a devout hope that the state governments
would legislate "a gradual Abolition of Slavery; It would
prevent much future Mischief." (Alan Taylor, Review of "The Good
Father, George Washington:" The New Republic 01-19-1998)
1776
Establishment of an independent United States is a set-back for
women. Married women are not granted legal status apart from
their husbands; women are forbidden from obtaining education
beyond elementary school (except for the wealthy) learning
anything except domestic tasks owning property keeping earnings
from any employment they might have inheriting money or property
in their own right obtaining a divorce except in dire
circumstances (adultery, desertion, non-support, extreme
cruelty) enjoying custody of their children voting, serving on a
jury, testifying in a trial being tried by a jury of peers
signing legal contract; suing or being sued engaging in public
speaking having a voice in the laws that might convict them
handling money (in certain states) - in Massachusetts women
cannot even serve as treasurers of their sewing societies As
states adopt their new constitutions, they more clearly define
qualifications for voting (i.e., free, white, male citizen) and
exclude women from participating in the democratic experiment;
women property owners are even taxed without representation. In
1777 New York, takes away women's right to vote. In 1780,
Massachusetts takes away women's right to vote. In 1784 New
Hampshire takes away women's right to vote. In 1791, The
Constitution is finally ratified without granting women right to
vote. The Constitution also sanctions slavery (Article IV,
Section 3). (Leslie Blankenship, Woman's Suffrage And Abolition
Movement Lest We Forget Publications, P.O. Box 26148 , Trotwood,
Ohio 45426-0148 E-mail: lwf@coax.net )
1776/12
Because of the threat of invasion, Congress moved from
Philadelphia to Baltimore, Maryland and met in the house of
Henry Fite. (Before the Capitol, Congress Convened on the Road,
by the United States Capitol Historical Society, Volume 7,
Number 1, with Gift Catalog, Spring 1999)
Travel from Europe to U.S. via ship 50 days. (Selected Review Of
Important Media Related Historical Events And Facts.. Oklahoma
Baptist University)
1777
Vermont became the first U.S. territory to abolish slavery
(Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service)
1777/03/04
Congress moves back to Philadelphia from Baltimore, but then had
to move its meetings to Lancaster and York, Pennsylvania for
fear of the British Forces. (Before the Capitol, Congress
Convened on the Road, by the United States Capitol Historical
Society, Volume 7, Number 1, with Gift Catalog, Spring 1999)
Rhode Island - A black battalion consisting of 300 former slaves
in formed. They are compensated on a par with their white
comrades-in-arms and promised freedom after the war. In August,
the battalion kills 1000 Hessians and later sees action under
Colonel Green at Ponts Bridge in New York. (Chronology: A
Historical Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953
by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis )
1778/10
A law was passed in Virginia, that thereafter no slave should be
imported into that Commonwealth by sea or by land, and that
every slave who should be imported should become free. A citizen
of Virginia purchased in Maryland a slave who belonged to
another citizen of Virginia, and removed with the slave to
Virginia. The slave sued for her freedom, and recovered it; as
may be seen in Wilson v. Isabel, (5 Call's R., 425.) See also
Hunter v. Hulsher, (1 Leigh, 172;) and a similar law has been
recognized as valid in Maryland, in Stewart v. Oaks, (5 Har. and
John., 107.) (Dred Scott, Plaintiff In Error, v. John F. A.
Sandford. Supreme Court Of The United States, 60 U.S. 393; 1856
U.S. LEXIS 472; 15 L. Ed. 691; 19 HOW 393, December, 1856)
New York- Alexander Hamilton endorses the plan of South
Carolina's Henry Laurens to use slaves as soldiers in the south.
"I have not the least doubt that the Negroes will make very
excellent soldiers," says Hamilton , ". . . for their natural
faculties are as good as ours." Hamilton reminds the Continental
Congress that the British will make use of Negroes if the
Americans do not. In Hamilton's words: "The best way to
counteract the temptations they will hold out, will be to offer
them ourselves."(Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events
in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda
Neal-Davis)
1779
Thomas Jefferson, A Bill Concerning Slaves enacted by the
Virginia General Assembly by Thomas Jefferson, " If any white
woman shall have a child by a Negro or mulatto, she and her
child shall depart the commonwealth within one year thereafter.
