Unit 2: AFAM

Early Chesapeake

• first region where slavery took root

• tobacco and cash crop plantations utilize small-scale slave gangs

• overtime, slavery is codified to be racial and lifelong

• by the late 1600s, there is a large number of slave importations into the region

• Chattel slavery is established

Carolinas

• dominated by sugar plantations

• rice and indigo cultivation flourished

• worked under the task system

• slaves outnumbered whites

• harsher punishments and less protection

South Carolina Slave Code

• made negroes, indians, mulattoes, and mestizos “absolute slaves”

• slaves required a letter of permission to leave the plantation

  • were subject to examination by any white person

• any rebellious slaves would be killed

• slave owners were instructed to keep instruments out of the hands of slaves

The Barbadian Slave Code

• first comprehensive slave code in the english world

• legalized brutal control over slaves 

• defined chattel property and allowed severe punishment 

• the code became a model for other colonies, especially SC and VA.

• helped formalize racial slavery as a legal system.

Virginia Slave Laws

• allowed intercourse only between white men and black women

  • children follow condition of the mother

  • made slavery hereditary

• ruled that baptism did not change a person’s enslaved status

Virginia Slave Code of 1705:

• declared enslaved Africans as real estate (chattel slavery)

• masters could punish enslaved people without prosecution

• slaves could not testify against whites, own property, or assemble without supervision

Louisiana

• sugar and indigo plantations had harsh conditions

• the enslaved Africans were first brought by the French under the Code Noir

  • only allowed Catholic faith

  • no labor on Sundays

  • outlawed interracial marriage

  • forbade separation of families (though often ignored)

• granted limited protections: less severe than English codes, but still oppressive

Florida

• enslaved population was small

• spanish governor welcomed slave refugees

  • became a refuge for escaped slaves from english colonies

• the spanish offered freedom to fugitives who converted to catholicism and served the militia 

• established Black settlement in Fort Mose, first legal black town

Pennsylvania

• Quakers initially owned enslaved people, but later became early abolitionists

• 1688 Germantown petition against slavery was the first written anti slavery protest in the English colonies 

• by the mid-1700’s Pennsylvania developed a strong abolition movement, influencing later northern states

New England

• never home to many slaves

  • did not rely on enslaved labor

  • cold climate → few plantations

  • result of geography not anti-slavery measures

• small family farms with crops and livestock

• worked in maritime trades, domestic service, and small-scale agriculture.

• Newport was a major center for transatlantic slave trade