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US history
Course: US history > Unit 2
Lesson 2: Chesapeake and Southern colonies- Early English settlements - Jamestown
- Jamestown - John Smith and Pocahontas
- Jamestown - the impact of tobacco
- Jamestown - life and labor in the Chesapeake
- Jamestown - Bacon's Rebellion
- Jamestown
- The West Indies and the Southern colonies
- Lesson summary: Chesapeake and Southern colonies
- Slavery in the British colonies
- Slavery in the British colonies
- Lesson summary: Slavery in the British colonies
- Slavery in the British colonies
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Lesson summary: Slavery in the British colonies
A high-level overview of slavery in the British colonies.
After enslaved Native American laborers began to die due to exposure to disease, European powers began purchasing enslaved Africans, who became their primary labor source. Britain sent their first slave ships to the British West Indies to work on tobacco plantations and then later sugarcane plantations.
Key terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Indentured servant | A European immigrant (usually Scots-Irish, or British) who would work for another person for a set amount of time without pay in exchange for free passage to a new country |
| Middle passage | The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic ocean to the Americas in which nearly 30% died before making it to the colonies. |
| Triangular trade | A system of trading in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries between Britain, West Africa, and the Americas. |
| Chattel slavery | A practice which defined enslaved Africans as property, not as people. |
| Slave codes | Laws passed by colonies that described the social status of enslaved Africans and described the rights slave owners had over them. |
| Stono rebellion (1739) | The largest rebellion orchestrated by enslaved Africans in South Carolina, which resulted in the deaths of more than 42 white people and 44 black people. |
Core historical themes
Spread of slavery: In the English colonies, the first use of enslaved labor started in the British West Indies. The majority of enslaved Africans were sent to sugar plantations in the British West Indies, even after the first ship of enslaved Africans landed in Virginia in 1619. By 1776, 20% of the colonial population was African American. There is a common misconception that slavery was limited to the Chesapeake and Southern colonies, as well as the British West Indies. Slavery did exist in the New England and Middle colonies, just at a smaller scale. In New England, enslaved Africans accounted for about 2-3% of the population before the American Revolution.
Labor systems: The first labor system in the British colonies was indentured servitude, in which servants worked for landowners in exchange for passage to America. But because indentured servants only worked for a short period of time and sometimes fought over access to land after their terms ended, plantation owners switched to using enslaved Africans as their primary source of labor. Enslaved Africans became vital to the cultivation of tobacco and soon made up nearly 50% of the population in the Chesapeake and Southern colonies.
Methods of resistance: Enslaved Africans resisted slavery in both covert and overt ways. Examples of covert forms of resistance include work slow-downs and breaking tools. Examples of overt forms of resistance include running away or organizing rebellions. One of the most successful rebellions in the American colonies was the Stono Rebellion in 1739, which resulted in the deaths of more than 40 white colonists and more than 40 Africans.
Review questions
- How did the introduction of slavery affect the demographic makeup of the English colonies?
- What are three ways in which enslaved Africans resisted the conditions of slavery?
Want to join the conversation?
How was Spain doing at this time? Were they still the main superpower?(15 votes)
I don't believe they were "the" superpower, but they were still at the top(7 votes)
Did the slave woman's child get taken away if born into the plantation?(9 votes)
It was a very real possibility--yes. Most of the time, however, Plantation owners would let the woman keep the child. After all, it was a free slave that they did not have to pay for.(8 votes)
i thought new york belonged to the dutch? how did it become one of the thirteen colonies?(9 votes)- The British conquered New Netherland in 1664 and renamed it New York after their proprietor who was the Duke of York at the time(5 votes)
- What were the reasons the English colonies transitioned from using indentured servants to using enslaved Africans as their primary source of labor?(8 votes)
So!
Originally, indentured servitude was very popular when the British came to North America and began to establish Virginia. The indentured servants were generally poor Irish men, keeping in mind that the British were colonizing Ireland, slaying Irish men, women, and children as they saw fit. (This horrible treatment created a bond between the Irish and many Native American tribes, they still have good friendships to this day.)
The issue is, an indenture is a legal document that bound a poor man to work for a period of time for nothing, where they were very likely to die due to malaria or yellow fever, and most of them did die.
Eventually, the indentured servants began survivng and garnering resistance to these illnesses, they wanted the land promised to them in their indenture from the planters (the men they had the indenture with), the planters refused to give it to them, resulting in Bacon's Rebellion, which was a catalyst for the British Colonists to switch to African slavery, as they could treat the african slaves as poorly as possible, and they'd never escape from them. Planters saw the African Slaves as a far less risky investment then the indentured servants.
I hope this helps!(3 votes)
i did not read any of that(4 votes)
You missed some good stuff.(4 votes)
If slavery wasn't in the colonies, how would it change?(4 votes)- Africans would have prospered on their own continent and created social and economic units that would have competed with Europe. It was partly in order to prevent the creation of empires alternative to those of the Europeans that Africa was raided for labor power to subjugate the Americas. Europe won on two fronts.(4 votes)
- what was the treatment of slaves in the British colonies like(3 votes)
- It varied widely according to the whims of the slave masters. The slaves were usually fed enough to work efficiently (particularly field slaves that did manual labor), but punishments often included sleep deprivation and starving.
They generally had quotas, and failure to meet those would elicit punishment. It was a horrible institution, and it's mortifying that slavery lasted so long in the Americas.(6 votes)
- Did the slaves get killed(3 votes)
- Enslaved people in the sugar colonies (like Jamaica) or in the timber colonies (like British Honduras) were worked to death. They were considered to be property, in which investment was made, and from the sale of which money could be recovered, so "owners" didn't just kill for the sake of killing (any more than you'd wreck your car for the fun of rolling it down a hill), but they were not treated well. That any survived is testimony to the grace of God.(5 votes)
How did some enslaved Africans resist slavery in the colonies?(4 votes)- Yes, many tried running away the were tight packers on the tringle trade and tried their best to get away some were scussful and some werent the people who were able to leave had 3/4 men died. Meanwhile, 1/4 men died on the boat's way to get traded.(3 votes)
- can slavery still be going on in different countries?(3 votes)
- Slavery still happens to this day, even in America. It may go by different names, like Human Trafficking. You must be careful in today's world.
I hope this helps.(4 votes)