Historical Context of Beloved The Origin of Race-Based Slavery in the United States
Indentured servants were Europeans who came to America for a fresh start but were unable to afford the cost of the sea journey, signed contracts pledging to work for a “master” once they arrived in American for a certain number of years, until they repaid their passage. Indentured Servants…
Indentured servants were mistreated, ill-fed, and often immerged from a four-seven year term of indenture with no land, no money, and few skills. However, it was NOT a life-long condition. The first Africans to arrive in the British colonies in North America were on a Dutch ship. Nineteen Africans disembarked in Jamestown, VA in 1619 – one year before any Europeans arrived at Plymouth, MA. Few records remain of their status, but it is believed that they were treated as indentured servants. During the seventeenth century, European immigrants will to enter into indentured servitude declined because word had spread in Europe of the ill conditions. Slaves were the cheaper way to go. For the first time slavery became a racially determined institution, in which Africans were captured, brought to America on the Middle Passage, and sold into lifelong slavery. Children of slaves were seen for the first time as slaves. Slavery led to conflict naturally as the “enlightened” Europeans were settling into colonies and asserting the rights of man. The Middle Passage…
During the eighteenth century, the big seventeenth century business which had grown up around kidnapping West Africans and bringing them across the Atlantic to work in the Caribbean and Central America extended into North America. European traders traded guns and other manufactured goods for human laborers. The journey from Africa to the Americas was intensely dangerous and frightening. Africans were rarely allowed on deck. Instead they were crowded into the hull of the ship without room to stand or lie down comfortably. People died of suffocation. The food, if any was given, was rotten. Some Africans, in despair over conditions on the ship, unable to communicate with other prisoners because of language barriers, killed themselves by jumping overboard. Some mothers threw their infants overboard to save them from the horrifying conditions on board and in the future. Being suspected of or trying to commit suicide caused Africans to be severely punished. Slave Trade…
Once in the British colonies, slaves were sold at auctions to the highest bidder. Buyers examined Africans who were required to stand naked and show their teeth. African families were broken apart and sold to various owners. The fear of the auction block stayed with slaves. If their master took sick or died, they were in danger of being sold again. Treatment of Slaves . . .
The life of the majority of African slaves was that of agricultural workers. The field slaves on plantations worked long hours with hard physical labor, sometimes with enough food, but more often without enough food or rest. Field slaves typically did have relative independence. Slaves, such as cooks, maids, butlers, and gardeners, were know as house slaves. They usually had better living conditions. They dealt with complicated interactions with the white family who owned the farm. Urban slaves did better. They learned a trade, although their wages were handed over to their masters. Abuse of slaves in the city was much harder to do because of the close quarters of a city. Nat Turner’s Rebellion and Increased Restrictions . . .
In 1831, Nat Turner, a black preacher, led a slave revolt in Virginia. Turner’s people killed 55 whites before they were stopped. Turner and 20 others were hanged, and in retaliation, around 200 slaves who had nothing to do with the rebellion were also killed. Slave laws, therefore, became harsher to avoid any future rebellions. Laws preventing slaves from reading and writing, having prayer services without a white person present, and gathering in large numbers were enacted. Conflict over Slavery . . .
While laws were becoming more prohibitive, efforts to end slavery were becoming stronger. 1833 the American Anti-Slaver Society was founded. Leaders were William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator, and Frederick Douglas. Sojourner Truth was another famous abolitionist during this time. Federal battles sprung up in Congress over slavery. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act made it easier for slave owners to recover slaves who had run away to free states. In 1857, the Supreme Court heard the Dred Scott Case, in which a slave whose owner traveled with him in a free state argued that he should no longer be enslaved. The court ruled that African-Americans were not U. S. Citizens and did not have any rights that a white man has to respect. Emancipation . . .
After the official end of slavery after the Civil War, African-Americans faced a new set of challenges. New governments were being created. A people who had never been allowed any freedoms were now expected to make a life for themselves and their families. Northern Migration . . .
Most new beginnings for former slaves did not occur in the South because of an unresponsive government and white hate groups. Therefore, many African-Americans chose to move North, searching for jobs and increased freedoms.