United States History to 1865: Eighteenth Century Slavery

Eighteenth Century Slavery

Charles E. Carter

United States History to 1865

07 Sep 2012

Eighteenth Century Slavery

Europeans have imported slaves from Africa as early as 1502; however, between the 17th and 18th century, the demand for slavery grew in the English colonies, Caribbean and South America. This demand was due to labor being scarce and as the English colonist fulfilled their bondage obligations or debt. As slaves were imported into the New World, an evolution occurred within slaves altering traditions, customs, and their resistance to slavery from region to region. It was during the eighteenth century that slavery and the life of the slave would evolve from strict servitude to exposure to freedoms that were eventually revoked based on racial division.

As the demand increased for slaves, so did the slave trade market and the number of shipping ports. Slaves consisted of Africans and Portuguese; the majority of them came from southern Guinea, below the Sahara Desert. The African society was not primitive or uncivilized, but the complete opposite. They had a thriving economy and a well-developed political system. On the other hand, that was not completely the case in southern Africa as it was isolated. Eager merchants would quickly purchase captured tribesman from rival chieftains and load them aboard ships for voyage across the Middle Passage. Once slaves arrived to the British mainland colonies, they began to adjust and develop a social order. The social order, all adopted from African tradition, consisted of family structure, marriages and religion.

The British mainland colonies were categorized as New England colonies, Chesapeake or Southern colonies, and the Middle colonies. The Chesapeake colonies were societies based on tobacco and rice with daily interactions between slave-owners and slaves. The numbers of slaves increased steadily through slave trade and natural reproduction. In 1700, about 25,000 slaves lived in the Northern New World and...