Africans in America: The Terrible Transformation into a Slave Society

Origins of Slavery and the Evolution of Freedom

The origins of the United States are rooted in a complex tapestry of diverse peoples, including English, Ashante, Portuguese, German, Igbo, Fante, French, and Angolan individuals. This mixture of people, ranging from those seeking religious freedom and riches to those sold as captives, would eventually build a nation while struggling over the definition of freedom. Understanding race relations in the modern era requires an understanding of slavery, which was not merely a Southern institution but a foundational American one. In North America, a belief system evolved where being black was synonymous with being a slave, and being a slave was synonymous with being black. This occurred despite the language of the Declaration of Independence, which claimed self-evident and inalienable rights from God. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote those words, kept slaves himself and later expressed fear of divine justice regarding the institution of slavery.

The Arrival at Jamestown and the First Africans

In April $1607$, three vessels carrying $105$ colonists landed at Jamestown, Virginia, with the goal of establishing the first permanent English settlement in the New World. While early settlers carried utopian ideals of a land without coercion or oppression, these ideals were quickly tested by experience and harsh reality. By $1609$, there were $500$ settlers, but by the spring of $1610$, only $60$ remained alive due to famine, disease, and conflict. In late August $1619$, a Dutch man-of-war commanded by Captain Jope arrived at Point Comfort, carrying "$20$ and odd Negroes" which the governor bought in exchange for food. These Africans had been taken from a Spanish vessel. Because they had been baptized and given Christian names, they could not be enslaved for life under English law at that time. Instead, they were purchased as indentured servants for a limited number of years, providing the labor necessary for the lucrative tobacco crop.

The Tobacco Boom and the Indentured Labor System

Tobacco became the primary commodity of the Virginia colony, shipping approximately $60,000$ pounds per year back to England. The profitability of tobacco was tied directly to the amount of land controlled and the labor available to work it. The early labor force consisted primarily of white indentured servants, often poor people under the age of $25$ who traded four to seven years of labor for passage to Virginia. These servants were bound by contracts that defined their conditions of servitude. Upon completion of their service, they were usually promised "freedom dues," which included a bushel of corn, a new suit of clothes, and $100$ acres of land. Under Virginia’s headright system, a planter received $50$ acres of land for every servant brought into the colony. By $1622$, $3,000$ new settlers had arrived, and in $1624$, the first Negro child, named William Tucker, was born in the colony.

The Life of Anthony Johnson and Early Social Fluidity

The story of Antonio, later known as Anthony Johnson, illustrates the initial fluidity of race in the Virginia colony. Antonio arrived in $1621$ and was one of the few to survive the Good Friday attack of $1622$ by the Powhatan Confederacy, which killed $350$ colonists. Listed as a servant in the $1625$ census, he eventually gained his freedom, married a servant named Mary, and changed his name to Anthony Johnson. By $1640$, Anthony and Mary had acquired their own estate on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Johnson eventually claimed five workers as headrights and expanded his property to $250$ acres along the Pungoteague Creek, with some of his workers being white. In $1650$, Johnson was one of $400$ black people in Virginia within a total population of nearly $19,000$. In Northampton County, approximately $20$ African men and women were free, and $13$ owned their own homes.

The Legal Shift Toward Racial Slavery

The fluidity that allowed Anthony Johnson to prosper began to close in the $1640s$. A turning point occurred in $1640$ when three servants—a Dutchman named Victor, a Scotchman named James Gregory, and a Negro named John Punch—fled to Maryland. Upon their capture, the white servants received extended indentures, but John Punch was sentenced to serve his master for the "time of his natural life." No white servant in America ever received such a sentence. Throughout the mid-$17th$ century, colonies began codifying slavery into law: Massachusetts in $1641$, Connecticut in $1650$, Virginia in $1661$, Maryland in $1663$, and New York and New Jersey in $1664$. A $1662$ Virginia law decided that the status of a child (free or slave) would follow the condition of the mother, ensuring that slavery would be defined by race and perpetuated through heredity.

