Transcript SLAVERY, FREEDOM and the STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE

SLAVERY, FREEDOM and the
STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE
SLAVERY, FREEDOM, and the
STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE

“SLAVERY IS NOT A
SIDESHOW IN
AMERICAN HISTORY,
IT IS THE MAIN
EVENT.”
Dr. James O. Horton
George Washington
Univ.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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In the mid-1750s, Olaudah
Equiano, the 11 year old
son of a West African village
chief, was kidnapped by
slave traders.
He soon found himself on a
ship headed for Barbados.
After a short stay he was
sold to a plantation owner in
VA and then purchased by a
British sea captain who
renamed him Gustavus
Vassa.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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He went on numerous sea voyages, and
while still a slave, was enrolled in a school in
England where he learned to read and write.
1763: He was sold again and returned to the
Caribbean.
1766: He was able to purchase his own
freedom.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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1789: He published The
Interesting Narrative of the
Life of Olaudah Equiano, or
Gustavus Vassa, the
African.
In his narrative, he
described himself as a
victim of slavery who
through luck and fate ended
up more fortunate than
most of his people.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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He condemned the idea that Africans were
inferior to Europeans and therefore deserved
to be slaves.
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He insisted that persons of all races were
capable of intellectual improvement.
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Equiano died in 1797.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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Recent scholars have suggested that
Equiano may have actually been born in the
New World.
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In either case, while his rich variety of
experience was no doubt unusual, his life
illuminates broad patterns of 18th century
American history.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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This was a period of sustained development
for British North America. The colonies were
growing rapidly.
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Some contemporaries spoke of British
America as a “rising empire” that would one
day eclipse the mother country in population
and wealth.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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It would be wrong, however, to see the first
three-quarters of the 18th century simply as a
prelude to American independence.
As Equiano’s life illustrates, the Atlantic was
more a bridge than a barrier between the Old
World and New World.
Even as its population became more diverse,
the colonies were increasingly integrated into
the British empire.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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Equiano’s life also
underscores the
greatest contradiction
in the history of the 18th
century – the
simultaneous
expansion of slavery
and freedom.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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The 18th century was
the great era of the
Atlantic slave trade, a
commerce increasingly
dominated by British
merchants and ships.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
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During the 18th century more than half the Africans
shipped to the New World as slaves were carried on
British vessels.
Most were destined for the plantations of the West Indies
and Brazil but slaves also made up around 280,000 of
the 585,000 persons who arrived in Britain’s mainland
colonies between 1700 and 1775.
Although concentrated in the Chesapeake and areas
further south, slavery existed in every British colony in
North America.
Unlike Equiano, very few slaves were fortunate enough
to gain their freedom.
THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN
SLAVERY
ENGLISHMEN AND AFRICANS