If they fail so to do, the woman shall be out of the protection
of the laws, and the child shall be bound out by the Aldermen of
the county, in like manner as poor orphans are by law directed
to be, and within one year after its term of service expired
shall depart the commonwealth, or on failure so to do, shall be
out of the protection of the laws. No slave shall go from the
tenements of his master, or other person with whom he lives,
without a pass, or some letter or token whereby it may appear
that he is proceeding by authority from his master, employer, or
overseer: If he does, it shall be lawful for any person to
apprehend and carry him before a Justice of the Peace, to be by
his order punished with stripes, or not, in his discretion.
(Thomas Jefferson, A Bill Concerning Slaves, 1779, From the
Founders Library)
1779 American recalls its currency to counteract the effect of
undermining by Britain. (General Chronology Of Events 1994/1995
Leading Edge Research Group)
Thomas Johnson (1732-1819), finishes term as Governor of
Maryland. 1777-1779
1780
Federal Style, in architecture, the dominant phase of
neoclassicism in the United States, reaching its peak between
1780 and 1820. Characteristic features include elliptical
fanlights; oval interiors; circular, freestanding stairs;
freestanding porticoes framed by columns; and slender
proportions. Contemporaneous Federal style furniture designs
were classically inspired and featured marquetry, veneering, and
inlay. (Georgian Style," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.
Microsoft Corporation)
In colonial North America, the influence of the Georgian style
is evident in very few buildings before the American Revolution.
By 1785, however, in the newly formed United States, the
Georgian style had become extremely popular in a native version
called the Federal style. This evolved into a monumental
neoclassical style exemplified by Thomas Jefferson's elegant
designs (1817-26) for the University of Virginia at
Charlottesville. This version of the Georgian style remained
popular for public buildings in the U.S. well into the 20th
century. (Georgian Style, Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia)
The Federal Style The federal style is more delicate than the
colonial style which was so popular during the 1700s. Colonial
style buildings were rigidly symmetrical, with the central hall
balanced by two rectangular rooms on each side. Although federal
style buildings have symmetrical facades, their interiors are
far more varied. A main hall may be surrounded by oval,
rectangular and circular rooms and may feature a grand spiral
staircase. The exteriors of these three-story square structures
are characterized by low-pitched, balustraded roofs, and are
often surrounded by ornate fences. The massive size of a federal
style building, combined with its simplicity, creates a feeling
of restrained elegance which was very attractive to the Quakers
of New Bedford. (Created by DFinnerty, March 28, 1995,
http://www.umassd.edu/SpecialPrograms/DFinnerty/federal.html)
1780
By the Constitution of 1780 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
declared that persons of color, [**413] descended from African
slaves, were by that Constitution made citizens of the State;
and such of them as have had the necessary qualifications, have
held and exercised the elective franchise, as citizens, from
that time to the present. (See Com. v. Aves, 18 Pick. R., 210.)
(Dred Scott, Plaintiff In Error, v. John A. Sandford. Supreme
Court Of The United States, 60 U.S. 393; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 472; 15
L. Ed. 691; 19 HOW 393, December, 1856)
1780
The first coal mine in America was opened in Virginia, in the
Appalachian bituminous field, during the 1750s; the mining of
anthracite began in the late 1700s. Extensive mining in the
United States commenced about 1820; until 1854 more than half of
all the coal that was produced in the U.S. was Pennsylvania
anthracite. ("Mining," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia
Microsoft Corporation)
Journal article discusses eastern Virginia coal field
development. Although free workers were employed in the mines,
slave labor was essential to these enterprises, in high- and
low-skill jobs. Relates the nature of and the response to mine
safety problems, including insurance on the miners. The mines
declined when capital investments shifted to the Appalachian
area. 2 tables, 60 notes. (Lewis, Ronald L. "The Darkest Abode
Of Man": Black Miners In The First Southern Coal Field,
1780-1865. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 1979 87
(2): 190-202.)
