Slavery in the American Colonies

Practice vocabulary flashcards covering the origins, legal structure, Triangle Trade, plantation systems, culture, and resistance during colonial slavery.

Indentured Servants

Immigrants bound to work 4 to 7 years in the colonies in exchange for food, clothing, and shelter.

Push Factors for Colonial Immigration

Conditions such as war, taxes, and religious persecution that caused immigration from Scotland and Germany to boom as the colonies grew.

West African Communities (Pre-Colonial)

Sophisticated farming communities with thriving networks of commerce, kingdoms, and states where native slavery existed but differed from colonial slavery as enslaved individuals were treated as family.

Transatlantic Slave Trade Statistics

A 4-century trade bringing 10 to 12 million enslaved people from Africa, with 50% sent to Caribbean sugar plantations, most aged 15 to 30, and 600,000 brought to British colonies.

Triangle Trade

A three-tiered trade system: Step 1 traded European manufactured goods for slaves in Africa; Step 2 (Middle Passage) sent slaves across the Atlantic for colonial goods; Step 3 brought colonial goods back to Europe.

Middle Passage

The horrific 3-week to 3-month Atlantic journey for enslaved Africans marked by torture, disease, suicide, and an estimated mortality rate of 1 in 6.

Scramble

A method of selling enslaved people upon arrival where a fixed price was set and buyers ran in simultaneously to grab the individuals of their choice.

Legal Effects on Enslavement

Colonial laws that written to close avenues for freedom by making children's legal status dependent on their mother's status, ruling Christian baptism did not alter status, and declaring the death of an enslaved person during punishment not a crime.

Chesapeake Tobacco Slave Population

The slave population in the Chesapeake tobacco colonies that became self-sustaining by 1730, with approximately 80% being native-born by the 1750s.

Lower South Slave Society

Colonies including South Carolina and Georgia dependent on enslaved African labor for rice and indigo production, resulting in approximately 20% of today's African-American ancestors passing through Charleston.

Northern Colonial Slavery

Slavery used as an important labor source in rural middle colonies and widespread in port cities among wealthy individuals, craftsmen, and professionals.

Quakers

Members of a religious group in Pennsylvania and New Jersey who were the first to voice anti-slavery ideas in the American colonies.

Creoles

The term used to refer specifically to American-born enslaved people.

Fictional Kinship

The practice used by enslaved people to form new family structures and community bonds across neighboring plantations and farms.

Slave Burial Rituals

Crucial African-derived rituals including decorating graves with shells and pottery, shouting, chanting, singing around the grave, and hosting a large feast.

NYC Slave Uprising of 1712

An armed uprising in New York City using guns, swords, and daggers that resulted in 9 colonists killed and buildings burned.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 slave uprising in South Carolina where 60 enslaved people killed 20 white colonists.

Maroons

Enslaved people who ran away and hid in forests and swamps to escape captivity.

Phillis Wheatley

A famous poet in Boston who achieved success as a free Black woman after being enslaved.