Africans in America - Rockhurst University

Africans in America

U.S. History I
HS 2100

Slave Trade

• Trans-Atlantic slave trade begun by Portuguese

– 1450-1650—small scale; “disposable persons”
– 1650-1850—large scale

• By 1850, 1/3 of all persons of African descent lived outside of Africa
• an estimated 10 million Africans captured and sold into slavery

– Most slaves NOT captured by Europeans

• traded for with African monarchs for guns, goods

– Portugal and Spain dominate slave trade in sixteenth century

• Dutch dominate seventeenth century
• English dominate eighteenth century

Growth of Atlantic Slave Trade

• Triangle trade

– Slave, tobacco, and sugar profits fund industrial revolution

• Slave trade fueled African wars

– European traders provided firearms

• High mortality amongst captured slaves

– Exhaustion ~ suicide ~ murder
– Long, forced marches from interior to coast

• Slave “Factories” established on African coast

– Headquarters for traders
– Warehouses for trade goods
– Pens or dungeons for captives

The Triangle Trade, 18th century

The Middle Passage

• Small and narrow ships
• Crowded, unsanitary

conditions

– High mortality rates

• 1/3 perish between capture
and embarkation

• Most captains were “tight
packers”

http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/slavery/antebellum_slavery/images/slavship2.jpg

Resistance and Revolt at Sea

• Uprisings were common

– Most rebellions before sailing
– Some preferred death to bondage
– Justification for harsh treatment by slavers

African Women on Slave Ships

• Less protection against unwanted sexual
attention from European men

• African women worth half the price of
African men in the Caribbean markets

• Separation from male slaves made them
easier targets

Seasoning

• Modify behavior and attitude
• Preparation for north American planters
• Creoles

– slaves born in the Americas
– worth three times price unseasoned Africans

• Old Africans

– Lived in the Americas for some time

• New Africans

– Had just survived the middle passage

• Creoles and old Africans instruct new Africans

Estimated African Slave Imports by
Destination, 1451-1870

• British North America 339,000
• Spanish America 1,552,100
• British Caribbean 1,665,000
• French Caribbean 1,600,000
• Dutch Caribbean
• Danish Caribbean 500,000
• Brazil 28,000
• Europe
3,464,800
175,000

Africans in North America

• First arrivals

– Luis Vasquez de Ayllon
– Hernando de Soto
– St. Augustine. Fla.

• 1619, first Africans servants arrived at Jamestown

– status is unclear—were probably indentured servants

• English had no law for slavery
• English custom forbade enslaving Christians

Slavery in Colonial Virginia

• 1619-1650, there were very few blacks in Va.

– 15,000 whites, 300 blacks in Va. in 1648

• Blacks were distinguished by race in early Va.

– 1629, Va. census distinguished blacks and whites
– 1640, blacks prohibited from owning firearms
– 1640, three runaway servants captured—2 were white,

one was black

• whites got 4 years added to indenture; black got life
• Blacks begin to be sold for life terms

– something no white person was subject to

Slavery in Colonial Virginia

• 1660s, slavery becoming an established practice

– As life expectancies increased, slavery became cost-
effective

– slaves didn’t create a problem of a poor underclass
when freed

– slaves could reproduce a new generation of laborers
– racial slavery bound poor and elite whites together—

racial identity
• black skin identified with inferiority and servitude

Chattel Slavery

• Laws passed between 1660 and 1705 codify slavery in Va.
– most blacks in Va. committed to life servitude
– 1667 law determined that child would inherit the
condition of its mother, and that baptism had no effect
on one’s earthly condition
– 1705 slavery was fully codified in VA law

• slaves now legally property/real estate, not men
• could be shot on sight (not innocent until proven guilty)
• had no right to self-defense
• blacks tried in separate courts
• Blacks could not testify against whites
• Manumission forbidden

Development of Southern Slavery

• 1710, slaves made up 30% of Va.’s population

– 1750, they made up 41%

• Slavery soon developed in other Southern colonies

– SC had a slave majority by mid- 18th c.

• 1740, slaves accounted for ¼ of Southern population

– 1775, they accounted for 40% of Southern population

• Slavery existed in all 13 colonies before independence

– But in 1770, Southern colonies had more than 9 times the
number of slaves as northern colonies

Plantation Slavery 1700-1750

• Tobacco ~ Chesapeake

– Increased demands for labor and slaves

• Racial prejudice
• Fewer white indentured servants available
• More Africans available
• Fear of class conflict

• Rice ~ Low-Country South Carolina

– Early settlers were immigrants from Barbados

• Brought slaves with them
• Never any black indentured servants
• Enslaved more Indians than other British colonies
• West Africans experienced at cultivating rice