1780/03/01
Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish slavery.
(Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service)
The Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 was the first
emancipation statute in the United States. (Pennsylvania State
History, " The Quaker Province: 1681-1776" Pennsylvania state
Web page, July 22, 1996 for the text of the Act, see The Avalon
Project)
In 1780, "the State of Pennsylvania passed a Law for the gradual
abolition of slavery, which they set out at length. The third
section enacts, that all persons, as well Negroes and mulattos
as others, who shall be born within this State, from and after
the passing of this Act, shall not be deemed, and considered as
servants for life, or slaves, and that all servitude for life,
or slavery of children, in consequence of the slavery of their
mothers, in the case of all children born within the State from
and after the passing of the Act shall be, and is hereby utterly
taken away, extinguished and abolished. By the fourth section,
the children of slaves born within the State after the passing
of the Act, are to be held by the owners of their mothers, until
they shall arrive at the age of twenty-eight years, upon the
same terms and conditions, that servants bound by indenture for
four years are subject to, unless the person entitled to the
service of such child, shall abandon his claim, in which case,
the Overseers of the Poor shall be indenture, bind out every
such child as an apprentice, for a time not exceeding the age
before limited. The fifth section directs, that all slaves, or
servants for life, or thirty-one years, shall be registered by
their owners, with the Clerk of the County, &c., in which he
resides, before the 1st November following, and that no Negro or
mulatto now within the State shall be deemed a slave unless his,
or her name shall be entered as aforesaid on such Record, expect
as after excepted. The tenth section contains the exception,
which extends to domestic slaves attending upon Delegates in
Congress, Foreign Ministers and Consuls, and persons passing
through, or sojourning in the State, and not becoming residents
therein, and seamen, &c. employed in ships not belonging to
inhabitants of the State." (Spotts v. Gillaspie., Supreme Court
Of Virginia, 27 Va. 566; 1828 Va. LEXIS 38; 6 Rand. 566,
November 17, 1828)
1780-1810 Almost as many slaves are brought into the Unites
States as had been brought in over the previous 160 years.
(Slavery and Religion in America: A timeline 1440-1866. By the
Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ref/timeline/)
1780-1781
Virginia: "Tobacco War" waged by Lord Cornwallis to destroy
basis of America's credit abroad (Richard Kluger's monumental
Ashes to Ashes (RK), The American Tobacco Story cited Tobacco
Timeline by Gene Borio Tobacco Timeline by Gene Borio )
1781
Virginia- Black soldiers participate in defeat of Cornwallis at
Yorktown. Maroon attacks on plantations and an uprising in
Williamsburg are reported. (Chronology: A Historical Review,
Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and
Wanda Neal-Davis)
1781/02/02
Property of Loyalists and British subjects confiscated in
Maryland (Maryland Historical Chronology)
1781/03/01
The Articles of Confederation were finally ratified by all
thirteen colonies.. Maryland was the last to ratify. (Before the
Capitol, Congress Convened on the Road, by the United States
Capitol Historical Society, Volume 7, Number 1, with Gift
Catalog, Spring 1999)
1782
George Washington is the major slave owner in Fairfax County
Virginia that year with 188 slaves, followed by George Mason
with 128 slaves; William Fitzhugh with 122 slaves Penelope
French and B Dulany with 102 slaves; Thomas Fitzhugh with 91
slaves; Philip Lee with 82 slaves; Alexander Henderson with 72
slaves: Elenor Custis with 65 slaves; and John Carlyle with 49
slaves. (Fairfax County, Virginia a History. Fairfax County
Board of Supervisors, Fairfax, Virginia, 1978 p 35)
1782
The Virginia legislature authorizes manumission of slaves as the
"peculiar institution" begins to die out in some parts of the
South. Some 10,000 Virginia slaves will be freed in the next 8
years largely because they are too old, ill, or costly for their
masters to maintain. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James
Trager from MS Bookshelf.)