No European nation,
including England,
embarked on the
colonization of the New
World with the intention
of relying on African
slaves for the bulk of its
labor force.
ENGLISHMEN AND AFRICANS
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But the incessant demand
for workers spurred by the
cultivation of tobacco
eventually led Chesapeake
planters to turn to the
transatlantic trade in slaves.
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Compared with indentured
servants, slaves offered
planters many advantages.
ENGLISHMEN AND AFRICANS:
THE ADVANTAGES OF SLAVERY
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Slaves could not claim the
protections of English
common law.
Slaves’ terms of service
never expired.
Slaves could not become a
population of landless
men.
Their children were slaves.
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Their skin color made it
difficult to escape into the
surrounding society.
Slaves were accustomed
to intensive agricultural
labor.
Unlike Indians, slaves had
encountered many
diseases known in Europe
and had developed a
resistance to them.
ENGLISHMEN AND AFRICANS:
THE IDEA OF RACE
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The English had long
viewed alien peoples
with disdain, including
the Irish, Native
Americans, and
Africans.
They described these
strangers as savages,
pagans, and
uncivilized, often
comparing them to
animals.
ENGLISHMEN AND AFRICANS:
THE IDEA OF RACE
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“Race” – the idea that humanity is divided into welldefined groups associated with skin color is a
modern concept that had not been fully developed n
the 17th century.
Nor had “racism” – an ideology based on the belief
that some races are inherently superior to others
and entitled to rule over them.
The main lines of division were thought to be
civilization versus barbarism or Christianity versus
heathenism, not race or color.
ENGLISHMEN AND AFRICANS:
THE IDEA OF RACE
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Nonetheless, anti-black stereotypes
flourished in 17th century England.
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Africans were seen so alien – in color,
religion, and social practices – that they were
“enslavable” in a way that poor Englishmen
were not.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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Slavery has existed for
nearly the entire span of
human history.
It was central to the
societies of ancient Greece
and Rome.
After dying out in northern
Europe after the collapse of
the Roman Empire, it
persisted in the
Mediterranean world.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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In the Americas, slavery was
based on the plantation – an
agricultural enterprise that
brought large numbers of
workers under the control of a
single owner.
This imbalance magnified the
possibility of slave resistance
and made it necessary to
police the system rigidly.
It encouraged the creation of a
sharp boundary between
slavery and freedom.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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Labor on a slave
plantation was far more
demanding than in
household slavery
common in Africa, and
the death rate among
slaves was much
higher.
In the New World,
slavery would come to
be associated with
race.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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Unlike in Africa, slaves
who became free
always carried with
them the mark of
bondage, a visible sign
of being considered
unworthy of
incorporation as equals
into a free society.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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A sense of Africans as aliens and inferior
made their enslavement possible.
But prejudice did not create North American
slavery.
For that institution to take root, planters and
government authorities had to be convinced
that importing African slaves was the best
way to solve their persistent shortage of
labor.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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Slaves cost more than indentured servants, and
the high death rate among tobacco workers
made it economically unappealing to pay for a
lifetime of labor.
For decades, servants from England formed the
backbone of the Chesapeake labor force and
the number of Africans remained small.
As late as 1680, there were only 4,500 blacks in
the Chesapeake, a little over 5% of the region’s
population.
SLAVERY IN HISTORY
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The most important social
distinction in the 17th
century Chesapeake was
not between black and
white but between
plantation owners who
dominated politics and
society and everybody else
– small farmers, indentured
servants and slaves.
SLAVERY AND THE LAW
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For much of the 17th century,
the legal status of Chesapeake
blacks was ambiguous and the
line between slavery and
freedom more permeable than
it would become later.
The first black arrivals were
treated as slaves, but it
appears at least some
managed to become free after
serving a term of years.
Yet racial distinctions were
enacted into law from the
onset.
VIRGINIA LAW AND SLAVERY
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1620s: The law barred
blacks from serving in
the militia.
The government
punished sexual
relations outside of
marriage between
Africans and
Europeans more
severely than the same
acts between two white
persons.
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1643: A poll tax was
imposed on African but
not white women.
Free blacks could sue
and testify in court.
Some managed to
acquire land and
purchase white
servants or slaves.
ANTHONY JOHNSON
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Anthony Johnson, who
apparently arrived in VA
as a slave during the
1620s, obtained his
freedom.
By the 1640s, he was
the owner of slaves and
of several hundred
acres of land on VA’s
eastern shore.
SLAVERY AND THE LAW
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Evidence that blacks were being held as slaves for
life appears in the historical record of the 1640s.
In registers for property, for example, white servants
are listed by the number of years of labor while
blacks, with higher valuations, have no terms of
service associated with their names.
