SLAVERY IN AMERICA 1739 - 1788

SEEDS OF REVOLUTION 1739

Slaves in Stono, South Carolina, rebel, sacking and burning an armory and killing whites. The colonial militia puts an end to the rebellion before slaves are able to reach freedom in Florida. In September 1739, a group of South Carolina slaves, most of them recently arrived from Kongo where some, it appears, had been soldiers, seized a store containing numerous weapons at the town of Stono. Beating drums to attract followers, the armed bad marched southward toward Florida, burning houses and barns, killing whites they encountered, and shouting “Liberty”(Florida’s supposedly tyrannical Spanish rulers offered “Liberty and Protection” to fugitives for the British colonies.) The group eventually swelled to some 100 slaves. Some forty were killed but others managed to reach Florida, where in 1740 they were armed by the Spanish to help repel an attack on St. Augustine by a force from Georgia. The Stono Rebellion led to a severe tightening of the South Carolina slave code and the temporary imposition of a prohibitive tax on imported slaves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayT0JWXrBUw&feature=player_embedded

1760

New Jersey prohibits the enlistment of slaves in the militia without their master’s permission. At the war’s outset, George Washington had refused to accept black recruits. But he changed his mind after Lord Dunmore’s 1775 proclamation, which offered freedom to slaves who joined the British cause. Some 5,000 blacks enlisted in state militias and the Continental army and navy.

1767

The Virginia House of Burgess boycotts the British slave trade in protest of the Townsend Acts. Georgia and the Carolina follow suit.

JAMES OTIS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON ON SLAVERY
Colonial era Americans were much more troubled by slavery than would be most of their 19th Century descendants. James Otis, a Boston attorney and later patriot leader in 1761 wrote an anti-British pamphlet which condemned slavery and warned his fellow colonists against denying liberty to anyone. Fifteen years later Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner torn over the issue of slavery in a political revolution dedicated to liberty, wrote a paragraph into one of the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence denouncing King George III for promoting slavery. The paragraph is reprinted below:

Otis: The Colonist are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black. No better reasons can be given, for enslaving those of any color, than such as baron Montesquieu has humorously given, as the foundation of that cruel slavery exercised over the poor Ethiopians; which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages. Does it follow that it is right to enslave a man because he is black? Will short curled hair, like wool, instead of Christian hair, as it is called by those whose hearts are as hard as the millstone, help the argument? Can any logical inference in favor of slavery, be drawn from a flat nose, a long or short face? Nothing better can be said in favor of a trade, that is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct tendency to diminish the idea of the inestimable value of liberty, and makes every dealer in it a tyrant, from the director of an Africa company to the petty Chapman in needles and pins on the unhappy coast. It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away other men’s liberty, will soon care little for their own. Jefferson: He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transport thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market were MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of horror might want no face of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which HE deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom He also obtruded them; plus paying off former crimes committed against the liberty of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

LAND OF LIBERTY 1776

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, members of the Continental Congress sign the Declaration of Independence. On July 2 1776, The Congress formally declared the United States an independent nation. Two days later, it approved the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson and revised by the Congress before approval. Most of the Declaration consists of a lengthy list of grievances directed against King George III, ranging form quartering troops in colonial homes to imposing taxes without the colonists consent. One clause in Jefferson’s draft, which condemned the inhumanity of the slave trade and criticized the king for overturning colonial laws that sought to restrict the importation of slaves, was deleted by Congress at the insistence of Georgia and South Carolina. The Declaration of Independence changed forever the meaning of American freedom. When the United States declared it independence in 1776, the slave population had grown to 500,000, about one fifth of the new nation’s inhabitants. Slave owning and slave trading were accepted routines of colonial life. Advertisements announcing the sale of slaves and seeking the return of runaways filled colonial newspapers. By the eve of impendence, the contrast between Britain, “a kingdom of slaves,” and America, a “country of free men,” had become a standard part of the language of resistance. Such language was employed without irony even in areas where nearly half the population in fact consisted of slaves. South Carolina, one writer declared in 1774, was a “sacred land” of freedom, where it was impossible to believe that “slavery shall soon be permitted to erect her throne.”

EMANCIPATION OF SOLDIERS 1783

Virginia emancipates those slaves who served in the colonial forces against Britain, provided that the slave's master gives permission. In 1783, the Virginia legislature emancipated slaves who had “contributed towards the establishment of American liberty and independence” by serving in the army. Siding with the British offered far more opportunities for liberty. Before his forces were expelled from Virginia, 800 or mare slaves had escaped their owners to join Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment, wearing uniforms that bore the motto "Liberty to Slaves” George Washington saw seventeen of his slaves flee to the British. “There is not a man of them, but would leave us, if they believed they could make their escape.” His cousin Lund Washington reported “Liberty is sweet.” Some 20,000 accompanied the British out of the country-to Canada, Europe, Africa, or, in some cases, reenslavement in the West Indies-when the war ended.

