APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
Notes/Handouts
From Indentured Servitude to Slavery in Virginia: Document
Analysis Practice
As well as studying the history of colonial Virginia, this activity is also a first chance to
practice the brainstorming and analysis skills you'll need for writing Document-Based Question
(DBQ) essays. Your final product in this lesson will be a full thesis paragraph supported by a list
of the top three most significant documents you'd refer to if you were to write a full DBQ.
Essay prompt:
Discuss the effects of the Atlantic trade system on the social and cultural
development of colonial Virginia.
Use the following documents and your knowledge of the time period 16071700 to support your response.
Document A
The tale of Anthony Johnson
Anthony Johnson, an African, arrived in Virginia in 1621 with only the name
Antonio. Caught as a young man in the Portuguese slave-trading net of the Bautista
piracy, he had passed from one trader to another in England until he reached Virginia. .
. Once in Jamestown colony he was purchased by Richard Bennett and sent to work at
Warrasquoke, Bennett’s tobacco plantation on the James River. Antonio was already
trained in skills of care of livestock and tobacco and wheat growth. . .
. . . Antonio, anglicized to Anthony, labored on the Bennett plantation for some
20 years, slave in fact if not by law, for legally defined bondage was still in another
formative stage. During this time, he married the slave Mary, another African trapped
in the labyrinth of servitude, and fathered four children. Some Jamestown slaveholders
in the early years allowed Africans to raise cattle and crops of their own to purchase
their freedom. This practice was akin to an ancient Roman custom that permitted slaves
to accumulate property to eventually acquire their liberty. The Siete Partidas laws, later
adopted by Spain and Portugal, were an ancient acknowledgement that slavery was not
a natural condition for mankind. In the 1640’s, Anthony and Mary Johnson gained their
freedom after half a life-time of servitude. Probably at this point they chose a surname,
Johnson, to signify their new status. Already past middle age, the Johnsons began
carving out a niche for themselves on Virginia’s eastern shore. By 1650, they owned 250
acres due to the headright system, a small herd of cattle, and two black servants. In a
world in which racial boundaries were not yet firmly marked, the Johnson’s had
entered the scramble of small planters for economic security. Antony’s servant was
taken from him by a white planter and he won his case in court having the servant
eventually returned to him.
Source: The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. Volume One to 1877. Gary B. Nash and Julie R.
Jeffrey editors. Longman Press. 1998.
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APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
Notes/Handouts
Document B
Slave Code Passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses, December, 1662
“Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a
negro woman should be slave or free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this
present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or
free only according to the condition of the mother, And that if any Christian shall
commit fornication with a negro man or woman, he or she so offending shall paydouble
the fines imposed by the former act.”
Slave Code Passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses, October, 1669
“Whereas the only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their
master, mistress or overseer cannot be inflicted upon negroes, nor the obstinacy of
many of them by other than violent means suppressed, Be it enacted and declared by
this grand assembly, if any slave resist his master (or others by his masters order
correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his
death shall not be considered a felony, but the master (or that other person appointed
by the master to punish him) be acquit from molestation, since it cannot be presumed
that malice existed(which alone makes murder a felony) [or that anything] should
induce any man to destroy his own estate.”
Slave Code Passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses, October 1705
"All servants imported and brought into the Country. . .who were not Christians in their
native Country...shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves
within this dominion...shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resist his master...
correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction. . .the master shall
be free of all punishment. . .as if such accident never happened."
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APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
Notes/Handouts
Document D
Kenneth Stamp, The Peculiar Institution
In 1956, Historian Kenneth Stampp, countered the then-popular view that slavery had
been a benign practice in his book The Peculiar Institution. On slavery in colonial Virginia,
he said:
"A wise master did not take seriously the belief that Negroes were natural-born slaves.
He knew better. He knew that Negroes freshly imported from Africa had to be broken
into bondage; that each succeeding generation had to be carefully trained. This was no
easy task, for the bondsman rarely submitted willingly. Moreover, he rarely submitted
completely. In most cases there was no end to the need for control—at least not until old
age reduced the slave to a condition of helplessness."
Document E
Tobacco Production in Virginia
Year
1616
1634
1669
1700
Tobacco Exports (lbs)
1,250
500,000
15,000,000
28,000,000
Estimated Population of Colonial Virginia
Year
1630
1640
1650
1660
1670
1680
Total
Pop.
2,500
10,442
18,731
27,020
35,309
43,596
Slave
Pop.
50
150
405
950
2,000
3,000
% of Pop.
Slaves
2.0%
1.4%
2.2%
3.5%
5.7%
6.9%
Year
1690
1700
1710
1720
1730
1740
Total
Pop.
53,046
58,560
78,281
57,757
114,000
180,440
Slave
Pop.
9,345
19,390
23,118
26,559
30,000
60,000
% of Pop.
Slaves
17.6%
33.1%
29.5%
46.0%
33.3%
42.9%
Source: Calculated from Data from the Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce
<http://web.viu.ca/davies/H320/population.colonies.htm>
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APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
Notes/Handouts
Document F
Document G
English advertisement for Virginia tobacco, c1700
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