Slavery in Early
American Life and
Culture
A Different Sensibility
“An Unthinking Decision”
~Edmund Morgan
"The past is a foreign country:
they do things differently there."
~L.P. Hartley
Question #1
Did British Colonists Intend to
Create Slave-Based
Societies?
No
• With the Possible Exception of South
Carolina
• British Sense of Identity
• Racial Pride
• Anti-Spanish Instincts
• British Surplus of Labor
Question #2
Was the Experience of the
Earliest African Slaves the
Same as the Experience of
Later Slaves?
Atlantic Creoles
Atlantic Creoles
• Religious Differences More Important
Than Race
• Class Differences More Important Than
Race
• Owned Property, Built Alliances,
Participated in the Legal System
• Anthony Johnson; Francis Payne
• “I know myne owne ground”
Question #3
So, What Happened?
1662, slavery becomes hereditary in
Virginia.
1664, Maryland passes a law that baptism
does not free a slave. 1667, Virginia does
likewise.
In the 1669, murder of a slave no longer a
felony in Virginia.
In 1680, Virginia forbade the gathering of
blacks for nighttime funerals.
Virginia Slave Code, 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."
Names: A Marker of Change
• First Generation: Juan Rodrigues, Samba
Bambara, Paulo d’Angola, Anthony
Johnson.
• Later Generations: Bossey, Jumper,
Hercules.
Brutality: A Marker of Changing
Attitudes
“In the previous century, maimings,
brandings and beatings had occurred
commonly, but the level of violence
increased dramatically as planters
transformed the society with slaves into a
slave society. Chesapeake slaves faced
the pillory, whipping post, and gallows far
more frequently and in far large numbers
than ever before. Even as planters
employed the rod, the lash, the branding
iron, and the fist with increased regularity,
they invented new punishments that would
humiliate and demoralize as well as
correct. What else can one make of
William Byrd’s forcing a incontinent slave
drink a pint of urine, or Joseph Ball’s
forcing slaves to wear a horse’s bit?”
~Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone