Chattel Slavery Dbq

Concurrently, in Europe, peasants who comprised the majority of the population worked and payed tribute to the Catholic Church. The class system was so entrenched in society that the lack of social mobility was severe, generations would all be limited to occupying the same class. Fluctuating climate changes rendered consistent growth of crops and support of a growing population impossible (Lect. 1, 1/22). Life in rural Europe was inhospitable and even though peasants were prohibited from migrating to the cities, some still risked it in hopes of a better future. The reality was that the urban centers were not fairing any better, being riddled with disease and overcrowded. All these factors contributed to the frustration of Western Europeans

and encouraged their migration, “Population growth, economic depression, and enclosures had worsened poverty and unemployment in England and produced a supply of recruits who were willing to sign an indenture” (Clark, pg. 68). These disillusioned European migrants primarily served as indentured servants in colonies like the Chesapeake, contributing to the main labor force with only a fraction being African slaves (Clark, pg. 64). However, the living and working conditions of indentured servants were deplorable and the ruling class simply exploited their labor. Not only that, but the promises of land made to indentured servants were increasingly causing the ruling class to reconsider their options, “As more servants survived their terms and clamored for the land they had been promised, the system of indentured servitude began to lose its attractiveness to planters” (Clark pg. 74). This had major implications that led to Bacon’s Rebellion, which challenged the lack of equality of Virginia’s plantation economy and united an interracial militia against the upper class (Lect. 5, 2/1). However, with the death of Nathaniel Bacon, the rebellion fell apart and the consequences for black slaves were tremendous. All in all, the migration of these English colonists to what would become the United States, was one of the deciding factors in the progression of racial slavery.
Being able to exploit other nations by enslaving them for cheap labor was a means of growing profits. By wiping out native religions and cultural customs of Africans and other native peoples, Europeans were “doing them a favor” in their minds. They were providing uncultured people with religion and a better culture. As evidenced in Document 1, Kongolese king Afonso emphasized how the Portuguese would just come into his lands and take away people as they saw fit, “…In order to satisfy their voracious appetite, seize many of our people, freed and exempt men, and very often it happens that they kidnap even noblemen and the sons of noblemen, and our relatives” (Davidson, 192-93). There was no return and it was a one-way trip, stripping slaves of their humanity and treating them as cargo basically. Europeans took Africans at will, taking people who would be leading societies in Africa, removing the best of individuals from societies that needed them for their functioning. By doing so, indirectly Europeans hindered the development of African societies and caused them to stagnate. Routes like the Triangular Trade were established, which shipped goods to Africa in exchange for slaves, and shipped those slaves to the New World for production of even more goods. When the Europeans showed up to Africa, major trade hubs that spanned the Sahara to Egypt, existed, trading spices, salt, and other luxuries (Lect. 2, 1/22). However, the outstretched arms of colonization proceeded with a “better” plan, to remove any inkling of progress that could define an advanced African society. Slaves were taken from West Africa, prisoners from inland regions and taken out to the coast to be shipped off the New World and the colonies (Lect. 3, 1/25). The financial incentive, ability to easily obtain labor, and having utmost control over a group of people, only further added to the propensity for slave trade, “The settlers of North America continued, above all, to need labor. The differences in the ways they procured it would have profound implications for the future. This was particularly true of the different labor-patterns that developed in the northern and southern colonies of British North America” (Clark, pg. 56).
The transition from indentured servitude to slavery for blacks in the colonies was due to a variety of factors.

Frustration with the system of indentured servitude and lack of labor resulted in the English implementing a similar system of African slavery in the Chesapeake like the Caribbean sugar colonies. (Lect. 5, 2/1). The rise of chattel slavery was another factor that served to buttress the ideology of enslaving Africans, where people were seen as property to be bought and sold. The most prominent example is in 1662, where a law was passed stating that a child’s freedom was derived from the mother. The ruling class utilized this for their own benefit, so that the child of an unfree woman would always be a slave, translating to a continuous source of labor. Furthermore, laws stating that slavery was the natural condition of black people in the 1660s were passed, neither achievement nor aptitude mattered. (Lect. 5, 2/1). Slave codes were enacted throughout time in different Southern colonies, gathering all laws regulating slavery and consolidating it into a set of rules. It was an ideological tool to figure out how to regulate and uphold slavery, transforming the white population into a surveillance force (Lect. 5, 2/1). With the establishment of such laws, it coerced black slaves to behave inferiorly and this is the way the white population became acclimated to seeing them. It became a self-perpetuating concept of sorts and over time the condition of black people was seen as this universal truth, when the reality was far from it, they were forced into their condition. The discord left by Bacon’s Rebellion was taken advantage of by the ruling class that feared future rebellion; they sought to quell the angst of the white population by redirecting their tension towards the black population. The task of the ruling class was to implement an ideological change, since indentured servitude was fundamentally different from owning a person for life. To sow division,

laws were utilized to create these boundaries that would not be crossed by whites and isolate them from interacting with blacks as equals, “Continuing a process begun before the rebellion, a series of measures sought to place black people—both free and slave—in greater subjection…Free blacks faced new restrictions on their legal and political rights” (Clark, pg. 81). Blacks were prohibited from interracial cohabitation/marriage, prevented from carrying arms, owning land, and had no say in political processes (Clark, pg. 81). Instead of labor being solely due to class, by adding a racial element to it, this would strengthen white solidarity against the minority black population and justify their subjugation.