Slavery and the Slave Economy in Colonial America

Introduction

Modern observers likely know in general terms that many Africans were enslaved throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, but few probably know the extent of suffering that newly enslaved Africans endured from the outset, nor are many likely aware of the legal sources used to justify and legitimize the practice in the Old and New Worlds. Some authorities argue that it was not until the end of the 17th century that racial divisions had become sufficiently codified to protect the "peculiar institution" of slavery in the New World. Given the profound impact that slavery has had on American society, gaining a better understanding of the origins of the slave economy and its implications for civil rights in the United States represents a timely and valuable enterprise.

This paper provides a review of the relevant literature to describe the historical background in which slavery emerged and to examine the structure of the slave economy. Throughout most of the 17th century, the tobacco economies of Virginia and Maryland depended on the contract labor of white indentured servants, who were employed for a term of four to five years and then freed. Only in the late 17th century — particularly after Bacon's Rebellion in 1675–76 — did the planter aristocracy shift to the use of permanently enslaved African labor, which had been relatively uncommon in the Chesapeake colonies up to that time. Unlike white servants, slaves were almost never freed during the colonial period and thus had no opportunity to acquire land and property, let alone civil and voting rights. In South Carolina, however, slavery had existed from the beginnings of the colony in 1670 and increased rapidly with the expansion of rice production, while white indentured servants were uncommon. That colony imported slaves at double the rate of Virginia and Maryland and, like the West Indies, was only able to maintain its slave population through continued imports, while the Chesapeake's slave population began to replace and expand itself through natural increase in the 18th century.

Background and Overview

Sea voyages are dangerous enterprises even today, but it is probably difficult or even impossible for modern observers to imagine the conditions that millions of Africans experienced during their transportation to the New World in the 17th century. Some indication of these experiences can be gained from Stephanie Smallwood's book Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora, in which the author describes the sufferings endured by 300,000 Africans caught up in the slave trade in the Gold Coast region of Africa — now Ghana — during the half-century period from 1675 to 1725. Starting in 1672, the Royal African Company held a monopoly on the slave trade, although it was forced to accept competition in the 18th century. Throughout the period of the slave trade, over 90% of Africans were transported to the sugar-producing islands of the West Indies — such as Jamaica, Barbados, and Santo Domingo — and only a small minority were sent to the English mainland colonies (Smallwood 3).

Like their counterparts from other regions of Africa, these hundreds of thousands of unfortunates were transported to the English American colonies aboard slave ships in the most miserable conditions imaginable, and many did not survive the ordeal and were simply thrown overboard. In this regard, Sowande Mustakeem reports that "despite the efforts used to procure healthy bondpeople, no sea captain or physician could anticipate the diseases capable of wreaking havoc on the bodies and minds of African captives. The intermingling of bondpeople in close confinement in the holds of ships facilitated the exchange of contagious ailments" such as measles, influenza, and smallpox (Mustakeem 475). Despite efforts to recruit the healthiest Africans possible, the toll was enormously high, and "regardless of race or gender, individuals traveling across the Atlantic were never granted immunity to various seaborne ailments or spared from subsequent death. Even more importantly, medical complaints and treatment required for restoration played out much differently at sea than on land" (475). The survivors of this nightmarish voyage found themselves truly strangers in a strange land, though some fared better than others, especially prior to the 18th century.

While Africans from the Gold Coast region were not unique in this experience, Smallwood maintains that their stories provide an authentic example of the factors that contributed to their predicament, including the powerful economic forces at play during this period. There were even social and cultural distinctions among the enslaved themselves: newly arrived Africans were referred to as "saltwater Negroes" or "newcomers" and were regarded as inferior by their American-born counterparts because they could not speak English and were unfamiliar with local laws, customs, and work routines (Jacobs 2008). According to S. M. Jacobs, "American-born slaves were favored by slave-owners, and even among the enslaved there were clear advantages to having been born in the Americas" for those same reasons (568). These advantages would carry important implications for the slave economy that emerged in the Old South, particularly once the slave population there began to grow through natural increase rather than importation. Similarly, slaves with certain skills — such as carpentry or blacksmithing — were valued at least double the price of field hands and ordinary laborers.