1783
The United States- The war ends. Some 10,000 blacks had served
in the continental armies, 5000 as regular soldiers. The famed
"Black Regiment" is deactivated. (Chronology: A Historical
Review, Major Events in Black History (1492 thru 1953 by Roger
Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis )
Maryland forbids further importation of slaves. (The People's
Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)
Montgomery County Tax records list Col. George Beall's "Addition
to the Rock of Dumbarton" consisting of 281.5 acres value at
£200, (1300 acres in original grant or deed - 455.5 acres
defining in original grant) 1 dwelling house, kitchen, Stable
and Negro quarter, 150 acres cleared land. (Records of the
Montgomery County Historical Society) Note there was also an
entry for George Beall JR on the "Rock of Dumbarton 567 acres
valued at 637 pounds, 17 shillings and 6 pence with a log
dwelling house, old mill and other log houses 50 acres cleared
sapling land and middling soil.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, Colonel Ninian Beall
received from the Crown of England extensive grants of land in
the upper Potomac Valley. These grants were made at the behest
of the second Lord Baltimore in acknowledgement of the services
rendered to him by Colonel Beall as the settlement of Maryland
in 1634. Of all this vast property the new owner was most
enamored of the region in and near the present Georgetown,
because topographically it afforded many reminders of his native
Scotland, and so he established his hunting lodge here and
patented his holdings under the name of Rock of Dumbarton.
Nearby was the Indian village of Tohogee which was a permanent
encampment, not a nomad tribe, who were skilled craftsmen in
stone. The section abounds with relics of their early work. (A
Century and a Half of Freemasonry in Georgetown, 1789-1939,
Potomac Lodge No. 5, F.A.A.M., Georgetown DC, 1939 page 1)
Steven R Potter, an Archeologist with the National Park Service
and author of a book on Alogonquan culture, believes that the
Tohogee village was not located near present day Georgetown, but
rather somewhere else. His belief is based upon the soon to be
published work of J. Frederick Fausz, who has done research on
the original 1633 Journal account by Henry Fleet, "A brief
Journal of a Voyage in the Barque Warwick to Virginia and other
parts of the Continent of America." According to Potter, Fleet's
account transcript was defective in the 1871 book by Edward
Neal, and further mangled in an account by Raphael Semmes.
(Telephone Interview with Steven R. Potter, Washington, DC. May
20th 1998)
Contrary to the story that European Americans have been all too
willing to accept, European immigrants came to inhabited
territory in North America. Native Americans were numerous and
many dwelt in stable communities. They had cleared land on the
eastern seaboard and cultivated extensively. Their nations had
established territories which were vital to the hunting
component of their economies. These facts were evident to
European settlers---especially to those who escaped starvation
by accepting as gifts the fruits of Native American agriculture.
(Lyons, David, The balance of injustice and the War of
Independence.., Vol. 45, Monthly Review, 04-01-1994)
Maryland (Montgomery County). Documents. Economic Conditions.
Social Conditions The Maryland General Assembly levied an
assessment on the state's counties in 1783, and the schedule for
Montgomery County provides detailed information on soil and land
quality, housing, farm improvements, chattel, demographics, and
wealth. A portrait of the county emerges as a relatively barren
landscape with soil depleted by continual tobacco crops, poor
and landless people, young people forced to seek opportunity
elsewhere, and scattered, transitory communities. The high
number of slaves, a third of the population, can be explained by
their mobility, which made them a better investment than land.
The better state of neighboring counties shows that cultural
rather than physical factors were responsible for the
conditions. (Barnett, Todd H. Tobacco, Planters, Tenants, And
Slaves: A Portrait Of Montgomery County In 1783. Maryland
Historical Magazine 1994 89(2): 184-203.)
1784
George Washington becomes president of the Potomac Company,
which had for its purpose the development of trade and commerce
with the West. (H. Paul Caemmerer, The Life of Pierre Charles
L'Enfant Planner o the City of Beautiful, The City of
Washington, Washington DC, 1950)
In the later part of his life, Washington had to raise funds by
selling off most of the Ohio Valley lands that he had acquired
at the Indians' expense during the 1760s. (Review of The Good
Father By Alan Taylor, George Washington: in The New Republic
01-19-1998)
1785
In Virginia, Carter H. Harrison made a motion, in the 1785
session of the Virginia House of Delegates, to repeal a 1782 act
that allowed slave owners to voluntarily manumit their slaves.
