The American colonies were populated by diverse groups, including servants, slaves, free farmers, religious refugees, and planters, who shaped new societies.
Native Americans witnessed the growth of settlements into dominant forces that monopolized resources and transformed the land.
Colonial societies in the 17th and 18th centuries saw fluid labor arrangements and racial categories evolve into race-based, chattel slavery, which became central to the British Empire's economy.
The North American mainland was initially a small part of the empire, with its colonies' output less significant than the wealth of Caribbean sugar islands.
Despite being overlooked by some imperial officials, the mainland colonies were integrated into larger Atlantic networks.
A complex Atlantic World emerged, connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Events across the ocean influenced American colonists' lives, as civil war, religious conflict, and nation-building transformed Britain and its colonies.
Colonial settlements matured, developing into societies capable of warring against Native Americans and suppressing internal unrest.
Patterns established during the colonial era shaped American society for centuries, with slavery being a particularly brutal and destructive institution.
Slavery and the Making of Race
Reverend Francis Le Jau, upon arriving in Charles Town, Carolina, in 1706, became disillusioned by the horrors of American slavery.
He encountered enslaved Africans affected by the Middle Passage, Indians involved in enslaving enemy villages, and colonists fearful of invasions from French Louisiana and Spanish Florida.
Le Jau criticized the English traders for encouraging wars with Indians to acquire slaves, and planters for justifying enslaved labor by claiming white servants were ineffective.
Despite baptizing and educating slaves, Le Jau could not overcome masters' fears that Christian baptism would lead to emancipation.
The 1660s marked a turning point for black individuals in English colonies such as Virginia and Barbados, with new laws legalizing the enslavement of people of African descent for life.
The permanent deprivation of freedom and the separate legal status of enslaved Africans reinforced racial barriers, making skin color a marker of division between white and black races.
Captain Thomas Phillips, a slave ship master in 1694, justified his work based on profitability rather than racial hierarchy.
Wars were a common means for colonists to acquire Native American slaves, with European legal thought considering enslaving prisoners of war as merciful.
After the Pequot War (1636-1637), Massachusetts Bay colonists sold hundreds of North American Indians into slavery in the West Indies.
Dutch colonists in New Netherland (New York and New Jersey) enslaved Algonquian Indians during Governor Kieft’s War (1641-1645) and the two Esopus Wars (1659-1663), sending them to Bermuda and Curaçao.
King Philip’s War (1675-1676) resulted in the enslavement of hundreds of Indians.
New England colonists attempted to send Indian slaves to Barbados, but the Barbados Assembly refused to import them due to fear of rebellion.
In the 18th century, wars in Florida, South Carolina, and the Mississippi Valley led to more Indian slaves.
Some wars were contests over land, while others were pretexts for acquiring captives, or illegal raids by slave traders.
Historians estimate that between 24,000 and 51,000 Native Americans were forced into slavery in the southern colonies between 1670 and 1715.
Many enslaved Indians were exported through Charles Town, South Carolina, to other ports in the British Atlantic, such as Barbados, Jamaica, and Bermuda.
Colonial governments often discouraged Indian slavery due to the violence it caused and the threat it posed to colonists.
Native American slaves died quickly from disease, murder, or starvation.
The plantation economies needed a reliable labor force, leading to the transatlantic slave trade.
European slavers transported millions of Africans across the ocean in the Middle Passage.
Olaudah Equiano described the fearsomeness of the crew, the filth in the hold, inadequate provisions, and slaves' desperation leading to suicide.
Alexander Falconbridge detailed slaves' sufferings from infections and close quarters in the hold, including dysentery, chafing, and diseases like smallpox and conjunctivitis.
The Middle Passage was a leg in the maritime trade involving sugar, manufactured goods, and African slaves.
For enslaved Africans, the Middle Passage was the middle leg of three journeys: an overland trek in Africa, an oceanic trip, and acculturation and transportation to labor locations in the Americas.
Slave ships transported 11-12 million Africans to the Americas, with regulations introduced only