1660s: The laws of VA and MD refer explicitly to
slavery.
SLAVERY AND THE LAW
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As tobacco planting spread
and the demand for labor
increased, the condition of
black and white servants
diverged sharply.
Authorities sought to
improve the status of white
servants, hoping to
counteract the widespread
impression in England that
VA was a death trap.
At the same time, access to
freedom for blacks receded.
SLAVERY AND THE LAW:
VIRGINIA
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1662: A law provided that
in the case of a child
whose parents were free
and one slave, the status
followed that of the mother.
1667: A law provided that
religious conversion did
not release a slave from
bondage.
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The law defined all
offspring of interracial
relationships as illegitimate
A law prohibited the
freeing of any slave unless
he or she were transported
out of the colony.
By 1680: Notions of racial
differences were well
entrenched in the law.
A SLAVE SOCIETY
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TWO KEY DEFINITIONS AND
DISTINCTIONS:
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A SLAVE SOCIETY: Is a society in which slavery is
central to its economic, social and political existence
of the society/colony/state.
A SOCIETY WITH SLAVES: Is a society in which
slavery is present but it is not central to the economic,
social and political well-being of the
society/colony/state. Slavery was one system of labor
among others.
A SLAVE SOCIETY
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Between 1680 and
1700, slave labor
began to supplant
indentured servitude on
Chesapeake
plantations.
Many factors
contributed to this
development.
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SLAVE
SOCIETY
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1. The death rate began to
fall.
2. Improving conditions in
England.
3. The opening of PA.
4. Bacon’s Rebellion of
1676.
5. Ending of the Royal
African Company’s
monopoly of the English
slave trade.
VIRGINIA’S SLAVE SOCIETY
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By 1700, blacks constituted over 10% of VA’s
population.
By 1750, blacks made up nearly half of VA’s
population.
Recognizing the growing importance of slavery, the
House of Burgesses in 1705 enacted a new slave
code, bringing together the scattered legislation of
the previous century and adding new provisions that
embedded the principle of white supremacy in the
law.
THE VIRGINIA SLAVE CODE
OF 1705
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Slaves were property,
completely subject to
the will of the masters.
Slaves could be bought
and sold, leased,
fought over in court,
and passed on to one’s
descendants.
Whites and blacks were
tried in separate courts.
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Free or slave, blacks
could not own arms,
strike a white man, or
employ a white servant.
Any white person could
apprehend any black to
demand a certificate of
freedom or a pass from
the owner giving
permission to be off the
plantation.
SLAVERY AND THE EMPIRE
SLAVERY AND THE EMPIRE
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Of the estimated 7.7 million Africans transported
to the New World between 1492 and 1820, over
half arrived between 1700 and 1800.
The Atlantic slave trade would later be
condemned as a crime against humanity.
But in the 18th century, it was a regularized
business in which European merchants, African
traders, and American planters engaged in a
complex bargaining over human lives, all with
the expectation of securing a profit.
SLAVERY AND THE EMPIRE
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The slave trade was a vital part of the world
commerce.
Every European empire in the New World
utilized slave labor and battled for control of this
lucrative trade.
The asiento – an agreement whereby Spain
subcontracted to a foreign power the right to
provide slaves to Spain – was an important
diplomatic prize.
The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.
SLAVERY AND THE EMPIRE
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In the British Empire of the
18th century, free laborers
working for wages were
atypical and slavery the
norm.
Slave plantations
contributed mightily to
English economic
development.
The first mass consumer
goods were produced by
slaves – sugar, rice, coffee,
and tobacco.
SLAVERY AND THE EMPIRE
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The rising demand for these
products fueled the rapid
growth of the Atlantic slave
trade.
Sugar was by far the most
important product.
The New World sugar
plantations produced
immense profits for
planters, merchants, and
imperial governments.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
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In the 18th century, the Caribbean remained
the commercial focus of the British empire
and the major producer of revenue for the
crown.
But the slave-grown products from the
mainland occupied a larger and larger part of
the Atlantic commerce.
A series of triangular trading routes crisscrossed the Atlantic.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
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These routes carried
British mfg goods to
Africa and the colonies,
colonial products
including tobacco,
indigo, sugar and rice
to Europe, and slaves
from Africa to the New
World.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
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Areas where slavery was only a minor
institution also profited from slave labor.
Merchants in NY, MA and RI participated
actively in the slave trade, shipping slaves
from Africa to the Caribbean or southern
colonies.
The slave economies of the West Indies were
the largest markets for fish, grain, livestock,
and lumber from NE and the Middle colonies.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
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There is no arguing the fact that the growth and
prosperity of the emerging society of free
colonial British America were achieved as a
result of slave labor.
18th century Atlantic commerce consisted
primarily of slaves, crops produced by slaves,
and goods destined for slave societies.
For large numbers of free colonists and
Europeans, freedom meant in part the power
and right to enslave others.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE

