History Exam 1

• Lecture: Life in West Africa and the Middle Passage

• Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, Chapters 1 and 2 [Canvas]

• Barbot, "General Observations on the Management of Slaves, 1700" [Canvas]

• Lecture: Slavery in New England and the Middle Colonies 

• Hardesty, “Working Worlds” [Canvas]

• Lecture: Slavery in Colonial Virginia and Colonial Carolina

• Lecture: African Patriots and Loyalists During the American Revolution

Ways to become enslaved in west africa

• Prisoners of war 

• Voluntary became enslaved slave for military 

• Convict of a crime: adultery, murder, or sorcery 

• Too much debt 

Ways to become enslaved in west africa: very important

• within west african, enslaved status was rarely inherited. Slavery did not create a permanent class of enslaved people enslavers 

The Portuguese and exploration of west africa

• Portuguese pioneered the navigation of the west African coast 

• Between 1418 and the 1470s, the Portuguese began to enslave africans 

The Rise of the Transatlantic Slave Trade 

• Late 1450s- Portuguese crown negotiated treaties with West African rulers, who agreed to supply them with enslaved people in return for European goods

Trading of kidnapped Africans first emerged as a

• commercial relationship between coastal people: African merchants tapped the internal trade of kidnapped african to supply European traders with thousands of enslaved people per years 

Castles for kidnapped Africans

• Cape coast castle and elmina castles- Ghana

• Gorees islands: off the coast of Senegal 

Middle Passage

• West african to america 

• African where at the bottom of the ship 

• Trip with 3-6 month and chained to someone you don’t know 

• Barely getting food 

• People died 

1502: governor of Hispaniola brought several

• Iberian born black enslaved people to provide labor and help subdue the indigenous population 

Enslaved African worked used in the

copper and gold mines of Hispaniola, replacing Taino indians 

The Catholic church also

supported African slavery.

• Dominican Priest Bartolome de lass Casa pressed the Spanish crown and Pope to protect the Indians and turn exclusively to African slavery in the America for labor

how mnay slaves were kipnapped before 1620

• Roughly 300,000 kidnapped Africans landed in the Americas before 1620. Most came after 1550 

Enslaved Africans supplied labor to the following colonies:

• Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Brazil

What was Equino's life like before this kidnapping? 

• Lived in close, organized community, land was rich in agricultural

• Men, women, and children worked together, all learned to farm and use weapons 

• Had marriage traditions, religious rituals, laws, and punishments

• Public events included dancing, songs, and celebrations

• Way to humanize their lives and to show they had cultural and criterization, community, family, slave came and ruined it 

How did his community prepare for kidnapping and try to stop them?

• Adults would warn the children and not to go too far

•  Kept children/ people on look out sometimes had people look out on trees 

How was Equino kidnapped? 

• 11 yr old Equino and his sister were left home and black kidnappers took them

• We know that they were black because the first time he might white people was on the ship and began slave in west africa 

What was slavery like for him in west africa? 

• Some people treated him relatively well, including a chieftain's family.

• He noticed that some people spoke a language similar to his own.

• At one point, he was treated so well that he temporarily forgot he was enslaved.

• However, he still had no freedom and could be sold or taken away.

Chicken story? He accidentally killed a chicken with a pebble.

• He became afraid of punishment and hid in the bushes.

• He learned that his actions could have serious consequences.

• He eventually became convinced that escaping home would be nearly impossible

How was his passage to the Middle East? 

• He became terrified when he first saw the sea and the slave ship.

• Enslaved people were chained together and treated cruelly.

• The ship was overcrowded, hot, dirty, and poorly ventilated.

• People became sick and many died.

• Equiano witnessed beatings and severe punishment.

• Some people jumped into the sea to escape.

• He became so desperate that he would rather die than remain on the ship.

Writing style of the chapter

• He also describes African culture to humanize Africans and show that they had families, religion, laws, and civilization.

Why does he says he is a “particular favourite of Heaven

• because he believes God/Heaven protected and guided him through the many hardships he experienced. He was able to become a free man after slavery 

How does Equino end the chapter?