IMPORTATION’S END 1787

The Northwest Ordinance forbids slavery, except as criminal punishment, in the Northwest Territory (later Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin). Residents of the territory are required to return fugitive slaves. The U.S. Constitution is drafted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In September 1786, delegates from six states me at Annapolis, Maryland, to consider ways for better regulating interstate and international commerce. In May 1787, delegates decided to scrap the Articles of Confederation entirely and draft a new constitution for the United States. The fifty-five men who gathered for the Constitutional Convention included some of the most prominent Americans. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, George Mason, and Benjamin Franklin were some of the important delegates attending. The last session of the Constitutional Convention took place on September 17, 1787. Benjamin Franklin urged the delegates to put aside individual objections and approve the document, whatever its imperfections. Of the fourty five who remained in Philadelphia, thirty-nine signed the Constitution. The Constitution provided that it would go into effect when nine states, not all thirteen as required by the Articles of Confederation had given their approval, ratification was by no means certain. Madison also won support for the new Constitution by promising that the first Congress would enact a Bill of Rights. By mid 1788 the required nine states had ratified. The Bill of Rights offered a definition of the "unalienable rights" Jefferson had mentioned in the Declaration of Independence rights inherent in the human condition.

SHAPING A NEW NATION 1788

The U.S. Constitution is officially adopted by the new nation when New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify it. The document includes a fugitive slave clause and the "three-fifths" clause by which each slave is considered three-fifths of a person for the purposes of congressional representation and tax apportionment.



Sources:
Bennett,Lerone. Ebony Pictorial History of Black America, Vol I,(1971)
Foner, Eric. “Give Me Liberty! An American History.” WW Norton & Company,(2006).
Otis,James. The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1776)
“Slavery in America”, Encyclopedia Britannica’s Guide to Black History. Retrieved October 24, 2007.
http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aaslavry.htm#beginning
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1803.html
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs/52/ Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key’s Freedom Suit - Subject hood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia

SLAVERY IN AMERICA

SLAVERY

IN AMERICA

1562 -1739

Slavery was introduced by the Spaniards into the West Indies. They first enslaved the natives, but these were unequal to the required toil, and they were soon almost extinguished by hard labor and cruelty. Charles V. of Spain granted a license to a Fleming to import 4,000 Negroes annually into the West Indies. He sold his license to Genoese merchants, who began a regular trade in human beings between Africa and the West Indies. These were found to thrive where the native laborers died. The benevolent Las Casas and others favored the system as a means for saving the Indian tribes from destruction; and the trade was going on briskly when the English, under the influence of Hawkins, engaged in it in 1562. Ten years before a few negroes had been sold in England, and it is said that Queen Elizabeth's scruples were so far removed that she shared in the profits of the traffic carried on by Englishmen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvxGa_zwBz0

THE BEGINNING 1619

At Jamestown, Virginia, approximately 20 captive Africans are sold into slavery in the British North American colonies.

In 1619, the first twenty blacks arrived in Virginia on a Dutch vessel. The first Africans in America arrived as Indentured Servants via Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. From 1619 to about 1640, Africans could earn their freedom working as laborers and artisans for the European settlers. Africans could become free people and enjoy some of the liberties like other new settlers. By 1640, Maryland became the first colony to institutionalize slavery. In 1641, Massachusetts, in its written legislative Body of Liberties, stated that "bondage was legal" servitude, at that moment changing the conditions of the African workers - they became chattel slaves who could be bought and solely owned by their masters.

THE LAW STEPS IN 1641

Massachusetts is the first colony to legalize slavery. The transformation form indentured servitude to racial slavery happened gradually. There were no laws regarding slavery early in Virginia's history. However, by 1640, the Virginia courts had sentenced at least on black servant to slavery. In 1654, John Casor, a black man, became the first legally recognized slave in the area that became the United States. A court in Northampton County ruled against Casor, declaring him property for life, "owned" by the black colonist Anthony Johnson. Since persons with African origins were not English citizens by birth, they were not necessarily covered by English Common. Law. Elizabeth Key Grinstead successfully gained her freedom in the Virginia courts in the 1650's by making her case as the daughter of a free Englishman Thomas Key and his negro slave.

NO ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY 1662

Virginia enacts a law of hereditary slavery meaning that a child born to an enslaved mother inherits her slave status.

Shortly after the Elizabeth Key trial, in 1662 Virginia passed a law on partus, stating that any children of enslaved mothers would follow her status and automatically be slaves, no matter if the father was a freeborn Englishman.