Harrison thought slavery was a great blessing. Harrison's
measure passed by a single vote. James Madison wrote to his
brother, Ambrose, that the backward step would not only be
dishonorable but would make the dreaded freeing of all slaves
that much sooner. Madison dreaded the freeing of all slaves
because neither he or Thomas Jefferson thought that it was the
proper time to advance the proposition of total emancipation.
During that same year, 1785, Madison spoke in favor of a
Jefferson bill for the gradual abolition of slavery; it failed.
A young French observer, who wrote about this described Madison
as, "A young man [who]. . . astonishes . . . his eloquence, his
wisdom, and his genius, has had the humanity and courage (for
such a proposition requires no small share of courage) to
propose a general emancipation of the slaves...." (6 Marquis de
Chastellux, Travels in North American the Years 1780, 1781 and
1782, Howard C. Rice, ed. 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, for the Institute for Early American
History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., 1963), 653, [from
footnote by George Grieve eighteenth century translator].h See
James Madison and Slavery by Kenneth M. Clark )
1785/0/11
Congress convened in New York City, first in City Hall and then
in Fraunce's Tavern where it continues to sit until the fall of
1788.
1785/10/21
In a letter to George Washington, Governor Thomas Johnson,
writes that slaves would be used to build the canals to
circumvent Great Falls on the Potomac River. (McPherson-Johnson
Papers, Maryland Historical Society Manuscript Collection.
Manuscript #1714)
"It was in May 1785 that the gentry of Virginia and Maryland met
in Alexandria at Lomax's Tavern on Princess Street to organize
the much heralded company to improve the navigation of the
Potomac River. Known as the Potomac Company. It was spearheaded
by Gen. George Washington who served as its first president. The
enterprise was formed to construct a lateral canal around the
Great Falls of the Potomac as Matilaville and to improve
navigation along this commercial artery as far north ad
Cumberland, Maryland. Opened by 1801, the canal linked the
western frontier to the eastern ports of Georgetown and
Alexandria, thus ensuring that trade would flow east instead of
down the Mississippi River. Beset by many problems including
labor riots and foul weather, the canal was not a viable
financial venture and the company passed into oblivion on August
15, 1828, when it was purchased by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
Company. (William Francis Smith and T. Michael Miller, A Seaport
Saga, p 301) In November 1784, the first meeting had Daniel
Carroll was elected chair, George Washington elected President,
George Gilpin, John Fitzgerald, Thomas Johnson and Thomas Simms
Lee, directors, Present were many people including William
Deakins, Thomas Beall. Ad on 11/1785, 100 Negroes wanted to work
on the canal; (Artisans and Merchants of Alexandria, Virginia
1780-1820 Vol. 2 Compiled by T. Michael Miller, Lloyd House.
P44-46, footnoted Corra Bacon-Foster, "The Patowmack Company,
1784-1828, NY Burt Franklin Press, 1912)
1786/04/12
In 1786, George Washington wrote on behalf of a fellow Virginia
slave holder to Robert Morris, a wealthy Philadelphian. Morris
was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, served as
superintendent of finance for the Continental Congress, and
later founded the Bank of America. Washington's letter explained
that a Mr. Dalby would be visiting Philadelphia "to attend... a
vexatious lawsuit respecting a slave of his, whom a Society of
Quakers... have attempted to liberate." Washington pointed out
that visitors "whose misfortune it is to have slaves as
attendants" would avoid the city if the activities of the
Quakers continued. Washington hastened to add "that there is not
a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan
adopted for the abolition of" slavery, but that the "only one
proper and effectual mode" for accomplishing abolition would be
through the Legislature. He concluded with the opinion that
"when slaves who are happy and contented with their present
masters, are tampered with and seduced to leave" such action
"introduces more evils than it can cure." Washington's letter is
believed to be the first documented reference to the Underground
Railroad. (From the Public Broadcasting Service's Africans in
America Resource Bank ) See also (George Washington to Robert
Morris, 12 April 1786, Confederation 4: 15-17. Papers of George
Washington editorial project at the University of Virginia,
Confederation Series, Volume Four April 1786-January 1787, W.W.
