Slavery

Origins of slavery

Slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas was a relatively modern phenomenon,

however slavery and other forms of enforced or bonded labour were not unknown to the

Northern and Western Europeans who colonised the Caribbean and Americas:

• Muslims from the ‘Barbary states’ (North African countries such as Algiers

and Tunisia) frequently raided coastal villages and towns, especially in

southern Britain, to enslave people.

• The Spanish and Portuguese used African labourers on the plantations in

their Mediterranean and Atlantic colonies.

• France and Venice had galley slaves - prisoners forced to work upon the

galleys. Convicts and other prisoners could be branded, sentenced to hard

labour, 'enlisted' into the navy and army, or transported.

• Many of the early settlers in the American colonies were people who had

been transported or 'spirited away' and were sold to local land owners.

• The Royal Navy, army and merchant navy obtained many of their 'recruits'

through impressment (as in press gang) and crimping (procuring soldiers

or sailors by trickery or coercion). Once 'enlisted', soldiers and sailors

were subject to harsh disciplines under the various mutiny acts and were

tried under military courts rather than civil courts.

• Orphans and other children on the poor rate could be apprenticed.

In short, ordinary people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not free by

our definitions of freedom and most were not able to vote or had many rights.

Slavery in the Caribbean

Early labourers in the Caribbean were White transportees and indentured servants but

with a high mortality rate, they were unreliable as a source of labour. Also, once their

term of indentureship was over they were free to buy or rent their own land, or to return

to Britain or go to other colonies.

The Spanish and Portuguese were familiar with using forms of bonded labour and

enslaved Indigenous American-Indians to work in...