Slavery in Northern Colonies

• Fewer slaves

– Cooler climate

• Sufficient numbers of white laborers
• Lack of staple crop
• Diversified economy

– Many Northern slaves worked in urban areas

• Servants, shipbuilders, dockworkers

– Milder slave codes

• New England slaves could legally own, transfer, and inherit
property

• Rapid assimilation

– Fewer opportunities to preserve African heritage

Slavery in Spanish Florida and
French Louisiana

• Spanish Florida

– Blacks needed as soldiers
– Became Catholic and acquire social status
– People of African descent flee to Cuba when British

take control in 1763

• French Louisiana

– most black slaves live in New Orleans

• Become skilled artisans
• Catholics

– Extensive black population remained when the United
States took control in 1803

Proportion of slaves
to population, 1760

Slave Work

• Slaves involved in every phase of agriculture

– Preparing ground, cultivating the crop and harvesting it
– curing, ginning or milling necessary to get it to market

• Slaves were also involved in almost every econ.
activity on large plantations

– Some were skilled artisans

• carpenters, blacksmiths, brick masons, tanners, teamsters,
distillers

– Others worked in the owners home

• cooks, butlers, maids, wet nurses, laundresses

Work Management

• Small farms—owners worked alongside slaves
• Large farms—owners usually personally directed

slave work but often appointed a “driver”
• Plantations—owners often distant or absent

– Hired an “overseer” to run plantation, control slaves
– Overseers supervised drivers

• who were in charge of work gangs of about 10 slaves

• Two basic work schemes existed:

– Gang system was prevalent in the cotton kingdom

• Gangs worked from sunup to sundown

– Task system was prevalent in rice and hemp country

• Slaves assigned specific tasks to do

Work Motivation

• Incentives

– Decent food, housing, time off
– Keeping families together
– Rewards for loyalty or hard work

• Family gardens, homes, free time

– Special meals
– Clothes
– Competitions

• Cash prizes, time off, extra food or clothing

• Force

– Punishments

• Extra work, cancellation of dances/parties, stocks, separating family,
whippings

Hired-out slaves

• Most industrial slaves were “hired-out”

– Contracts usually stipulated the term of service, how
much “rent” owner would be paid, who would pay
slave’s maintenance, and type of work to be done

– Some slaves, usually skilled artisans, were even able to
hire-out their own time, by which they agreed to pay
their master a portion of their wages, while feeding,
housing, and clothing themselves

• Other uses of hired slaves:

– Planters often hired extra slaves during harvest time
– Railroads hired slaves as construction workers
– City dwellers often hired slaves as domestic servants

Origins of African-American Culture

• Creolization and miscegenation

– Created African-Americans

• Evidences of African culture in Americas:

– Food
– Craft
– Folk Medicine/Conjurers
– Language
– Folk tales
– Music and Dance

Slave Women

• 1700s, 90 percent work in fields
• In time, more women become house servants

– Constant white supervision
– Sexual exploitation
• Slave women were less likely to become fugitives

– Had to care for children
– Single women slaves were more suspicious on the roads

Slave Families

• Obstacles for slave families:

– Physical proximity

• “away” marriages
• Breaking up of families

– Lack of control/protection of the family

• Master was the true head of the family
• Husbands could not protect their wives, parents could not

protect children from physical/sexual abuse, sale, violence
• Master provided food, shelter

– Legality

• Slave marriages had no legal standing

Slave Economy

• Many slaves were allowed to earn money

– Selling food

• Many slaves raised vegetables, hunted, and fished

– Skilled artisans could sell their goods

• woodworking, basket-weaving, broom-making

– Slaves who worked on Sundays master were often paid

• La. law even mandated that slaves be paid for Sunday work

– Hired-out slaves often allowed to keep what they
earned over their rental fees

– Some slaves purchased their own freedom, and the
freedom of their families

Slave Religion

• Before Great Awakening , few slaves were Christians
– After the Awakening, masters began converting slaves

• Church the most “Americanizing” institution for slaves
– Slaves often adapted African religious traditions into
American Christianity
– Black churches were illegal in the antebellum South

• most slaves therefore worshipped with their masters

• Religion a means to control slaves
– Owners often used the Bible to pacify slaves

• Religion also a way for slaves to resist
– Hope of deliverance
– Hymns used to communicate escape routes

Free Blacks in Colonial America

• 1775, Approximately 50,000 free blacks in the colonies

– Va., Md., N.C. had the largest free black populations
– Charleston, New Orleans, N.Y.C., Cincinnati cities with

largest black populations

• Economic opportunities better in the South
• Free blacks were not allowed to move freely
• Free blacks did not have political, social, economic or

legal equality with whites

– Though their status varied depending on where they were
– Segregated by custom, not law

Richard Allen and Absalom Jones

• 1780s, founded the African
Methodist Episcopal
Church (Philadelphia)

– First all-black church/major
all-black institution in U.S.