Bacon’s Rebellion and the Rise of the Slave Society

By the late $17th$ century, the supply of white indentured servants decreased, and those who survived their terms became a source of social unrest. In $1676$, this unrest exploded into Bacon's Rebellion, where an army of $500$ free men, servants, and slaves attacked the colonial establishment and burned Jamestown. To prevent future alliances between poor whites and blacks, the wealthy elite found racial slavery more attractive. Slaves were a permanent, dependent labor force who were racially set apart and defined as "outsiders." In $1672$, the King of England chartered the Royal African Company, which included shareholders like John Locke. In its first $16$ years, the company transported nearly $90,000$ Africans to the Americas. By $1691$, Virginia law made it illegal to free a black slave unless they left the colony, cementing the transition to a slave society.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Olaudah Equiano

In $1698$, the English Parliament ended the Royal African Company's monopoly, allowing every British subject to trade in slaves. The number of Africans transported in British ships increased from $5,000$ to $45,000$ per year. Olaudah Equiano, an Igbo boy kidnapped at age $11$, provided a rare first-person account of the horrors of this trade. Over four centuries, more than $20$ million people were kidnapped in West Africa, with only half surviving the journey to the coast. Equiano described reaching the coast after seven months of travel and seeing a slave ship for the first time. The Europeans built approximately $60$ forts or "factories" along the African coast, such as Elmina, to warehouse human cargo. Over $11$ million Africans were transported across the Atlantic, with the majority going to South America and the Caribbean, and approximately $500,000$ reaching North America.

The Middle Passage and the Triangular Trade

The Middle Passage was the middle leg of a triangular trade route between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The crossing usually lasted $60$ to $90$ days, though some took up to six months. Conditions on the ships were catastrophic, with Africans packed so tightly they had to lie in feces, leading to high rates of disease and death. Ship surgeons like Alexander Falconbridge reported finding dead and living captives chained together. Resistance was common, but suppressed through extreme violence and instruments of torture like thumb screws. Captains like John Newton and James Barbot documented several insurrections. For the slavers, the humanity of the captives was suppressed for the sake of gold and profit.

Rice Culture and the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina

South Carolina, often described as a "colony of a colony" (Barbados), was built on a fully conceived idea of slavery. The elite Middleton family, arriving from Barbados in $1678$, helped establish the lucrative rice industry. Rice cultivation required skills that Africans from Angola and the Gambia already possessed, but the work was deadly due to constant moisture and heat. By $1710$, Africans outnumbered Europeans in Carolina. On September $9, 1739$, a group of approximately $20$ Angolans led by a man named Jimmy started a rebellion near the Stono Bridge. They seized arms, killed storekeepers, and marched toward Spanish Florida, where freedom was promised. The group grew to nearly $100$ before being defeated by armed colonists at the Edisto River. In response, the colony passed the Negro Act of $1740$, which outlawed assembly, literacy, and the ability of slaves to earn money, becoming a model for slave laws across British America.

The New York Conspiracy of 1741

In New York, the third-largest port in the British Empire, slavery was also deeply entrenched. By $1740$, New York had the second-highest density of slaves of any city after Charleston, with over $2,000$ black residents in a population of $11,000$. In $1741$, a series of fires broke out, starting at Fort George. Paranoia spread that a "black hand" was behind the fires as part of a Spanish-influenced plot. Based largely on the testimony of a $16$-year-old indentured servant named Mary Burton, a general dragnet resulted in the arrest of almost every African American male over $16$. Between the spring of $1741$ and $1742$, $160$ slaves and a dozen whites were accused. Ultimately, $31$ Africans were put to death—$13$ burned at the stake and others hanged—and four whites were executed.

Conclusion: The Consolidation of a Slave Society

The legalization of slavery in Georgia in $1750$ marked the point at which slavery existed in all $13$ British colonies. In roughly $100$ years, the status of Africans in America had shifted from the potential for freedom and property ownership, as seen with Anthony Johnson, to a rigid, hereditary system of racial bondage. Anthony Johnson’s own land was eventually seized by the state of Virginia after his death because he was deemed a "negro and by consequence an alien." Despite the burgeoning language of independence and virtue, the American colonies had become increasingly rooted in a labor system of human bondage that would trouble the soul of the nation for generations.