9781422274231

Rare Glimpses of Slave Life

Rare Glimpses of Slave Life

CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR

ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY: ABOLITIONISTS AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH: FREED SLAVES AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

SLAVE LIFE ON A SOUTHERN PLANTATION

SLAVE REVOLTS AND REBELLIONS

THE SLAVE TRADE IN COLONIAL AMERICA

WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN SLAVERY

Rare Glimpses of Slave Life

AMANDA TURNER

MASON CREST PHIL ADELPHIA | MIAMI

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ISBN (hardback) 978-1-4222-4408-1 ISBN (series) 978-1-4222-4402-9 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4222-7423-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file at the Library of Congress Interior and cover design: Torque Advertising + Design Production: Michelle Luke

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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Chapter 1: Origins of Slavery in America......................7 Chapter 2: Understanding the Slave Trade. ................ 19 Chapter 3: Slavery Takes Hold in the Colonies............ 35 Chapter 4: Slave Life and Rebellion. .......................... 45 Chapter 5: Slavery in a New Nation............................ 55 Series Glossary of Key Terms. .................................... 70 Chapter Notes. ............................................................. 72 Further Reading........................................................... 74 Internet Resources.................................................... 75 Chronology............................................................... 76 Index........................................................................ 78 Author’s Biography and Credits................................. 80 K E Y I C O N S T O L O O K F O R : Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

Colonies in North America prospered when they began to produce cash crops for export, such as tobacco, rice, and cotton.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND New World— a term used by European settlers to refer to the lands in North America, the Caribbean, and South America that they invaded and colonized during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. indentured servant— a person who was under contract with a master to work without pay in exchange for food, housing, water, and safe passage across seas. After a predetermined period of time, the indentured servant’s debt was paid and he or she was set free. servitude— to be enslaved or subject to the will of someone more powerful.

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Origins of Slavery in America Between the arrival of Europeans in North and South America around 1500, and the end of slavery in the United States in the 1860s, it’s estimated that at least 12 million African people were forcibly taken from their homes and forced to live as slaves in the New World . These slaves were transported across the Atlantic Ocean, where they were then sold. Approximately half a million of these slaves were sent to the American colonies, while most of the others were sent to work in the Caribbean and South America. For many people in the United States today, it’s hard to imagine a time when slavery was legal. This heartbreaking chapter in American history has its start in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the first European colonies were being established in North America and the Caribbean. The Spanish had established profitable colonies in modern-day Mexico and Peru, where large amounts of gold, silver, and other resources could be found. They initially tried to enslave Native Americans that they encountered, but the natives soon died out due to overwork and exposure to unfamiliar diseases. Another source of labor had to be found. The Spanish and Portuguese soon began importing people from Africa, and forcing them to work as slaves in their colonies in the Caribbean and South America. The first permanent European settlement in North America was the Spanish colony at St. Augustine, in present-day Florida.

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This illustration from 1595 shows African slaves processing sugarcane on a Caribbean plantation. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Spanish imported millions of slaves from West Africa to work in their colonies in Florida, the Caribbean islands, Mexico, and South America.

Its founder, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, brought slaves with him when he arrived in 1565. The settlement would become an important destination for slave ships that were headed to other Spanish colonies in the region. Spain was not the only country interested in establishing colonies in North America. European countries like France, England, and the Netherlands sought a share of the New World’s wealth for themselves. In 1606, King James I of England granted a

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charter to the Virginia Company to establish a permanent English settlement in North America. The company was a business venture, and shares were sold to pay the cost of sending people and supplies to the new land, called Virginia, to create a settlement. The people who bought shares in the Virginia Company expected to receive a return on their investment from gold, silver, or other valuables discovered in Virginia. BUILDING A NEW COLONY The first group of about a hundred English colonists arrived at Virginia in May of 1607. They found a suitable spot for a community, and set to work building shelters, a fort, and a storehouse, and a church. This first settlement was called Jamestown, in honor of the king. But establishing a colony in a faraway land was not easy. The settlers did not have adequate supplies, and they had trouble with local Native Americans. Many

English colonists arrive in Virginia, 1607. Several previous attempts to establish a colony in Virginia had failed.

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The Jamestown settlement barely survived its first few years. It would not be until 1612 that the successful cultivation of tobacco as a cash crop would help to make the Virginia colony economically feasible.

died from disease, starvation, or attacks by the local tribes. Adding to these problems was that they did not find gold or other valuable

items that could be exported, or sent back to England. The Virginia colony might have failed if not for the

introduction of a new crop, tobacco. Tobacco had become very popular in England during the sixteenth century, but the best tobacco was grown in the American colonies of England’s rival, Spain, who charged high prices. An English farmer named John Rolfe believed that if he could grow tobacco in Virginia, he could sell it at a lower price than the Spanish and still make a good profit. In 1612, Rolfe produced a crop of quality tobacco for export to England. It was a huge success. Tobacco farming saved the Virginia colony, and would become a major part of its economy over the next century. To grow tobacco profitably, large farms were needed. Farmers needed help clearing fields, planting tobacco, taking care of the