• He calls out European Christians saying if you are a true christian, now that you know about slavery you should call it out. 

What was the booke used for

The book was used as a way to end the slavery trade.

Barbot, "General Observations on the Management of Slaves, 1700"

 Maidens on the ship: 

• They sexually assaulted women and children and the people on the ship didn’t think they were doing anything wrong

Africans in New England

• New England did not rely on enslaved labor to sustain its economy 

• 1641- Massachusetts legally recognized chattel (property) slavery 

New England was a

secondary market for kidnapped West African- New England was the last stop

West India Company 

• Dutch merchant who oversaw and controlled Dutch participation in the trading of kidnapped Africans 

• Headquartered in Manhattan in 1625 (KNOW)

• 1626- imported kidnapped Africans to build New Amsterdam (New York) 

Half Freedom

• Liberated enslaved adults, but not their children 

• These adults remained obligated to the West India Company and were required to serve as wages laborers 

Newly freed adults had to

pay an annual sum to maintain their freedom

Slavery in the Early Middle Colonies

• 1664: 300 enslaved people and 75 free black people in the New Netherlands 

• NJ and Delaware already had slavery 

1681: Quaker leader William Penn founded the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, growing number of enslaved laborers in Philadelphia

Slavery in the Middle colonies: 1688: Germantown QUaker issued th

• first US antislavery petition 

• Enslaved people cleared land, tended livestock, chopped wood, pressed cider, maintain fences, building, and grounds and severed as domestic workers 

• Northern port cities had the largest enslaved populations 

What was hiring out? 

• When slaves in specialized fields and slave owners can rent the slave out to other owners 

  • Many enslavers permitted self-hiring, allowing enslaved workers to travel, negotiate their own wages, and pay a portion back to their owners.

Who was benefitted the most from hiring out

• The owner (receives the pay for renting out) and the person renting that slave out 

  • Having access to money was a huge opportunity for slaves

    • In this way it was beneficial to the slaves because they were not living with their owns 

3 reasons way people would enslaves black people: 

• Appreciating investments

• Social influences/ bagging right/ saying you have money 

• Cheaper labor in the long term 

  • slaves as cheap labor, appreciating investments, and easily liquidatable assets.

What did having a footman symbolize for the household? 

• People who had a footman (domestic worker) by dressing them you in the best fabric and should that they were rich

Enslaved men in urban settings worked as

• domestic valets, footmen, skilled artisans (carpenter, blacksmith, mason), printers (e.g., Peter Fleet), and laborers on public infrastructure (e.g., building schoolhouses, forts, and townhouses).

Up to a quarter of enslaved men in coastal Massachusetts worked as

• seafarers, sailors, lightermen, and cooks on deep-water vessels, providing them with global travel experiences, strategic social mobility, and avenues to relay news.

Urban enslaved women managed

•  domestic tasks, hawked market goods, served as nurses, performed spinning/piecework for expanding industries, and influenced local market prices through shrewd purchasing.

Rural

• Rural: men and women did agriculture work

In what ways did people who did not have slavery benefit from slavery? 

• Benefited Newspaper would publish about slavery sale (more thing to publish out) 

• Slavery would do jobs people didn't want to do 

• Slaves would build buildings, more public work (build basically all of New England)

What was the relationship between New England and the Caribbean? ADD

• Benefited with Caribbean plantains and rum 

  • Getting items linked to slavery 

Slavery in Rhode Island: What was slavery like in Rhode Island? 

• Enslaved slaves workers cowboys (make milk and cheese (women), wrestled cows and hustled horse, sheering sheep hair (men))  

Why didn’t school teach slavery in New England? 