Abbot, editor on line)
1786/10/09
"I never mean (unless some particular circumstance should compel
me to it) to possess another slave by purchase; it being among
my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in
this country may be abolished by slow, sure and imperceptible
degrees."--George Washington, September 9, 1786 (Fritz
Hirschfeld , George Washington and Slavery, A Documentary
Portrayal, 1997)
1786
1,890 of a total of 18,791 methodists are black. (Slavery and
Religion in America: A timeline 1440-1866. By the Internet
Public Library)
1787
The Constitutional Convention adopts a "three-fifths rule" as a
compromise to settle differences between Northern and Southern
states over the counting of slaves for purposes of
representation and taxation. Slaves are to be counted as
three-fifths of a free man for both purposes. (The People's
Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
Constitution is approved, extending slavery for 20 years. (The
History Channels Chronology of Slavery in America)
Slavery was a fundamental issue in the debates surrounding the
creation of the constitution. It was not only an economic issue
but also one involving the political compromises and fundamental
political powers. The recovery of fugitive slaves, the counting
of slaves for congressional representation *and* for electing
the president through the electoral college, control of the
slave trade, the guarantee of federal troops to put down slave
rebellions (used after Nat Turner's Rebellion and John Brown's
raid) were all about power relationships, and the use of the
national state to protect the social structure, the political
power, and the social institutions of the South. (Paul
Finkelman, author of Slavery And The Founders Race And Liberty
In The Age Of Jefferson, Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1996 posted in
The U.S. Constitution and Slavery posted on 11 May 1999 in
"Steven Mintz, U. Houston" list SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU)
Careful delineation of all the ramifications of slavery in the
Constitutional convention and during the ratification struggle
may be found in: Forrest McDonald, _We the People_; Donald
Robinson, _Slavery in the Structure of American Politics_; Gary
B. Nash, _Race and Revolution_; Duncan J. MacLeod, _Slavery,
Race and the American Revolution_; William W. Freehling, _The
Reintegration of American History_, ch.2; Herbert J. Storing,
"Slavery and the Moral Foundations of the American Republic," in
Robert H. Horwitz, ed., _The Moral Foundations of the American
Republic_; Paul Finkelman, "Slavery and the Constitutional
Convention: Making a Covenant with Death," in Richard Beeman et
al., eds., _Beyond Confederation_; Larry Tise, _Proslavery_; and
John P. Kaminski, ed., _A Necessary Evil? Slavery and the Debate
Over the Constitution_. Charles Beard's work, though pioneering
for its time, has since been superseded by these and many other
studies. (From: "J. Douglas Deal" posted on
SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU History of Slavery Listserv, Tue, 11 May
1999 07:00:39 -0500, moderated by "Steven Mintz, U. Houston"
though the original posting appeared on H-Afro-Am, which is
moderated by Abdul Alkalimat)
1787
The Free African Society is founded at Philadelphia by freedman
Richard Allen, 27, and other blacks who were pulled off their
knees in November at a "white" Methodist church. With Absalom
Jones and others, Allen establishes the African Methodist
Episcopal Church while working to improve the economic and
social conditions of American blacks through the Free African
Society. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager
from MS Bookshelf. Also see
http://earlyamerica.com/review/spring97/allen.html)
As a result of the egalitarian notions of the American
Revolutionary War and the Great Awakening, there was widespread
abolitionist sentiment in southern churches between 1789 and the
late 1820s. There is plenty of evidence that some southern
planters were uneasy about owning slaves and made every effort
to educate and manumit them. During the 1820s, one group of
white southerners (American Colonization Society) arranged to
transport freed slaves back to a colony on the West African
coast in what became the independent country of Liberia. (Slave
owners feared that the sight of free blacks would incite slaves
to revolt). ("Plantation Agriculture in Southeast USA by Jim
Jones West Chester University of Pennsylvania, Cause in African
History to 1875 taught Fall 1997 The Decision To Become A