EMERGE IN CONFLICT 1676

In Virginia, black slaves and black and white indentured servants band together to participate in Bacon’s Rebellion.

To some extent, Bacon’s Rebellion was a conflict within the Virginia elite. The leader Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy and ambitious planter who had arrived in Virginia in 1673, disdained Berkeley’s coterie as men of “mean education and employments.” His backers included men of wealth outside the governor’s circle of es. But Bacon’s call for the removal of all Indians for the colony a reduction of taxes at the time of economic recession, and an end to rule by “grandees” rapidly gained support from small farmers, landless men, Indentured servants, and even some slaves.

In 1676 Bacon gathered an armed force for an unauthorized in indiscriminate campaign against those he called the governor’s Protected and darling Indians.” He refused order to disband and marched on Jamestown, burning it to the ground. The governor fled, and Bacon became the ruler of Virginia. His forces plundered the estates of supporters. Only the arrival of a squadron of warships from England restored order. Bacon’s Rebellion was over.

SLAVERY EXPANDS 1694

Rice cultivation is introduced into Carolina. Slave importation increases dramatically.

By the mid-eighteenth century, three distinct slave systems were well entrenched in Britain’s mainland colonies: tobacco-based plantation slavery in entrenched in Britain’s mainland colonies: tobacco-based plantation slavery in the Chesapeake; rice –based plantation slavery in South Carolina and Georgia; and nonplantiation slavery in New England and the Middle Colonies. The largest and oldest of these was the tobacco plantation system of the Chesapeake, where more than 270,000 slaves resided in 1770, nearly half of the region’s population.

RACIAL OPPRESSION IS LAW 1705

The Virginia Slave Code codifies slave status, declaring all non-Christian servants entering the colony to be slaves. It defines all slaves as real estate, acquits masters who kill slaves during punishment, forbids slaves and free colored peoples from physically assaulting white persons, and denies slaves the right to bear arms or move abroad without written permission.

SLAVE CODES AND RESISTANCE

The slave codes robbed the Africans of their freedom and will power. Slaves did resist this treatment, therefore strict and cruel punishment was on hand for disobeying their masters. Slaves were forbidden from carrying guns, taking food, striking their masters, and running away. All slaves could be flogged or killed for resisting or breaking the slave codes. Some slave states required both slaves and free blacks to wear metal badges. Those badges were embossed with an ID number and occupation.

Freedom was always on the minds of the enslaved Africans. How to gain that freedom was the big question. American historical records have identified some of those attempts and some of the people involved in the African's quest for freedom on American soil.

Refusing to obey their masters' demands created a duel crisis on the part of the resisting slaves and their demanding owners. The most common form of resistance used by the slaves was to run away. To live as a runaway required perfect escape routs and exact timing. Where to hide, finding food, leaving the family and children behind became primary issues for the escaping slaves. Later, the severe punishment had to be faced whenever a hunted slave was caught and returned to bondage.

Many slaves ran off and lived in the woods or vast wilderness in the undeveloped American countryside. This group of slaves were called "maroons," for they found remote areas in the thick forest and mainly lived off wild fruits and animals as food. Some of these maroons ran off, lived, and even married into segments of the Native American populations. They were later called Black Indians.

CHAINS TIGHTENS 1712

An alleged slave revolt in New York City leads to violent outbreaks. Nine whites are killed and eighteen slaves are executed.

The eighteenth century’s first slave uprising occurred in New York City in 1712, when a group of slaves set fire to houses on the outskirts of the city and killed the first nine whites who arrived on the scene. Subsequently, eighteen conspirators were executed; some were tortured and burned alive in a public spectacle meant to intimidate the slave population.

SILVERS OF HOPE 1731

The Spanish reverse a 1730 decision and declare that slaves fleeing to Florida from Carolina will not be sold or returned.

In September 1739 a group of South Carolina slaves, most of them recently arrived for Kongo where some, it appears, had been soldiers, seized a store containing numerous weapons at the town of Stono. Beating drums to attract followers, the armed band marched southward toward Florida, burning houses and barns, killing whites they encountered and shouting “Liberty.” (Florida’s supposedly tyrannical Spanish rulers offered “Liberty and Protection” to fugitives for the British Colonies.)

Sources

http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aaslavry.htm#beginning

Foner, Eric. “Give Me Liberty! An American History.” WW Norton & Company, New York. 2006.

James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (London, 1776), pp. 43-44;

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1803.html

Lerone Bennett, Ebony Pictorial History of Black America, Vol I, (Nashville, 1971), p. 71.

[http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs/52/ Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit –

Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventheenth Century Colonial Virginia]

"Slavery in America", Encyclopedia Britannica's Guide to Black History. Retrieved October 24, 2007.

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