The Shape of American Slavery
The slave system in America was unique in human history.
Sometimes slaves were treated cruelly; at other times with kindness. They were
more often used as a sign of affluence, a way of displaying one's wealth and of
enjoying luxury, rather than as the means for the systematic accumulation of
wealth. Previously, slavery had existed in hierarchical societies in which the
slave was at the bottom of a social ladder, the most inferior in a society of
unequals. While each society normally preferred to choose its slaves from alien
people, it did not limit its selection exclusively to the members of any one
race. Slave inferiority did not lead necessarily to racial inferiority. In
contrast to this, slavery in America was set apart by three characteristics:
capitalism, individualism, and racism.
Capitalism increased the degree of dehumanization and
depersonalization implicit in the institution of slavery. While it had been
normal in other forms of slavery for the slave to be legally defined as a thing,
a piece of property, in America he also became a form of capital. Here his life
was regimented to fill the needs of a highly organized productive system
sensitively attuned to the driving forces of competitive free enterprise.
American masters were probably no more cruel and no more sadistic than others,
and, in fact, the spread of humanitarianism in the modern world may have made
the opposite true. Nevertheless, their capitalistic mentality firmly fixed their
eyes on minimizing expenses and maximizing profits. Besides being a piece of
property, the American slave was transformed into part of the plantation
machine, a part of the ever-growing investment in the master' mushrooming
wealth.
The development of slavery in America resulted from the
working of economic forces and not from climatic or geographic conditions. When
the first twenty Africans reached Virginia in 1619, the colony was comprised of
small plantations dependent on free white labor. While some historians believe
that these immigrants were held in slavery from the beginning, most think they
were given the status of indentured servants. English law contained no such
category as slavery, and the institution did not receive legal justification in
the colony until early in the 1660s. Although the fact of slavery had
undoubtedly preceded its legal definition, there was a period of forty years
within which the Africans had some room for personal freedom and individual
opportunity. Rumors of deplorable working conditions and of indefinite servitude
were reaching England and discouraging the flow of free white labor. To counter
this, a series of acts were passed which legally established the rights of white
labor, but they did nothing to improve the status of the African. In fact, their
passage pushed them relentlessly towards the status of slave.
The price of tobacco declined sharply in the 1660s and
drove the small white farmer to the wall. Only those with enough capital to
engage in large-scale operations could continue to make a profit. In order to
fill the need for the huge labor supply required large-scale agriculture, the
colonial legislature passed laws giving legal justification to slavery. At the
same time, Charles II granted a royal charter establishing a company to
transport African slaves across the ocean and thereby increasing the supply of
slaves available to the colonial planter.
Until this time, the number of Africans in the colony
had been very small, but thereafter their numbers grew rapidly. The African
slaves provided the large, dependable, and permanent supply of labor which these
plantations required. The small white planter and the free white laborer found
the road to economic success had become much more difficult. To be a successful
planter meant that he had to begin with substantial capital investments.
Capitalist agriculture substantially altered the social structure of the colony.
On one hand, it created a small class of rich and powerful white planters. On
the other, it victimized the small white planters, or white laborers, and the
ever-growing mass of African slaves.
The second unique factor in American slavery was the
growth of individualism. While this democratic spirit attracted many European
immigrants, it only served to increase the burden of slavery for the African.
Instead of being at the bottom of the social ladder, the slave in America was an
inferior among equals. A society which represented itself as recognizing
individual worth and providing room for the development of talent, rigidly
organized the entire life of the slave and gave him little opportunity to
develop his skills. In America, a person's worth became identified with economic
achievement. To be a success in Virginia was to be a prosperous planter, and
white individualism could easily become white oppression leaving no room for
black individualism. The existence of slavery in a society which maintained its
belief in equality was a contradiction which men strove diligently to ignore.
Perhaps this contradiction can be partly understood by
seeing the way in which individual rights had come into being in English
society. Instead of springing from a belief in abstract human rights, they were
an accumulation of concrete legal and political privileges which had developed
since Magna Charta. Viewing it in this light, it may have been easier for the
white colonists to insist on their rights while denying them to the slaves.
Nevertheless, the existence of slavery in the midst of a society believing in
individualism increased its dehumanizing effects.
The third 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.
Slavery has always been an evil institution, and being a
slave has always been undesirable. However, the slave in America was
systematically exploited for the accumulation of wealth. Being a slave in a
democracy, he was put outside of the bounds of society. Finally, because his
slavery was racially defined, his plight was incurable. Although he might flee
from slavery, he could not escape his race.
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