Planter. See also John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community:
Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979)
Methodist, John Wesley denounced human bondage as "the sum of
all villainies," and early Methodists in Georgia joined their
brethren elsewhere in condemning the institution. As the
nineteenth century progressed, southern Wesleyans learned to
subdue their critique, in order to grow in membership. Even in
their most pro-slavery moments, however, they stopped short of
saying that human bondage was a good thing. Unlike Calvinist
intellectuals such as Charles Colcock Jones, Methodists rarely
used the Old Testament patriarchs and their hierarchical values
to buttress the pro-slavery case. Relying mainly on the letters
attributed to Paul, Georgia Wesleyans argued that slavery was
scripturally allowable, but not necessarily ideal. In the
ante-bellum era their theoretical position was neither
proslavery nor antislavery, but neutrality. Christians lived in
an imperfect world where slavery was sanctioned by law;
therefore, the church should coexist with slavery, just as it
did in Paul's day. However, the Wesleyan religious press refused
to carry notices of escaped slaves, claiming that Paul may have
sent Onesimus back to his master Philemon, but the sainted
apostle "never advertised" that Onesimus was a runaway.
(Christopher H. Owen. _The Sacred Flame of Love: Methodism and
Society in Nineteenth-Century Georgia_. Athens and London: The
University of Georgia Press, 1998. xx + 290 pp. Notes,
bibliography, and index. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8203-1963-5.
Reviewed for H-AmRel by Thomas A. Scott
<tscott@ksumail.kennesaw.edu>, Department of History and
Philosophy, Kennesaw State University, Georgia)
1787
Dollar currency first introduced in the United States. (General
Chonology Of Events 1994/1995 Leading Edge Research Group)
1788/06/17
A British bill designed to restrict the number of slaves carried
by each ship, based on the ship's tonnage, was enacted by
Parliament on June 17, 1788; and that year the French
abolitionists, inspired by their English counterparts, founded
the Société des Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of
Blacks). Finally in 1807, the British Parliament passed an act
prohibiting British subjects from engaging in the slave trade
after March 1, 1808-16 years after the Danes had abolished their
trade. In 1811 slave trading was declared a felony punishable by
transportation (exile to a penal colony) for all British
subjects or foreigners caught trading in British possessions.
Britain then assumed most of the responsibility for abolishing
the transatlantic slave trade, partly to protect its sugar
colonies. In 1815 Portugal accepted £750,000 to restrict the
trade to Brazil; and in 1817 Spain accepted £400,000 to abandon
the trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo. In 1818
Holland and France abolished the trade. After 1824, slave
trading was declared tantamount to piracy, and until 1837
participants faced the penalty of death. ("Blacks in Latin
America," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft
Corporation.)
1788/10/13
Alexandria Lodge No. 39 at Alexandria, Virginia, was warranted
by the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania (Ancient) on
February 3, 1783. It was constituted on the 25th of that month
and has been in continuous existence ever since that date. The
Grand Lodge of Virginia having been formed, October 13, 1778,
the Lodge withdrew from Pennsylvania obedience and received a
Virginia charter dated April 28, 1788 as Alexandria Lodge No.
22. George Washington, then serving as President of the United
States, with his personal consent, was named Worshipful Master
in the Virginia charter. Following George Washington's death on
December 14, 1799, in 1804, the Grand Lodge approved the change
of name to the Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, conditioned
upon the surrender of the 1788 charter. To this condition, the
Lodge objected, not desiring to lose its original Virginia
charter in which Washington was named Master. Accordingly, the
Grand Lodge of Virginia adopted a resolution in 1805, permitting
the change of name with retention of the old charter. (Official
Web page: History of the Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22
Maintained by Jack Canard)
1789/04/30
George Washington takes office in New York City, Washington
acted carefully and deliberately, aware of the need to build an
executive structure that could accommodate future presidents.
