Slave Colonies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Essay

The first African Americans that were put to work in Jamestown were not treated in the way that people traditionally think of early slavery. In fact they were treated just as the indentured servants that had come from England were treated. This does not mean that they were treated with any sympathy or given easy work, but that they just were not discriminated by the color of their skin. In the beginning of the 1600s all servants had the same dream, to one day be free. In 1641, a black slave by the name of Anthony Johnson, was freed and given his own land to start his new life as an American (Johnson et al, Africans, 39). At this point in time the only things that separated people were if you were an owner or a servant and if you were a Christian or not. At some point in the mid 1700s something changed the way that the colonists saw things. All of a sudden there was no longer equal treatment of white and black slaves, the darker the color of ones skin was the worse off their life became. In 1640, three slaves tried escaping to Maryland but were unsuccessful, when they were brought upon the court two of the

Before the 1680's, indentured servitude was the primary source of labor in the newly developed colonies. There were

These people became known as voluntary indentured servants. However, not all servants were voluntary. Once they arrived in America, they became their master’s property and had to do what the master said. If they did not do what they were told, they were punished. If they tried to run away, they were punished. They were not allowed to do anything outside of their instructions without their master’s permission. These servants were kept in poor conditions. In my opinion, they were not feed, clothed, or sheltered properly. Because of this lack of care, many servants or slaves died. Some indentured servants or slaves did work off their debts and became free. In fact, seven former indentured servants served on the Virginia legislature in 1629. As slaves became more and more popular across America, more and more slaves were forced to work for the rest of their lives. Slaves were even sold between masters because of the money they could bring in. By the 1660s, lifelong slavery was legalized. By this time, slaves were used mostly in the fields to grow crops like tobacco in Virginia and rice in South Carolina. The slave population in each colony continually grew. However, there were more slaves in the

Slaves existed in the England's North American colonies throughout the 1600s. However, indentured servitude was very common before the 1680s. “For half a century or so after 1620, most laborers were indentured servants; only a small proportion were African slaves” (Clark, Hewitt, Brown& Jaffee, 2007 p64). Indentured servants were people who signed an indenture, a contract by which they agreed to work for a serval number of years in exchange for transportation to colonies; in addition, they would get food, clothing, land, and freedom.

Indentured servants were people who came over to the southern colonies in America from Britain were bound to a contract to work off their debt overseas. The women who came over as indentured servants were often convicted of crimes back in England or came from poor families, either way these women hoped to create a new life for themselves after working off their debts. A large portion, about three-fourths of the women who came over from Britain to the Southern Colonies during the seventeenth century, were indentured servants (Dubois, ch.2 p.51).

A key development for the south to rapidly develop their economy was the shift in the labour force from indentured white European servants to black African slaves. In 1609 the Virginia Company used their own resources to pay for European servants to migrate to America and become part of the labor force. The demand for labor rose sharply during the tobacco boom of 1619 . As a consequence of the tobacco boom the Virginia indenture system was created. English skilled migrants were transported at the Virginia Company’s expense from England to Virginia were bound to work a fixed terms of years, were sold outright for the duration of those terms to planters when the servants arrived in the colony . These contracts typically sold for £10 to £11 in the eighteenth century, nearly double the cost of passage . Indentured servants, thus bound, performed any work their employers demanded in exchange for room, board, and certain “freedom

Prior to to the 1600’s, American colonies were heavily dependent on the use of indentured servants, these indentured servants were people who came to the New World with the colonists and in return they signed a contract to work a certain number of years. After they had completed their contract they were allowed to leave and start their own life in the New World. Indentured servitude has started to decrease because the slaves that had come from Africa to the New World were already used to working conditions in the New World. Indentured Servants were all native to the Americas. The slaves on the other hand were immune to many of the diseases in the New World, this made them better fit to be the primary labor force used in the New World.

This was true mainly because a large number of forced laborers were present when the masters needed them to work. In Virginia, for example, by the end of the 1600s, Africans, most of them enslaved, made up fourteen percent of the colony’s population partly to the slave system. And by 1750, some 145,000 Africans worked in the region. In Maryland, at first they depended for labor in its early years but in later years of the 17th century began to import black slaves in large numbers. On the other hand, it may be true that in the beginning of the southern colonies in the early 1600s, most servants were indentured and were willing to work. However, in later years towards the 18th century southern colonies began to favor forced labor systems with the exception of reform-minded Georgia before

In some ways, indentured servants in Virginia had lives just as bad as the African slaves in the West Indies had. They had less value for masters, because the masters did not have to buy the indentured servants. For this reason, indentured servant masters could work their temporary slaves so hard that they would not live to receive their freedom dues. The indentured

The Indentured Servants have measured the particular property of their masters. Voluntary indentured servants were often expert in a craft or skill, related to an apprentice system. The people who traveled to America under this system often suffered highly troubled lives indenture contracts could be bought and sold or exchanged for goods. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution ended slavery and involuntary servitude.

In the second half of chapter 3, the new colonists were looking for ways of labor, rather than working themselves. While many English colonists wanted to force native Indian labor, they were unsuccessful in doing so. Instead they looked back into another source of workers that were used by the Spaniards and Portuguese: enslaved Africans. If it was not for the enslaved to produce products for elite whites, then Jamestown would still be struggling economically and not be able to give England a big profit. By the 1700s one of every eight person was a black person from Africa.It was also seen to settlers as an investment in purchasing slaves rather than servants, because slaves were never freed. Mortality rates had begun declining in the late 1680s, planters could reasonably expect a slave to live longer than a servant’s period of indenture. The two main crops that slaves worked on in the field were tobacco and sugar.

From the very moment the English set foot on American land, they depended on slavery as a means of growth and development within the colonies. As early as 1603, indentured servants, the lowest societal class in England, anxiously signed contracts to work a set number of year in exchange for transportation to the colonies. Indentured servants were primarily drawn to American by the demand for their labor. “By 1660, the majority of European migrants to the colonists were unfree not only

In the American colonies, Virginians switched from indentured servants to slaves for their labor needs for many reasons. A major reason was the shift in the relative supply of indentured servants and slaves. While the colonial demand for labor was increasing, a sharp decrease occurred in the number of English migrants arriving in America under indenture. Slaves were permanent property and female slaves passed their status on to their children. Slaves also seemed to be a better investment than indentured servants. Slaves also offered masters a reduced level of successful flight.

Through their friendly trade relations, Europeans quickly introduced the idea of slaves as a commodity, along with an international market for labor to newly developed plantation economies, eventually

One huge part of the slave business was the use of indentured servants. These people were not total slaves. In fact, they were just working to gain citizenship in the states. In the seventeenth century, they were relied on heavily for labor. In fact, they were relied on more than actual slaves. However, about three fifths of the way through the century, plantation owners quit using them. They figured out that people did not want to do