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THE SLAVE TRADE IN COLONIAL AMERICA

plants, and harvesting the leaves. Yet the population of the colony was very small—just a few hundred people in 1612. More workers were needed. LABOR SHORTAGE IN VIRGINIA At first the English colonists tried asking local Native Americans to work with them in the fields. However, the natives did not make good farm workers. Native American men were not very interested in farming or in being tied down to one place. At any time they would simply leave the farm and rejoin their tribe. Another source of labor was needed. In 1618, the managers of the Virginia Company began offering fifty acres of land to any worker who left England and moved to the colony. The free land could be used for a tobacco farm, which would increase the colony’s tobacco exports and provide greater profits for the Virginia Company’s investors. But the cost of passage to Virgina was too expensive for most working-class Britons. So under the “headright system,” the Virginia Company would give fifty acres of land to any person who would pay the passage for a poor person who was willing to work in Virginia. In exchange, the worker agreed to serve an agreed-upon period of time (usually five to seven years) to repay the cost of their trip. The work contract was called an indenture, so these workers were known as indentured servants . The headright system allowed wealthy farmers to invest in more workers and expand their farms. Even if the indentured servant died on the way to Virginia, the farmer who had sponsored him or her still received the land. Large tobacco plantations began to spread outside Jamestown, and Virginia was soon on its way to becoming a self-sustaining colony. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL The first documented arrival of Africans to the United States occurred in 1619. That year, John Rolfe wrote, “About the latter

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end of August, a Dutch man of Warr of the burden of a 160 tunes arrived at Point-Comfort, the Comandors name Capt Jope, his Pilott for the West Indies one Mr Marmaduke an Englishman. … He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes, w[hich] the Governo[r] and Cape Merchant bought for victuall[s].” The twenty African captives were supposed to have gone to the colony of New Spain (Mexico). However, they were diverted to Virginia, where they were sold to the colonists. Today, no one is certain whether these captives were sold as indentured servants, who would eventually be able to gain their freedom, or as slaves who would remain stuck in servitude for their entire life. Slave ships from Africa would continue to stop in Virginia throughout the 1620s. Virginia’s first population census, in March 1620, found thirty-two Africans living in the colony, along with 892 Europeans. Fifteen of the Africans were male and seventeen were female; all were identified as “servants.” By 1630, there were over a hundred Africans living in the colony. Some of these Africans were able to gain their freedom and become respected members of the colony. Whether this by working through the end of an indenture period, or if they were required to purchase their freedom from slavery, is unknown for certain. A notable success was Anthony Johnson, who was brought from Africa to Virginia in 1621 and was sold to a Virginia farmer named Bennett. By 1635 Johnson was a free man, and by 1651 he and his wife Mary (also a former African slave) owned 250 acres of farmland along the Pungoteague Creek on the eastern shore of Virginia. They received the land by purchasing the indentures of five workers—four of these indentured servants were white Europeans, and one was of African descent. Johnson later moved to Maryland, where he had a large farm and owned slaves. FROM INDENTURED SERVITUDE TO SLAVERY During the early 1600s, racial characteristics such as skin color were not the primary way that people were categorized. People

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This illustration depicts the 1619 arrival of twenty African captives at Jamestown, in the British colony of Virginia. By the end of the seventeenth century, slavery would be legal throughout Britain’s North American colonies.

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of African and European descent often worked side by side in the fields as indentured servants. But this would change as the slave system developed. In Virginia the laws said that masters could not force indentured servants to work for them permanently. After the completion of their indenture period, servants were set free. As part of their agreement, their masters were supposed to provide them with “freedom dues,” which included land, supplies, and a firearm. These things were meant to help their former servants start a successful life in the colony as free citizens. Records show that both black and white indentured servants received freedom dues at the end of their service in the 1620s and 1630s. At the same time, however, an indentured servant who failed to fulfill the terms of their agreement would be punished. The colonial authorities might order the servant to be whipped, or branded, or to have additional time added to their indenture period. These penalties applied to both black and white servants. However, in time the colony began to pass laws that discriminated against blacks. In 1639, the Virginia legislature passed a law requiring all people in the colonies to own firearms,

Scan here to learn more about the first slaves brought to Virginia.

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The indenture, or contract, between a servant and master in Virginia, circa 1766. The servant agreed to work for seven years to pay off the debt incurred by his transportation to the colony.

except people of African descent. Thus plantation owners were required to provide weapons for their white indentured servants, but not for their black servants. This law may have reflected fear that the black servants were more likely to rise up against their white masters. But it also effectively meant that blacks were unable to defend themselves. In 1640, three indentured servants ran away from a plantation owned by Hugh Gwyn, a wealthy Virginia landowner and member of the colonial government. Two of the men were white, and one of them, John Punch, was black. The three servants had planned and executed their escape together. However, they were captured and brought before a Virginia court for punishment. The judge sentenced all three men to be whipped. The two white men were given an additional year on their indenture with Gwyn, and then

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required to work for the colony for an additional three years. John Punch, however, received a very different punishment: he would be required to serve Gwyn for the rest of his life, with no opportunity for freedom. This made John Punch the first known slave in Virginia.

DID YOU KNOW ? Slavery existed in every United States colony. By the time the American Revolution began in 1775, more than 20 percent of the population of the colonies was of African descent.

After 1640, the laws and customs of colonial Virginia began to change. As news Africans came to the colony, they were no longer treated the same as white indentured servants. Instead, they tended to be forced into lifelong servitude. Having slaves was much more profitable than for plantation owners than having indentured servants. While the slave owners did have to feed and house their slaves, they did not have to provide the other freedom dues at the end of their indenture, or look for new workers periodically. In 1661 the legislature of Virginia passed the first law that legally recognized slavery. The next year, the legislature passed another law that specifically stated that slavery was a lifelong condition that would be passed from generation to generation. Any child born to an enslaved woman would also be a slave. Over the next forty years, many other laws were passed in Virginia to restrict the rights of blacks and separate them from whites. The black indentured servant, with his hope of freedom, was being replaced by the black slave. In 1705, the Virginia General Assembly formally declared that all Africans imported into the colony would be slaves.

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