As slavery became
more and more
entrenched, so too, as
the Quaker abolitionist
John Woolman
commented in 1762,
did:

“the idea of slavery being
connected with black
color, and liberty with the
white.”
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
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For slaves, the voyage across
the Atlantic – known as the
Middle Passage because it
was the second, or middle, leg
in the triangular trade routes –
was a harrowing experience.

Since a slave could be sold in
America for twenty to thirty
times the price in Africa, slaves
were crammed aboard vessels
as tightly as possible to
maximize profits.
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
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Many Africans did not
survive the Middle Passage.
Diseases like measles and
smallpox spread rapidly.
About one slave in eight
perished before reaching
the New World.
Ship captains were known
to throw the sick overboard
in order to prevent the
spread of epidemics.
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
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Only a small proportion
(perhaps 5%) of slaves
carried to the New World
were destined for North
America.
As late as 1700 only about
20,000 Africans had
landed in Britain’s
colonies.
In the 18th century, their
numbers increased
steadily.
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

By 1770, due to natural
reproduction of the
slave population,
around one-fifth of the
estimated 2.3 million
persons (not including
Indians) living in the
colonies that would
soon become the USA
were Africans and their
descendants.
THE SLAVE SYSTEMS
THE SLAVE SYSTEMS

By the mid 18th century, three distinct slave
systems were well entrenched in Britain’s
mainland colonies:
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Tobacco-based plantation slavery in the
Chesapeake
Rice-based plantation slavery in SC and GA.
Non-plantation slavery in NE and the Middle
Colonies.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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The largest and oldest of
these slave systems was
the tobacco plantation
system of the Chesapeake
(VA/MD), where more than
270,000 resided in 1770,
nearly half the region’s
population.
VA and MD were as closely
tied to GB as any other
colonies and their
economies were models of
mercantilist policy.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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The period after 1680 witnessed a rapid shift
from indentured servitude to slavery on the
region’s tobacco plantations.
In the 18th century, the growing world demand
for tobacco encouraged continued slave imports.
When tobacco prices fell in the early part of the
century, some planters shifted to grain
production.
But tobacco remained their primary source of
wealth.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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As VA expanded
westward, so did
slavery.
By the eve of the
American Revolution,
the center of gravity of
slavery in the colony
had shifted from the
Tidewater region to the
Piedmont further inland.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY

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Most Chesapeake slaves,
male and female, worked
in the fields, but thousands
labored as teamsters,
boatmen, and in skilled
crafts.
Numerous slave women
became cooks,
seamstresses, diary
maids, and personal
servants.
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Slavery was common on
small farms as well as
plantations.
Nearly half of VA’s white
families owned at least
one slave in 1770.
Chesapeake plantations
tended to be smaller than
in the Caribbean and daily
interactions between
masters and slaves were
more extensive.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY

Slavery laid the
foundation for the
consolidation of the
Chesapeake elite, in
conjunction with
merchants and lawyers,
to dominate the
region’s society and
politics.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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Even as the consumer
revolution improved the
standard of living for lesser
whites, their long-term
economic prospects
diminished.
As slavery expanded,
planters engrossed the
best lands and wealth
among the white
population became more
and more concentrated.
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Slavery transformed
Chesapeake society into
an elaborate hierarchy of
degrees of freedom.
At the top stood large
planters, below them
numerous lesser planters
and landowning yeomen.
At the bottom a large
population of convicts,
indentured servants,
tenant farmers and slaves.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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Chesapeake planters
filled the law books with
measures enhancing
the master’s power
over his human
property and restricting
blacks’ access to
freedom.
Race took on more and
more importance as a
line of social division.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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Blacks lost the right to
bear arms, were
subjected to special
taxes, and could be
punished for striking a
white person, whatever
the cause.
1723: VA revoked the
voting privileges of
property-owning free
blacks.
CHESAPEAKE SLAVERY
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Because VA law
required that freed
slaves be sent out of
the colony, free blacks
remained only a tiny
part of the population –
less than 4% in 1750.
“Free” and “white” had
become virtually
identical.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM

Further south, a
different slave system,
based on rice
production, emerged in
SC and GA.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Frontier conditions allowed leeway to SC’s
small population of African-born slaves, who
farmed and tended livestock, and were
initially allowed to serve in the militia to fight
the Spanish and Indians.
The introduction of a staple crop – rice – led
directly to economic development, the large
scale importation of slaves, and a growing
divide between white and black.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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SC was the first mainland
colony to achieve a black
majority.
1730s: 2/3 of its population
was black.
1740s: Another staple crop,
indigo, was developed.
Indigo, like rice, required
large-scale cultivation and
was grown by slaves.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Ironically, it was
Africans, familiar with
the crop at home, who
taught English settlers
how to cultivate rice,
which then became the
foundation of SC
slavery and of the
wealthiest slave-owning
class on the North
American mainland.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Since rice production
required considerable
capital investment, it
was economically
advantageous for rice
plantations to be as
large as possible.
Thus, SC planters
owned far more land
and slaves than their
counterparts in VA.

