History of Slavery in America - Student Success Day

9/22/20

1619 or 1776?

Presented by Chris Stout Sep 22, 2020 11:00 AM

A Global Enterprise

• All Western European nations participated in the African slave trade. • The slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, the Dutch in the sugar boom of the seventeenth century, and the English who entered the trade in the seventeenth century. • Over 10 – 12 million slaves between 1700 – 1800 • Majority were between the age of 15 and 30 • New England slavers entered the trade in the eighteenth century. • Newport RI, more than 100K slaves carried in the 18th century • Collaboration between American, European, and Africans enabled the trade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0geOQ25Pyw 2

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MAP 4.2 Slave Colonies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries By the eighteenth century, the system of slavery had created societies with large African populations throughout the Caribbean and along the southern coast of North America.

The Tobacco Colonies

https://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=DSDek9M • Tobacco was the most important -hSk commodity produced in eighteenth century North America, accounting for 25% of the value of all colonial exports. • Slavery allowed the expansion of tobacco production since it was labor- intensive. • Using slave labor, tobacco was grown on large plantations and small farms. • The slave population in this region grew largely by natural increase.

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FIGURE 4.3 Value of Colonial Exports by Region, Annual Average, 1768–72 With tobacco, rice, grain, and indigo, the Chesapeake and Lower South accounted for nearly two-thirds of colonial exports in the late eighteenth century.

SOURCE: James F. Shepherd and Gary M. Walton, Shipping, Maritime Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1972), 211 –27. 5

Families and Communities • In the development of African American community and culture, the family was the most important institution. • Families were often separated by sale or bequest. • Offspring were the property of the female slave’s owner • Slaves created family structures developing marriage customs, naming practices, and a system of kinship. • Fictive kinship was used by slaves to humanize the world of slavery.

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Slave Families • Slave marriages were: • not recognized by law • not respected by masters • a haven of love and intimacy for the slaves. • Parents gave children a supportive and protective kinship network. • Slave families were often split up. • One in five marriages broken, one in 3 children sold • Separated children drew upon supportive networks of family and friends.

Violence and Resistance • The slave system was based on force and violence. • Africans resisted in the following ways: • Refusing to cooperate and malingering • Mistreating tools and animals • Running away – (Seminoles) • Revolt • There was always fear of uprisings but slaves in North America rarely revolted. • Conditions for a successful revolt were not present. • Slaves had also developed culture and communities and did not want to risk losing these things.

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Fugitive slaves flee through the swamps in Thomas Moran’s The Slave Hunt (1862). Many slaves ran away from their masters, and colonial newspapers included notices urging readers to be on the lookout for them. Some fled in groups or collected together in isolated communities called “maroon” colonies, located in inaccessible swamps and woods. SOURCE: Thomas Moran (American, 1837-1926), Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia, 1862. Gift of Laura A. Clubb, 1947.8.44 © 2007 The Philbrook Museum of Art, Inc., Tulsa, Oklahoma. 9

Eighteenth-century ships being unloaded of their colonial cargoes on London’s Old Custom House Quay. Most of the goods imported into England from the American colonies were produced by slave labor.

SOURCE: Samuel Scott, “Old Custom House Quay” Collection. V&A IMAGES, THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON.

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The North – Willing participants

• The first American slave ship, the • Rhode Island sponsored at least Desire, was built in the Bay State 934 slaving voyages that carried in 1636, according to the 106,544 slaves from Africa to National Museum of African North America in the 1700s. American History & Culture. • After the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island merchants controlled between 60 and 90 percent of the American trade in African slaves.

Slavery and the Economics of Empire • Map: Triangular Trade Across the Atlantic • The slave trade was the foundation of the British economy. • Created a large colonial market for exports that stimulated manufacturing • Generated huge profits that served as a source of investments • 95% of exports, were slave created, came from the Americas from 1700 - revolution • Average annual return – 15% in slave trade, 10% in agriculture • 21 – 35% of all British profits during the 1700’s came from slave manufactured goods • 69% of raw cotton for British textile mills came from W. Indies • “There is not a brick in the city but what is cemented with the blood of a slave.” • Barclays, Rothschild's, Lloyd’s all made their initial money in the trade Chart: Value of Colonial Exports by Region, Annual Average, 1768-72

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Map 4.3 Triangular Trade Across the Atlantic This pattern of commerce among Europe, Africa, and the Americas became known as the “triangular trade.” Sailors called the voyage of slave ships from Africa to America the “Middle Passage” because it formed the crucial middle section of this trading triangle.

