2.6: Slavery in the British Colonies

Review

  • Atlantic Slave Trade brought ~3 million captive Africans to British colonies in North America and the Caribbean

  • Suffered on the Middle Passage

    • Killed ~500K

  • Not only the South had slaves

  • Explosion of demand for slaves:

    • 1. Increased demand for colonial agricultural goods

    • 2. Shortage of indentured servants

  • Bacon’s Rebellion had made elites nervous, so they decided to focus more on slaves

Distribution

  • North: smaller farms

    • Fewer

  • Middle: also had agricultural estates

    • Larger portion of slaves were household servants

    • Major port cities (e.g. NYC) had a lot of slaves

      • Sea men, dock workers, blacksmiths

  • Chesapeake and Southern: emerging plantation system

    • Needed FAR MORE slaves!

  • British West Indies

    • Greatest portion

Nature of Slavery

  • Race-based slavery: chattel slavery

    • Slaves were property, like farm tools or domesticated animals

  • West Indies influenced institution of slavery elsewhere, esp south

    • Harsh Slave laws

  • Virginia did this following Barbados

    • African laborers = chattel

    • Intergenerational

    • Became harsher and harsher

  • Late 1600s: Virginian plantation owners could KILL slave if they defied owner’s authority

    • Later forbidden from carrying any weapons

  • Made interracial relationships illegal

Slave Resistance

  • Africans who were enslaved didn’t just give up

Covert Resistance

  • Practiced ancestral cultural customs

  • Maintained belief systems

  • Spoke native languages

  • Kept naming practices from home

  • Slowed pace of work by breaking tools and damaging crops

Overt Resistance: Stono Rebellion

  • More feared; worrisome if blacks were majority

  • 1739: Stono Rebellion in SC

    • Small group of enslaved men stole weapons from a store

    • Marched along Stono River

    • Joined by others

    • Burned plantations and killed white people

    • ~50 when white militia confronted them

      • Most killed in battle or hanged later

  • Challenged narrative of plantation owners

    • Believed they were benevolent caretakers

    • Rebellion proof that slaves did not agree