Since mosquitoes
bearing malaria ( a
disease to which
Africans had developed
partial immunity)
flourished in the watery
rice fields, planters
tended to leave the
plantation under the
control of overseers
and the slaves
themselves.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Slaves worked under the
“task system” in which
individual slaves were
assigned daily jobs, the
completion of which allowed
them time for leisure or to
cultivate crops of their own.
1762: One rice district had a
population of 76 white
males among 1,000 slaves.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Fearful of the ever-increasing black
population majority, SC’s legislation took
steps to encourage the immigration of “poor
Protestants,” offering each newcomer a cash
bounty and occasionally levying taxes on
slave imports.
1770: The number of SC slaves had reached
100,000, well over half the colony’s
population.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Rice cultivation also
spread to GA in the
mid-18th century.
GA was founded in
1733 by James
Oglethorpe, a wealthy
reformer who
advocated the abolition
of slavery.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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Oglethorpe hoped to
establish a haven
where the “worthy poor”
of England could enjoy
economic opportunity.
Initially liquor and
slaves were banned
from the colony, leading
to many battles with
settlers who desired
both.
SLAVERY IN THE RICE
KINGDOM
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1740s: Georgia offered the
spectacle of colonists
pleading for self-govt., so
that they could enact laws
introducing slavery.
1751: The proprietors
surrendered the colony to
the crown.
The colonists quickly won
the right to an elected
assembly.
SLAVERY AND THE RICE
KINGDOM
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The assembly repealed
the ban on slavery (and
liquor), as well as any
measure that had
limited land holdings to
500 acres.
1770: 15,000 slaves
labored on GA’s coastal
rice plantations.
SLAVERY IN THE NORTH
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Slavery was far less central
to the economies of New
England and the Middle
Colonies, where small
farms predominated.
Slaves represented only a
minor part of these colonies
populations and it was
unusual for even rich
families to own more than
one slave.
SLAVERY IN THE NORTH
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Sections of RI and CT did
develop large tobacco and
livestock farms employing
slave labor but northern
slaves were far more
dispersed than in the
South.
But slavery was not
entirely marginal to
northern colonial life.
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Slaves worked as farm
hands, in artisan shops,
unloading ships, and as
personal servants.
In the 18th century, about
¾ of the urban elite owned
at least one slave.
With slaves so small a part
of the population that they
seemed to pose no threat
to the white majority, laws
were less harsh than in the
South.
SLAVERY IN THE NORTH

In New England, where
in 1770 the 17,000
slaves represented less
that 3% of the region’s
population, slave
marriages were
recognized in law and
slaves could bring suits
in court and testify
against whites – rights
unknown in the South.
SLAVERY IN THE NORTH
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Slavery had been
present in NY from the
earliest days of Dutch
settlement.
Considerable amounts
of slave labor was used
well into the 18th
century.
As NYC’s role in the
slave trade grew, so did
slavery in the city.
SLAVERY IN THE NORTH
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1746: NYC’s 2,440 slaves
amounted to one-fifth of its
population.
Some 30% of its laborers
were slaves – second only
to Charleston.
1770: 27,000 slaves lived in
NY and NJ – 10% of their
total population.
Slavery had a significant
presence in PA., as well.
SLAVE CULTURE AND SLAVE
RESISTANCE
AFRICAN-AMERICANS


The nearly 300,000
Africans brought to the
mainland colonies were
not a single people.
They came from
different cultures, spoke
different languages,
and practiced many
religions.


The term “melting pot” is
usually applied to the
European immigrants who
settled in America.
But the greatest melting pot
in American history was the
making of an AfricanAmerican people from the
Africans transported in the
Middle Passage.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS



Slavery threw together
individuals who would never
otherwise have
encountered one another
and who had never
considered their color or
residence on a single
continent a source of
identity or unity.
Their bond was not “race” ,
language or kinship.
It was slavery.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS

For most of the 18th
century, the majority of
American slaves were
African by birth.

