X.

Conclusion

 Nine to eleven million Africans brought

to the Americas during three centuries
of trade
– Millions more died
– Most arrived between 1701 and 1810
– Only 600,000 reached the British colonies
of North America
 Chapter 3

Black People in Colonial

North America, 1526-1763
I. The Peoples of
Eastern North America
 Eastern Woodlands Indians
– Diverse environments
– Variety of languages
– Influenced by Indian cultures of Mexico
 Adena culture
– Ohio River Valley
 Mississippian culture
– Extensive trade, division of labor, urban centers
– Weakened by disease, ineffective resisting British
The Peoples of
Eastern North America (cont.)
 Indians knowledgeable about East Coast
survival and influenced new arrivals
– Food crops
– Tobacco
– Transportation
– Clothing
 Race mixing
– Sexual contact
• Common between black people and Indians in early America
The British and Jamestown
 First permanent British colony in North
America founded in 1607
– Trading company looking to make money
for investors
• Gold, trade, lumber, rice, silk
– Tobacco was a profitable crop
• Labor intensive
– Undesirables
– Indentured servants
Africans Arrive
In the Chesapeake
 First arrivals
– Origins unknown
• Luis Vasquez de Ayllon
• Hernando de Soto
• St. Augustine
 1619 Dutch ship
– Unfree
• English had no law for slavery
• English custom forbade enslaving Christians
II. Black Servitude
In the Chesapeake
 Indentured servants
– Sold labor for passage to Chesapeake
• Two to seven years
– High mortality ~ most died before term expired
– Blacks and whites
• Only skin color distinguished early laborers
• Worked, lived, and slept together as unfree
• Earned freedom at the end of term
• Anthony Johnson PROFILE
 Chattel slavery
– Slaves were legal private property
Race and Origins
of Black Slavery
 17th century British tobacco colonies
• Evolved from an economy based on
white indentured servants to one based
on black slaves
• British Caribbean sugar plantations
created a precedent
• British gained more control over Atlantic
slave trade
– Reduced price of African laborers
Race and Origins of
Black Slavery (cont.)
• White indentured servants sought
greater opportunities elsewhere
• Race and class shaped the character of
slavery
– Belief that Africans were inferior to
English
» Prohibitions against bearing arms
» Becoming Christian
– Discrimination in colonial polices
Chattel Slavery
 From unfree to slave for life
– Mid-17th century men, women, and children served
masters for life
– Slavery followed the mother
– Slave codes 1660-1710 aimed to control and exploit
• owning property, making contracts, leaving without a pass
• Christianity offered no protection against enslavement
– Masters exempt from charges for murdering slaves
while administering punishment
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676
 Uprising against colonial elites
– Demand for land and resources by white
indentured servants
– Class-based, biracial alliance
 Less use of white indentured servants
and more dependence on black slaves
– Reduced class conflict
III. Plantation Slavery,
1700-1750
 Tobacco ~ Chesapeake
– Increased demands for labor and slaves
• Racial prejudice
• Fewer white indentured servants available
• More Africans available
• Fear of class conflict
Plantation Slavery,
1700-1750 (cont.)
 Rice ~ Low-Country
– Early settlers were immigrants from
Barbados
• Brought slaves with them
• Never any black indentured servants
• Enslaved more Indians than other British
colonies
• West Africans experienced at cultivating rice
• Figure 3-1
Plantation Slavery,
1700-1750 (cont.)
 Race relations
– White fears of revolt
– Slave code
• Carolina had strictest in North America in 1698
• Watch patrols
• Curfew
 Task system
– Permitted autonomy without white supervision
 Preserved more of their African heritage
Slave Life in Early America
 Minimal housing
 Dress
– Men wore breechcloths
– Women wore skirts
• Upper bodies bare
– Children naked until puberty
 Heritage and culture
– Slave women used dyes made from bark
• Decorated cloth with ornaments
• Created African-style head-wraps, hats, and hairstyles
IV. Miscegenation and
Creolization
 Early Chesapeake
– Africans, American Indians, and white indentured
servants interacted
– Cultural exchanges part of creolization
 Miscegenation
– Extensive in British North America in 17th and 18th
centuries, though less accepted than in European sugar
colonies in Caribbean, Latin America, or French Canada
• British North America had many more white women
• Interracial marriages banned by colonial assemblies
– Kept white women from having mulatto children
– Prevented a legally-recognized mixed-race class
V. The Origins of African-
American Culture
 Creolization and miscegenation
– Created African Americans
• Retained a generalized West African heritage
– Family structure
– Kinship
– Religious ideas
– African words
– Musical instruments
– Cooking and foods
– Folk literature
– Folk arts
The Origins of African-American
Culture (cont.)
 The Great Awakening
– Began process of converting African
Americans to Christianity
• Evangelical churches welcomed black people
– Increased black acculturation
– Biracial churches
• Segregation and discrimination
VI. Slavery in the Northern
Colonies
 Fewer slaves
– See Figure 3-2
– Cooler climate
• Sufficient numbers of white laborers
• Lack of staple crop
• Diversified economy
Slavery in the Northern Colonies
(cont.)
 Less threat of slave rebellion
– Milder slave codes
• New England slaves could legally own,
transfer, and inherit property
• Rapid assimilation
– Fewer opportunities to preserve African
heritage
VII. Slavery in Spanish Florida
and French Louisiana
 Routes to freedom more plentiful
– Spanish Florida
• Blacks needed as soldiers
• Became Catholic and acquired social status
• People of African descent fled to Cuba when British took
control in 1763
– French Louisiana
• Most black slaves lived in New Orleans
• Became skilled artisans
• Catholics
• Extensive black population remained when the United
States took control in 1803
VIII. Black Women in Colonial
America
 Varied according to region
– New England
• Boundary between slavery and freedom permeable
– Lucy Terry Prince
– South
• Few opportunities
– 17th and 18th centuries ninety percent work in fields
» In time more women become house servants
» Constant white supervision
» Sexual exploitation
– More complications giving birth
IX. Black Resistance and
Rebellion
 “Goldbricking” to sabotage to escape and
rebellion
– Early resistance and rebellion aimed to force
masters to give concessions and not end system
 New arrivals
– Most open to defiance
– Maroons
• Escaped slaves
• Established communities
– Spanish Florida
– Great Dismal Swamp
IX. Black Resistance and
Rebellion (cont.)
 Resistance
– Subtle day-to-day obstructionism
• Malingered, broke tools, mistreated animals, destroyed
crops, stole, and poisoned masters
 Rebellions
– Smaller and fewer than in Brazil or Jamaica
– Several in 18th century British North America
• New York City, 1712
• Charleston, South Carolina, 1739
– Intensified fear of revolt in Deep South
X. Conclusion

 Resistance to oppression
 Much lost but much West African
heritage preserved
 Fundamental issues
– Contingency and determinism in human
events