Slavery In America

Slavery has been in the Americas since Europe discovered them. It helped the colonies that settled grow and develop so that they were able to survive on their own away from Britain, France, and Spain. It also allowed the mother countries to make a profit from the colonies, resulting them in spending more on the colonies so that they would continue to grow and expand through the continent. The treatment of slaves though was harsh and unnecessary for the circumstances. Slavery, while inhumane, had an important role in the growth and development of the colonies by being an abundant source of free labor to build the agricultural economy.

According to historian Rob Voss, “Slavery started in the America’s when Christopher Columbus first arrived

because he enslaved the natives based on the fact that they did not have the same religious views as the Spanish. ” This gradually changed over time because the natives could easily escape since they knew the land better or they died off from diseases that the Spanish and English brought when they came to the new world.

Laws were also set up that prevented the colonies from enslaving people based on their religion which then caused the colonies to claim that it was race-based slavery. When blacks were first brought to the colonies, they were not slaves, instead they were indentured servants who worked for a set period of time and eventually earned their freedom and could do as they wish. The servants could “get three times the wages for their labor as they [could] in England. ” This did not draw enough European laborers to the colonies though to keep up with the rapidly growing agriculture, resulting in the European countries turning to Africa for labor. Labor was incredibly important in the economic growth of the colonies because “slave plantations of the West Indies became the largest marked for American fish, oats, corn, flour, lumber, peas, beans, hogs, and horses. ” While selling slaves did not bring in a lot of profit for the European countries, it “[produced] the major

consumer goods that were the basis of world trade during the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries: coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco. ” Slaves were also used as a way of pay for some people. William Byrd II wrote in his diary that “The Governor made three proposals to the Tuscaroras: that they would join with the English to cut off those Indians that had killed the people of Carolina, that they should have 40 shillings for every head they brought in of those guilty Indians and be paid the price of a slave for all they brought in alive… ” This not only helped with capital but also aided in groups protecting each other against the natives.
Since the colonies were lacking willing servants and the native slaves were dying off or escaping, they looked to Africa to supply their labor.

Some countries in Africa already had slaves, while others were at war due to crippling governments. European countries set up slave trade posts along the costs but a majority of slaves were captured by other Africans, some were prisoners of war, others were arrested for petty crimes, and sometimes entire villages were raided in attempt to capture slaves. This was rather brutal as countries at war would trade slaves for resources they needed like guns and irons. Gomes Eannes de Azurara, a seaman who documented “one of the earliest first-hand accounts of African slave trade… witnessed a Portuguese raid on an African village. He said that some captives “drowned themselves in the water; others thought to escape by hiding under their huts; others shoved their children among the seaweed. ”” Slaves were packed onto ships sent for the new world and of the approximate 10 million captured and sent, about 1 million of them died on the

way.
Depending on where the slaves served their masters depended on their treatment along with who they served. Slaves in the South tended to be treated more harshly than those in the North. According to former slave, Charles Ball, his mother was beaten by her new master, whom he believed drove her to Carolina, when she begged his master, who took him to Maryland, to buy her whole family to keep them together. His new master, John Cox, also known as Jack Cox, gave him clothes since he’d been naked his whole life, which were “better clothes than the little slaves [his age] generally received in Calvert, and often told [him] that he intended to make [him] his waiter. ” When his master died when he was just twelve years old, he was moved to be under his master’s father’s control. After approximately 8 years, he was again traded to a master aboard a Navy Ship. He was given certain “freedoms” such as visiting the city Sunday afternoons and would see lines of chained slaves on their way to the South during his walks. It was not common for slaves to try to run away from their masters, his father was the only one he knew of and he hadn’t heard of him since he ran from his master. This shows some of the difference between treatments of slaves from the North compared to those in the South.
While a multitude of slaves were mistreated, they were crucial in the growth of the country. Without slaves, the economy would not have developed as well or as rapidly as it had with them. This does not mean that what the colonies was right. Greed and capital was a reason they moved from indentured servants, who were paid and could earn their freedom, to slaves, who worked without pay and never earned their freedom. How they treated the slaves was based entirely on who owned the slaves and those slave owners definitely could have had a different approach on how to properly trade slaves, who they saw as property rather than people.