For many years, they
spoke African
languages and
practiced African
religions.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS



Advertisements seeking information about runaways
often described them by African origins and spoke of
their bearing on their bodies “country marks” –
visible signs of ethnic identity in Africa.
During the 18th century there was a “reAfricanization” of black life in the colonies, as the
earlier Creoles (slaves born in the New World) came
to be outnumbered by large-scale importations from
Africa.
The newcomers worked harder, died earlier, and
had less access to freedom.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS
AFRICAN-AMERICANS

Charles Hansford, a white Virginia
blacksmith, noted in a 1753 poem that he had
frequently heard slaves speak of their desire
to “reenjoy” life in Africa:

I oft with pleasure have observ’d how they Their
sultry country’s worth to strive to display In broken
language, how they praise their case And
happiness when in their native place… How
would they dangers court and pains endure If so
their country they could get secure!
SLAVE POPULATION AND PERCENTAGE OF
TOTAL POPULATION
COLONY
SLAVE POPULATION
PERCENTAGE
New Hampshire
654
1%
Massachusetts
4,754
2%
Connecticut
5,698
3%
Rhode Island
3,761
6%
New York
19,062
12%
New Jersey
8,220
7%
Pennsylvania
5,561
2%
Delaware
1,836
5%
Maryland
63,181
32%
Virginia
187,600
42%
North Carolina
69,600
35%
South Carolina
75,168
61%
Georgia
15,000
45%
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES


By the mid-18th century,
the 3 slave systems in
the colonial America
had produced distinct
African-American
cultures.
In the Chesapeake, the
slave population began
to reproduce itself by
1740.


This made possible the
creation of familycentered slave
communities.
Because the
plantations were small
and the large number
of white yeoman
farmers, slaves here
were continuously
exposed to white
culture.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES


In SC and GA, two very
different black societies
emerged.
On the rice plantations,
slaves lived in extremely
harsh conditions and had a
low birthrate throughout the
18th century, making rice
production dependent on
continued slave imports
from Africa.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES


The slaves seldom came
into contact with whites
and enjoyed far more
autonomy than elsewhere
in the colonies.
The larger structures of
their lives was established
by slavery but they were
able to create an Africanbased culture.



They constructed Africanstyle houses.
They chose African names
for their children.
They spoke Gullah, a
language that mixed
various African roots and
was unintelligible to most
whites.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES


Despite a continuing slave
trade in which young, single
males predominated, slaves
slowly created families and
communities that bridged
generations.
The experience of slaves
who labored in SC and GA
as servants and skilled
workers was quite different.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES


These slaves
assimilated more
quickly into EuroAmerican culture.
Sexual liaisons
between white owners
and slave women
produced the
beginnings of a class of
free mulattos.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
CULTURES


In the northern colonies,
where slaves were owned
in small units and lived in
close proximity to whites,
they enjoyed more mobility
and access to the
mainstream of life than
further south.
But they had fewer
opportunities to create
stable family life or a
cohesive community.
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY



The common thread that
linked regional AfricanAmerican cultures were the
experience of slavery and
the desire for freedom.
Blacks risked their lives in
efforts to resist
enslavement.
Colonial newspapers,
especially in southern
colonies, were filled with
advertisements for runaway
slaves.
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY



Most fugitives were young African men who had
arrived recently.
In SC and GA, they fled to Florida, to
uninhabited coastal and river swamps, or to
Charleston and Savannah, where they could
pass for free.
In the Chesapeake and Middle Colonies,
fugitives tended to be slaves familiar with white
culture, who, as one advertisement put it, could
“pretend to be free.”
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY


What the colonial
governor of Jamaica
called “a dangerous
spirit of liberty” was
widespread among the
New World’s slaves.
Fear of slave rebellions
was widespread in the
colonies.
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY


The 18th century’s first slave
uprising occurred in NYC in
1712, when a group of
slaves set fire to houses on
the outskirts of the city and
killed the first nine whites
who arrived in the scene.
Subsequently, 18
conspirators were executed:
some tortured and burned
alive in a public spectacle
meant to intimidate the
slave population.
STONO REBELLION OF 1739
STONO REBELLION OF 1739

The Stono Rebellion of
1739 led to a severe
tightening of the SC
slave code and the
temporary imposition of
a prohibitive tax on
imported slaves.
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY


1741: A group of NYC
slaves, evidently assisted
by a few whites, plotted to
burn part of the city, seize
weapons, and either turn
NY over to Spain or set sail
for Spanish islands.
The plot was uncovered
and 35 conspirators were
executed.
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY



Dramatic events like these revolts, along with
the constant stream of runaways, disproved the
idea, voiced by the governor of SC, that the
slaves had “no notion of liberty.”
In 18th century America, dreams of freedom
knew no racial boundary.
When white colonists rose in rebellion against
British rule, tens of thousands of slaves would
seize the opportunity to strike for their own
liberty.