• Also founded fraternal and
self-help organizations

Richard Allen

http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/images/richallens.jpg

Blacks in the American Revolution

• Blacks sided with those who offered freedom

– Patriots in the North
– Loyalists in the South

• Patriot leaders feared enlisting blacks

– Encourage leaving their masters w/o permission
– White people feared armed blacks

• Washington prohibited enlistments in 1775

Black Loyalists

• Fears of British-instigated slave revolt

– Lord Dunmore

• Proclamation offering to liberate slaves, November 1775

• Slaves escape to British

– 30,000 in Virginia
– Laborers and foragers
– Black Loyalists greater in low country of South Carolina

and Georgia

• End of war 10K blacks leave Savannah and Charleston

Black Patriots

• Troop shortages forced Congress and state
governments to use black soldiers

– Dec. 1775, Washington permitted black soldiers

• “Success will depend on which side can arm the Negro faster.”

• Southern states

– Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina
reluctantly enlist free blacks

• Only Maryland exchanges service for freedom

– South Carolina and Georgia refused black enlistments

• 5000 African American served the Patriot cause

– Fought in integrated units

The Revolution and Emancipation

• By 1784 all northern states except New
Jersey and New York had legislated some
form of emancipation.

• Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia eased
manumission laws

• Deep South saw efforts to mitigate brutal
excesses

Slave Revolts

• Few slave revolts in colonial N. America
• New York Rebellion, 1712
• Stono Rebellion (Charleston, S.C.), 1739

– Largest slave uprising in British N. America

• 60+ people were killed, two-thirds slaves

– In response, S.C. passed the Negro Act of 1740

• Gabriel Prosser Conspiracy (Va., 1800)

• Denmark Vesey Conspiracy (S.C, 1822)

– Vesey, a free black carpenter, organized 9,000 slaves and
planned an armed attack on Charleston, S.C.

• Plan betrayed by slaves, and Vesey was executed along with 34 other
conspirators

Nat Turner • Largest slave rebellion in U.S.
• 1825 to 1830, Turner was became

a popular slave preacher in Va.

– sermons focused on conflict and
liberation

• August 22, 1831, Turner’s
uprising began at the Travis home,
where he was enslaved

– killed everyone in the household.

• Eventually 60 to 70 slaves joined
in Turner’s rebellion

• Rebellion lasted almost three days,
killed 57 whites, and resulted in
deaths of over 100 rebels.

• The uprising intensified both the
antislavery movement in North,
and the proslavery forces in South.

Slave Resistance

• Slave resistance not just armed rebellion.

– Poisoning
– Slow downs
– Destruction of property
– Feigned sickness
– Theft
– Arson
– Infanticide
– Self-injury
– Murder
– Running away

• Maroons

Underground
Railroad

http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/PROJECTS
/underground_railroad.jpg

Abolition • William Lloyd Garrison

– 1831, the Liberator.
– Reject "gradualism"
– freedom, and equality
– 1833, founded American Antislavery

Society

• Frederick Douglass

– Born a slave in Md., Douglass escaped
in 1838

– Published the North Star
– 1845, Narrative of the Life of

Frederick Douglass

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852

– Harriet Beecher Stowe
– Sold 300,000+ copies first year
– Brought abolitionism to an enormous

new audience

Blacks in the Civil War

• Lincoln tried to ignore the slave issue in 1861

– war was to preserve the union, not to end slavery

• Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany pressured
Lincoln to enlist black soldiers

– Raised lots of questions for whites

• Would blacks fight?
• If blacks could be soldiers, shouldn’t they also be citizens?

• Douglass implored Lincoln to transform the war into a
crusade against slavery.

• Run-away slaves also put pressure on Lincoln to act

Emancipation Proclamation

• January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued
Emancipation Proclamation as a
war measure

– slaves in all states and portions of
states still at war with the federal
government were free and would
remain so.

• Signaled federal government's
opposition to slavery

– The war became a war to end
slavery

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/jb/civil/jb_civil_subj_e.jpg

“The Effects of the Proclamation - Fred Negroes Coming Into
Our Lines at Newbern, North Carolina”
Harpers Weekly February 21, 1863

Black Troops

• Emancipation Proclamation allowed army to accept
black recruits

– 186,000+ blacks enrolled in the army; 10,000 in the navy

• About 10% of the union forces

– 53,000 came from free states
– 93,000 came from seceded states
– 40,000 came from border states

• Black soldiers endured 40% higher causality rates
than white soldiers

– 38,000 black soldiers killed in the war

• Confederates declared black soldiers insurrectionaries
who would be executed if captured

“Colored troops under General Wild, liberating slaves
in South Carolina” Harpers Weekly January 23, 1864