18th Century Slavery Dbq

During the 17th and early 18th century, slavery in the United States grew from being a small addition to the labor force to a huge institution that would persist for more than a century. Much of the development of slavery occurred in the Middle and Southern colonies, especially Virginia. Without the events that occurred and the policies established in Virginia during this time period, slavery would never have become what it did today. The decrease in indentured labor coming from England led to an increase in slave labor in the colonies, and the introductions of the concepts of hereditary slavery and chattel slavery transformed slavery into the binding institution it became in the 18th century. From 1607 to 1750, Virginia saw the emergence

As Document 1 shows, there was a huge spike in indentured servants coming over to the colonies from 1645 to 1664. This was because of the Great Migration and poor conditions in England -- the lower classes of England were enticed by the promise of the colonies and flocked there in droves as indentured servants. However, after the Great Migration ended, less and less indentured labor showed up each year, which led to the trend one sees on the “Slaves per inventory” part of the graph. Plantation owners were purchasing more and more slaves to support their plantations in the absence of indentured labor, and the slaves they purchased had kids who eventually began to survive past infancy. Another reason slavery slowly replaced the institution of indentured servitude was because of Bacon’s Rebellion and similar problems with former indentured servants, as seen in Document 5. Freemen who were once indentured servants created problems and disturbances within the colonies, but this was only because the bonds of indentured servitude were temporary -- plantation owners thought of slaves as never having the chance to rebel in the ways that freemen did during Bacon’s Rebellion, and as such their preference for labor shifted further towards slavery and not indentured

Before this concept was legally supported, children of slaves were often made to serve for long periods of time, but the promise of freedom was always there -- for example, in Document 3, the children of the slave Emmanuel Dregis are said to serve for 13 and 31 years, but they would be free after that period. Document 3 was written during the period of time that the Natural Increase was occurring, and as such it made sense for policy makers to institute hereditary slavery shortly afterward. The increasing number of children of slaves surviving past infancy made the economic benefits much more tempting than the moral dilemma of assigning slavery in the womb. Document 4 also addressed the question of hereditary slavery, but specifically within a Christian context. The audience that the Virginia General Assembly was addressing was the God-fearing plantation owners who worried that, by baptizing the children of slaves, they would free them; the Assembly stated that they would still be slaves because, once again, the economic benefits outweighed the moral