• Covered the civil war times with slavery 

Indentured Servitude in the Chesapeake 

• 1617- tobacco was Jamestown's stable crop 

• White servitude initially predominated colonial Virginia and Maryland 

Indentured servant- required to work

4-7 yrs to pay cost of their transportation and maintenance (food, clothing, shelter)

Chattel Slavery in the Chesapeake 

• Planters were not legally obligated to release Black people from servitude 

• 1662- all children would take on the status of his or her mother 

Chattel slavery-

movable property rights or legal authority

Royal African Company 

• Founded by the English in 1660 

• Transported between 90,00 and 100,000 kidnapped Africans to English colonies in the Americas 

• Offered English colonists a steady and affordable supply of Africans 

Bacon’s rebellion (1676) 

• Led by Nathaniel Bacon 

• Army largely made up of landless freeman, servants, and enslaved people

• Bacon united poor white people and enslaved and free black people 

Effects of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676): Virginia legislature enacted new laws 

• Enslaver could kill rebellious enslaved people 

• Limited the years of service for white servants 

• Lowered poll taxes that kept poor white people from voting

Expansion of Slavery in the Chesapeake: 1680

• black people constituted about 7% of Virginia's populations 

Expansion of Slavery in the Chesapeake 1750

•  black people made up 44% of Virginia's population 

• Newly arrived Africans cleared land and cultivated tobacco and other crops 

Enslaved Resistance 

• African fugitive from slavery typically fled in groups

Enslaved Resistance 1730

• 1730- more than 300 enslaved people organized and fled in the Dismal Swamp (marronage)

• Many white colonists began to define all black people both free and enslaved as dangerous

The Creation of the Carlonias

• Enslaved Africans cleared land and cultivated crops 

• Enslaved people grew, harvested, and processed rice with the same equipment and techniques used in West African 

1720s- Carolina had begin to

export nearly 10 million pounds of rice per yr 

Charleston was the

 center of the slave trade in the British colonial America 

• Notice Slave Auction, Charleston, CS, 1769

The Task System

• Enslaved people worked under their own direction 

• Assigned specific agricultural tasks each day, when finished, they worked on their own behalf 

Enslaved people working in the task system often had to

provide their own food and clothing 

Carolina Slavery

• Enslaved people lived in self contained communities on plantation that house as many as 100 people 

• Throughout much of the 18th century, death of enslaved people routinely outnumbered the births

1690s slave code

• enslaved people who ran away to defend their enslavers more than once could be whipped, slit through the nose, and/ or branded with an iron 

African American Revolution

• White patriots protests drew on the natural rights philosophy to argue independence from the British 

• African Americans influenced by this language of natural rights 

  • A. natural right: all men are by nature free, equal, and independent

Road to Independence 

• Northern black people initiated freedom suits in court 

Somerset case (1772)-

challenged the legal status of British slavery, but carefully-worded ruling only applied to Somerset 

The American Revolution in Boston

• More than 5,00 african and african americans are estimated to have fought alongside American forces during the Revolution 

Crispus Attucks-

• first casualty of the American Revolution (Boston Massacre) 

  • Rural to city 

Black Patriot 

• Free and enslaved black northerners were among the Patriots who rallied against the British 

• Colonist whole enslaved Black people resisted the use of Black soldier, fearing insurrections and were also afraid of losing their enslaved property 

In 1775- the British organized their

first regiment of fugitives from slavery

Black Loyalist 

• ~15,000 black people became loyalist and served with the British 

• White southerners questioned enslaved people’s loyalty to the cause 

Lord Dunmore Ethiopian Regiment- Lord Dunmore’s proclamation (1775)- offered

• freedom to enslaved Black people who joined British cause 

• Possibly the 1st black regiment in the history of black america

Lord Dunmore Ethiopian Regiment: Less than a month later, regiment nearly

• most fugitive did not

• wiped out from patriot forces 

• end up in British uniforms because British commanders had little time to train new troops 

Effects of Dunmore’s Proclamation: Continental congress declared all black people

• eligible for service in the continental army 

The proclamation also triggered a

mass exodus of fugitives from slavery, who escaped from their plantation and crossed British lines

Stono Rebellion:

enslaved Africans from Colonial Carolina tried to escape to Spanish Florida