Do you ever have sources for your pronouncemnts?
From PBS-dot-org
Quote:It is late summer. Out of a violent storm appears a Dutch ship. The ship's cargo hold is empty except for twenty or so Africans whom the captain and his crew have recently robbed from a Spanish ship. The captain exchanges the Africans for food, then sets sail.
It's not clear if the Africans are considered slaves or indentured servants. (An indentured servant would be required to work a set amount of time, then granted freedom.) Records of 1623 and 1624 list them as servants, and indeed later records show increasing numbers of free blacks, some of whom were assigned land. On the other hand, records from gatherings do not indicate the marital status of the Africans (Mr., Miss, etc.) and, unlike white servants, no year is associated with the names -- information vital in determining the end of a servant's term of bondage. Most likely some Africans were slaves and some were servants. At any rate, the status of people in bondage was very confusing, even to those who were living at the time.
Whatever the status of these first Africans to arrive at Jamestown, it is clear that by 1640, at least one African had been declared a slave. This African was ordered by the court "to serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere."
The grounds for this harsh sentence presumabley lay in the fact that he was non-Christian rather than in the fact that he was physically dark. But religious beliefs could change, while skin color could not. Within a generation race, not religion, was being made the defining characteristic of enslaved Virginians, The terrible transformation to racial slavery was underway.
Also by 1640, England had descended into civil war. But even by 1628, when King Charles had prorogued Parliament, the North American colonies were on their own. In Virginia, they were increasingly under attack by the local tribes, and had to trade for guns, powder and shot. In Massachusetts, the Puritans were making war on the local tribes, and wanted to trade for guns powder and shot. There was little in the way of specie, i.e., gold and silver coins. So trading, rather than purchase, was the commonplace. In the West Indies, the French, Dutch and English planters had little in the way of food, but they did have molasses, and they did have slaves. The English colonists from the mainland had food to offer, and rum. They traded for the molasses because they could make rum from it, and sell it in Holland and France for actual cash money. They took African slaves because it was often the only way they could make up a cargo from people who were getting more than they were giving.
Linked at the PBS Page:
Quote:And in the 1630s and '40s, we find examples of free Africans in Virginia, which has led some historians to argue that these first arrivals were treated very much as English servants would have been treated, that is, freed after a set term of years.
History was never as cut and dried as people like to make it out to be. Slavery did not become big business in the new world until after 1660, when the Stuart monarchy was restored. At that time, New England smugglers made good money from rum running. They could take a cargo to smuggle into England, and to sell in Holland or France (which was, technically, at that time, smuggling; the French trade goods were more highly valued than English goods at that time). Then they ran down to the slave coast of Africa, picked up slaves, which they sold in the West Indies, actually not selling, but trading for molasses to make more rum. It was southern traders bringing food to the West Indies who were getting slaves foisted off on them, in island colonies as cash-strapped as they were themselves. In 1685, a storm-tossed ship landed in Charles Town, South Carolina (as it was then called), with a cargo of see rice from east Africa. Soon, rice was purpose grown in South Carolina and Georgia for sale in the West Indies. As usual, a good deal of the transaction was in trade, and slaves were the most valuable commodity available for trading.
The system foisted slavery off on the English North American colonies, rather than any rapacious lust for slavery on the part of the inhabitants. I don't intend to respond to sneering straw man allegations from such an ignoramus as Anus. I'm only responding here because there are others reading who may otherwise swallow his bullsh*t, which is all he ever posts at this site.