Hoping to prevent sectionalism from dividing the new nation, he
toured the New England states (1789) and the South (1791). An
able administrator, he nevertheless failed to heal the widening
breach between factions led by Secretary of State Thomas
Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
Because he supported many of Hamilton's controversial fiscal
policies--the assumption of state debts, the Bank of the United
States, and the excise tax--Washington became the target of
attacks by Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans. (George
Washington, Composite from Washington, D.C. Quick Guide,
Washington, D.C. Quick Guide, I Love Washington Guide, by
Marilyn J. Appleberg and The New Grolier Electronic
Encyclopedia)
Washington was reelected president in 1792, and the following
year the most divisive crisis arising out of the personal and
political conflicts within his cabinet occurred--over the issue
of American neutrality during the war between England and
France. Washington, whose policy of neutrality angered the
pro-French Jeffersonian, was horrified by the excesses of the
French Revolution and enraged by the tactics of Edmond Genet,
the French minister in the United States, which amounted to
foreign interference in American politics. Further, with an eye
toward developing closer commercial ties with the British, the
president agreed with the Hamiltonians on the need for peace
with Great Britain. His acceptance of the 1794 Jay's Treaty,
which settled outstanding differences between the United States
and Britain but which Democratic-Republicans viewed as an abject
surrender to British demands, revived vituperation against the
president, as did his vigorous upholding of the excise law
during the WHISKEY REBELLION in western Pennsylvania. (George
Washington, Composite from Washington, D.C. Quick Guide,
Washington, D.C. Quick Guide, I Love Washington Guide, by
Marilyn J. Appleberg and The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia
)
By the time the Revolution broke out in France, there was
already a strong hostility to the trade among the educated
elite. The Societe des Amis des Noirs, founded in 1788, included
among its members not only the philosopher Condorcet (who wrote
extensively, under a pseudonym, against slavery), Lafayette, and
Brissot, but also Robespierre himself. Opposition to abolition
set at least one member of the National Convention, Antoine
Barnave, on the road to the guillotine. Ending slavery and the
slave trade thus became part of the Revolutionary agenda; and in
1794, after bitter disputes between the deputies, the National
Convention finally outlawed the trade. Eight years later,
however, after the success of the greatest slave revolt in
history on the former colony of Guadeloupe, Napoleon attempted
to revive the trade. (He was prompted by Josephine, "the
brilliant daughter of Martinique" as Thomas calls her.) His
success was only partial and short-lived, but in most subsequent
histories of slavery it has been allowed to eclipse the
achievements of the revolutionaries. (Anthony Pagden The Slave
Trade, Review of Hugh Thomas' Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
The New Republic; ; 12-22-1997)
1789 Journal article describes the efforts of the Maryland
Abolition Society, founded in 1789, to extend the natural rights
principles of the new nation to include African Americans. While
Maryland did not abolish slavery, the society's agitations
caused the state legislature to loosen restrictions on the
slaves' abilities to buy their own freedom and made it more
difficult to export slaves from Maryland. The society also filed
lawsuits in their effort to free slaves. Men from various social
classes were members of the society, which suddenly disappeared
in 1798. Based on the Votes and Proceedings of the House of
Delegates of Maryland, documents from the Maryland Abolition
Society, correspondence, and secondary sources; 24 notes. (Guy,
Anita Aidt. The Maryland Abolition Society And The Promotion Of
The Ideals Of The New Nation. Maryland Historical Magazine 1989
84(4): 342-349.
George Washington becomes President. John Adams, Vice President.
George Washington began the practice of selecting one newspaper
to serve as a political party organ. Thomas Jefferson used the
National Intelligencer. Hamilton used the Porcupine Gazette. The
New York Evening Post catered to the wealthy Federalist such as
Alexander Hamilton. The evening Post went to press with 600
subscribers in 1801. (Selected Review Of Important Media Related
Historical Events And Facts. Oklahoma Baptist University)
Citation information and credit: Chronology on the History of
Slavery, Compiled by Eddie Becker 1999, see on line at
http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html |
