Entrenchment of Slavery in Colonial America

Slavery and the Law

1600’s saw a permeable line between slave and free

  • African slaves could attain freedom

  • Some acquired land, servants, and slaves

Racially strict compared to the French, Spanish, and Dutch

Rise of Chesapeake Slavery

Black enslaved for life in the historical record (1640s)

  • Property registers in terms of service

Explicit legal reference in the 1660’s

  • Improved conditions and life expectancy for white indentured servants

  • 1662, status of a child born to a free and enslaved parent

  • Goes through the mother’s line

A Slave Society

1680-1700, slavery replaced indentured servitude as the main form of cultivation.

  • Conflict (Bacon’s rebellion)

  • Declining death rate

  • IS and enslaved people lived longer

Economics

  • Lifetime purchase

  • Loss of sthe lave trade monopoly

Racializing Slavery

AA about 10% of the VA population in 1700, by 1750, they’re about 50%