In 1600's the colonies?

Question

In 16 and 1700's, what gave the colonists the idea to buy slaves, to bound and control them for laborers, when most colonist came to America so they could have a better and more free and productive lifestyle, yet become masters over other human beings destiny? Was it their european background, even though most never owned a slave in Europe, yet here these pioneers come and instill in a colony state, the attitude of enslavement. Power over other men. Then later to fight against taxation without representation from their sovergn King? It seems as if the colonist wanted their cake and ate it too and be damned their background and morality, pray on sunday against oppression from the British, yet whip and have slaves do much of their labor here for gain and power. What are your thoughts on this? The first slave was thought to have arrived in Jamestown Virginia, around 1615. Was that person transported from England and was this the start of slavery in America?

Answer 1

A Dutch slave trader exchanged his "cargo" of Africans for food in Jamestown, VA in 1619. Those people were sold on to colonists as "servants" to work tobacco farms. The extra low-cost labor increased production and profit. Slavery was legalized, paving the way for more and more unscrupulous traders to operate.

Answer 2

Who gave the colonists the idea to buy slaves? In a simple answer: the Iberians (the Spanish and Portuguese):

"In 1441, a small Portuguese ship carrying twelve black slaves landed in Lisbon. Africans were a novelty and their arrival was greeted with great interest, but with no disapproval because, although slavery had long since disappeared in most of Europe, it had not done so in some areas along the Mediterranean. Slavery continued in those part of Spain and Italy under Moorish rule.

"The first shipload of black slaves was soon followed by others, and as black slaves began to appear farther north in Europe, a debate errupted as to the morality and legality of slavery. A consensus quickly developed that slavery was both sinful and illegal." (Stark, 2003, pg. 305)

However,
"Meanwhile, Columbus had sailed to a New World. Suddenly, Portugal and Spain were involved in extensive efforts to control, exploit, and develop their interests in this enormous new region. Doing so required a labor force. Attempts to exploit the indigenous peoples to work plantations and mines were quite unsucessful. Not only were Indian captives rebellious and obdurate; communicable diseases that Europeans brought with them - especially measles and smallpox - resulted in massive and deadly epidemics, which rapidly reduced the native American populations. In a similar fashion, efforstto use workers imported from Europe failed, especially in the West Indies and Brazil, for lack of immunity to the chronic diseases of the tropics. It wasn't long before European colonizers recognized that a suitable labor force, having substantial immunity [to both communal and] tropical diseases, could be purchased, cheaply, on the west coast of Africa." (Stark, pg. 307)

Interestingly,
"Remarkly few slaves were brought to North America, given the extent of the Southern plantation system at its height and the millions of Americans of African decent. The first black slaves arrived in North America in 1626 when the Dutch landed a small shipment on Manhattan Island. From then until 1808, when it became illegal to import slaves, a total of 400,000 slaves entered the country. In contrast, an estimated 340,000 slaves were imported [to] Barbados, a tiny island having only 166 square miles, or barely a fourth of the size of the median American county. Barbados could absorb such a huge number of slaves only because its appalling slave mortality rate was approximately equal to the rate of imports." (Stark, pg. 318)


I have more to say on the topic, but I have to leave in a few minutes, so I don't have time to write it now. Suffice it to say that greed won out over morality on a large scale. It wasn't until some highly organized groups, like the American and English Quakers, began putting pressure on their fellow citizens to look and think critically about what they were doing, that tide once again turned against slavery.

Answer 3

When Europeans visited African countries the African leaders sold thier own people as laborers. Later, when the African leaders ran out of people they did not mind selling, the Europeans/New Americans took who they wanted without paying for them.

Answer 4

I'm sure that you are intelligent enough to answer your own question. Try this. put "first american slave" into the wikipedia search engine.

Answer 5

sorry, i used to know this but it just slipped out of my mind, i guess