Slavery In Colonial America

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Slavery is the main issue in the 17th and 18th century and was used in economic foundations of Colonial America. It all started with the first colony Jamestown, Virginia which was established in 1607 then the famous and widely used crop tobacco was raised in 1612 also in Virginia. The year 1619, 20 Africans were brought to Virginia on a Portuguese slave ship and they wanted to buy food but they didn’t have any money so they sold the slaves to the settlers of Jamestown. The plantation owners were desperate for work so the slaves were used to work their tobacco fields. From the 20 African slaves some were either going to be chattel or indentures slaves to their owners. Eventually it was all going to change from going to indentured servitude to …show more content…

During the revolutionary war against Britain, while Americans were trying to fight for their freedom African slaves were trying to for themselves too. Some of the first efforts to try and end slavery was during this war. There were slave owners contradicting themselves of owning African slaves while fighting for their own freedom so they freed their slaves. African slaves really wanted their freedom so they would do anything to achieve it. Slave owners were afraid to leave to war and to leave the slave with their families because they could try and kill them. They didn’t want to give them guns either because they though they would just use them against them. Leaders like Alexander Hamilton created a battalions of negroes that would fight with them in exchange of their freedom after the war. Britain also was saying the same thing to them also, Lord Dunmore the British governor wrote a proclamation saying that any slaves that ran away and fought for the British army would have their freedom after the war was over. Around 4,000 runaway slaves signed their named, even though they lost the war thy still were granted their freedom and were sent to Jamaica and Nova

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