Slavery In Colonial America Essay

Slavery in Colonial America

The first arrivals of Africans in America were treated similarly to the indentured servants in Europe. Black servants were treated differently from the white servants and by 1740 the slavery system in colonial America was fully developed.

Slavery as it existed in America was a practice founded on the chattel principle. Slaves were treated as human chattel to be traded, sold, used, and ranked not among beings, but among things, as an article of property to the owner or possessor.

Because the American slave system was based on this principle of human chattlehood, slaves were confined in many ways that handicapped them from even being able to act or live as a human being. The very idea of human chattelhood gave the master unlimited control over his

In other nations, slaves would be of the same race as their master. An ex-slave could re-enter society with their past forgotten and be accepted once again. On the other hand, American slavery was closely connected to racial differences that led to racial segregation and discrimination. Master and slave could physically be distinguished from one another, which ultimately distinguished one as human and the other as

Shortly after, Thomas Jefferson wrote his first version of the Declaration of Independence in which he indicted King George for promoting slavery in America. The Declaration of Independence became renown as the document that celebrated human rights and personal freedom, and yet at the time when Jefferson wrote it, he himself owned over 200 slaves. Many Americans during this time period came to forget that they were of the same human species as their slaves. Freedom was an issue that pertained to humans, not human