Slavery in America 1

Although Africans had visited the ‘New World’ before Columbus, and although among the Spanish explorers were many of African blood, the first record of Africans being brought to Colonial America occurred in 1619.

A Dutch ship, the White Lion, had captured 20 enslaved Africans in a battle with a Spanish ship bound for Mexico. Although their colony of New Netherlands (New York) was to the North, the ship had been so damaged by the battle and then more severely by a hurricane during the late summer, it had to limp ashore at Old Point Comfort, site of present day Fort Monroe in Virginia.

The colony was in the middle of a period later known as “The Great Migration” (1618-1623), during which its population grew from 450 to 4,000 residents.

The harsh economic conditions in Europe had people selling themselves as indentured labourers, (as well as being sentenced by the Courts).

There was an extremely high mortality rates from disease, malnutrition, and war with Native Americans among these arrivants.

With the Dutch ship being in severe need of repairs and supplies and the colonists being in need of able-bodied workers, the human cargo was traded for food and services.

The Africans were treated as indentured servants and were freed after a period of years. Just as the other groups from Europe whose slavery was of limited currency.

The Africans were freed, given the use of land and supplies by their former owners.

At least one African American from this period, Anthony Johnson, became a landowner on the Eastern Shore and a slave-owner himself.

We know of Anthony Johnson, and a slave of his named John Casor, because in 1654 Casor became the first legally recognized slave in the area that became the United States.

A court in Northampton County ruled against Casor’s case for freedom, declaring him property for life, “owned” by the black colonist Anthony Johnson.

However, Elizabeth Key Grinstead successfully gained her freedom in the Virginia courts in the 1650’s by making her case as the daughter of Englishman Thomas Key and his African slave.

Shortly after the Elizabeth Key trial, in 1662, Virginia passed a law on partus, stating that children of enslaved mothers would follow her status and automatically be slaves, no matter if the father was a freeborn Englishman.

The Virginia Slave codes of 1705 defined as slaves those people imported from nations that were not Christian, as well as Indians which were sold to colonists by other American Indians.

However, between 1619 and 1654 Africans were not slaves for life in what would become the 13 colonies. There was a population of free Africans in America, some may have returned to Africa, others remained, married, and became part of colonialist society.

The change in status from indentured servants to chattel slavery was a response to the dangers of
creating an ‘underclass’ made up of ex-indentured servants, both black and white, who were unlikely to become prosperous as land was very limited and the promises of how many acres after how many years of labour could not be fulfilled.

Bacon’s Rebellion showed that the poor laborers and farmers could prove a dangerous element to the wealthy landowners, for not only was there the threat from the local population, but their encroachment on Indian land was leading to war.

By switching to pure chattel slavery, new white laborers and small farmers were limited to those who could afford to immigrate and support themselves once they arrived. This change in the treatment of white labour coincided with improving economic conditions in England. This meant fewer laborers migrated and planters, needing of labuor, turned to African slavery in the 18th century.