White Skin Privilege

• Skin color determined status. • Legal and other racial distinctions were constant reminders of the freedom of white colonists and the debasement of all African Americans, free or slave. • Relationships between free whites and enslaved blacks produced a mixed-ancestry group known as mulattoes. • Majority of mulattoes were slaves.

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Jefferson genealogy

• Martha – white – daughter of • Sally – black – daughter of John John Wayles Wayles • Martha "Patsy" Jefferson • children- - Beverly, Harriet, • Mary (died at 16) Madison, and Easton Hemings • 3 OF THE 4 integrated into white society in the north • Only one continued to identify with the black community

Thomas Jefferson placed this advertisement in the Virginia Gazette on September 14, 1769. Americans need to seriously consider the historical relationship between the prosperity and freedom of white people and the oppression and exploitation of Africans and African Americans. 16

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The Internal Slave Trade

• Map: Internal Slave Trade, 1820-60 • The cotton boom caused a huge increase in slave trade. • Over 250,000 slaves were uprooted and sold internally between 1830 and 1850 • 1 million total between 1808 and 1860 • Slaves were gathered in pens before moving south by train or boat. • On foot, slaves moved on land in coffles. • Southwest trail – A second middle passage • The size of the slave trade made a mockery of Southern claims of benevolence. • Too many scars was a sign of an “uppity” slave • Alexander McDonald – bank president, alderman at church, major slave trader • Sold slaves for profit, not out of necessity, was not a charitable or loving institution

MAP 10.3 Internal Slave Trade, 1820-60 Between 1820 and 1860, nearly 50 percent of the slave population of the Upper South was sold south to labor on the cotton plantations of the Lower South. This map shows the various routes by which they were “sold down the river,” shipped by boat or marched south. SOURCE: Historical Atlas of the United States (Washington DC: National Geographic Society,1988). 18

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The Price of Survival • The growth of the slave population was due to the high fertility rate of African American women. • Health remained a life long issue for slaves and pregnant women were usually malnourished. • Change in breastfeeding duration from two years to one year allowed for more slaves to be produced • Also worked hard, no “pregnant” mother leave • Slaves were more at risk due to poor living conditions. • Mortality rate for infants was double for slaves. (Better today? 6.9 per 1000 whites, 14.1 for African - Americans) • Life expectancy for whites 40 – 43 years in 1850 • For slaves – 30 – 33 years in 1850 • Modern day discrepancies? (Modern day African American Male is 69 Years old; Caucasian Male is 75.3) • 2010 Census - % of White children in poverty in Minnesota = 8% • 2010 Census - % of Black children in poverty in Minnesota = 47%

Field Work and the Gang System of Labor

• 75 percent of slaves were field workers. • Gangs of 20 – 25 • “work from can see to can’t see” • Work was 18 hours a day during season, 10 hours a day during winter. • Work was extremely tedious. • 150 lbs. • Good slave was worth 1000 dollars to the master • Slaves aged fast in this regime due to poor diet and heavy labor. • Elderly or disabled were used to watch children • End of slavery what happened to former elderly slaves?

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Racism and Accommodation • The turn of the century was an intensely racist era. • Segregation was institutionalized throughout the South and North • Violent attacks on blacks were supported by vicious characterizations in popular culture. • Racism was based on the assumed innate inferiority of blacks. • Racial Darwinism justified a policy of neglect and repression. • Southern progressives pushed for paternalistic uplift. • Henry Grady – The supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever… because the white race is the superior race.” • Restaurants, drinking fountains, transportation were segregated. • 1896 – Plessy vs. Ferguson – “Separate but Equal” • Less than 5% of the black southerners were allowed to vote.

Mob Violence and Lynching

• Racial violence escalated. • Between 1882 and 1900 lynching usually exceeded a hundred each year. • They were announced in newspapers and became public spectacles. • Railroads offered special excursion prices to people traveling to attend lynchings. • Postcards were often printed as souvenirs. 3 black men lynched in Duluth in 1900