The History of Slavery - Essay Example

One also should not ignore the causes of slavery in the first place. First, understanding the origins of slavery is important for preventing the institution from ever returning. Second, scholars need to understand the social and economic conditions of the early English colonies, and the perspective of slaves (and slaveholders) provides an excellent perspective on that history. According to one account, “Research has shown that, despite enormous cruelties, slavery was a profitable labour system” (Norton, Sheriff, and Katzman, 232). A common belief in our day is that slavery itself began as an expression of racist ideologies against the African continent. However, it seems more likely that slavery took its origins in the English colonies with economic factors and the growing capitalist ideology sweeping across Europe and her farthest outposts.

Slavery consisting of a White master and a Black slave truly began in 1441 when a Portuguese ship returned to Portugal with ten African slaves. While slavery already existed on the continent of Africa, this kind of subjugation was vastly different from the kind that would develop on the American continent. Colonization of the Americas increased in strength in the early 1600s, with the first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Other colonies along the eastern seaboard of the continent progressed as well. For the most part, the colonists’ relations with the native populations turned hostile by the middle of the century, creating numerous problems for the English settlers in their attempt to continue their colonization of the east coast. With forest, farm, and seafaring labour to be done, colonists needed a sustainable workforce to accomplish their goals and to survive. By the 1620s and 1630s three groups were already bring contemplated as prospective workers: other Europeans, indigenous Americans, and West Africans. In 1619, the first importation of African captives came upon the American shores. As the poor Englishmen were brought to the country as indentured servants, Africans were promised freedom after several years of labour. However, this promise soon faded and the majority of the new African slaves were kept in slavery for their entire lives. Control over the captive population became a significant issue for whites as rebellion and fear of rebellion spread.

Slavery was defended in a variety of ways by some Southerners, who often relied on practical arguments to support the continued practice of slavery. For instance, “in 1845 James Henry Hammond argued that slaveholding was a matter of property rights, protected by the Constitution because slaves were legal property” (Norton, Sheriff, and Katzman, 234). Other defenders of slaveholding argued because of a hierarchical value of nature as prescribed by nature or God, thus bringing together elements of religion and racism. Moreover, because tradition played such a large role in Southern culture, slaveholders stood resistant to change even in the face of civil war. The issue of slavery was most pressing in the thirty years leading up to the American Civil War, as Thomas R. Dew’s Abolition of Negro Slavery sparked a national debate, and a slew of proslavery defenses. This natural law approach to defending the existence of institutional slavery was countered by abolitionist movements primarily in the Northern states, who disputed the South’s claim that not only was slavery a “necessarily evil” but a “positive good” (Norton, Sheriff, and Katzman, 233). All of this, however, came about because slavery was an instrumental part of the South’s system of commerce, built over hundreds of years. Had another race been chosen as the primary slave workforce, the rhetoric would have been no different. Read More