1. 4
Slavery and Empire

2. Slavery and Empire 1441-1770 The Beginnings of African Slavery
The African Slave Trade
The Development of North American Slave Societies
African to African American
Slavery and the Economics of Empire
Slavery, Prosperity, and Freedom
Conclusion
Slavery and Empire

4. Chapter Focus Questions
How did the modern system of slavery develop?
What was the history of the slave trade and the Middle Passage?
How did Africans manage to create communities among the brutal slave system?

5. Chapter Focus Questions (cont’d)
What were the connections between the institutions of slavery and the imperial system of the eighteenth century?
How and why did racism develop in America?

6. North America and Stono, SC

7. American Communities: Rebellion in Stono, South Carolina
South Carolina rebellion
Slaves go to Florida where freedom had been promised
Enslaved Africans greatly outnumbered white colonists
Sense of desperation but also of community
History of community: oral accounts of the rebellion persisted into the 1930s

8. The Beginnings of African Slavery

9. A portion of the Catalan Atlas
A portion of the Catalan Atlas, a magnificent map presented to the king of France in 1381 by his cousin, the king of Aragon, showing Iberia and north Africa, with the Straits of Gibralter connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. A depiction of Mansa Musa (1312–37), ruler of the Muslim kingdom of Mali, is bottom right. The accompanying inscription describes Musa as “the richest, the most noble lord in all this region on account of the abundance of gold that is gathered in his land.” He holds what was thought to be the world’s largest gold nugget. Under Musa’s reign, Timbuktu became a capital of world renown.

10. The Beginnings of African Slavery
Moral implications
Muslims and Africans slaves because not Christians
1441: Portuguese brought slaves to sugar plantations on Madeira

11. African slaves operate a sugar mill
African slaves operate a sugar mill on the Spanish island colony of Hispaniola, illustated in a
copperplate engraving published by Theodore de Bry in Columbus introduced sugar on his
second voyage, and plantations were soon in operation. Because the native population was
devastated by warfare and disease, colonists imported African slaves as laborers.

12. Sugar and Slavery
Expansion of sugar production increased demand for slaves.
Portugal created brutal but profitable slave labor in Brazil
Dutch merchants
financed and directed the sugar trade
France and later Britain developed own Caribbean sugar plantations

13. Sugar and Slavery (cont'd)
Caribbean sugar and slaves
core of the European colonial system.

14. West Africans
Slaves from well-established societies and local communities of West Africa
More than 100 societies on West African coast
Sophisticated systems of farming
Extensive trade networks
Household slavery an established institution

15. West Africans (cont'd)
Slaves treated more as family than as possessions
Children born free
American slavery transformed, brutalized the African institution

16. The African Slave Trade

17. The Demography of Slave Trade
Most slaves were transported to the Caribbean or South America.
One in 20 were delivered to North America (600,000).
Men generally outnumbered women two to one.

18. MAP 4.1 The African Slave Trade
The enslaved men, women, and children transported to the Americas came from West Africa, the majority from the lower Niger River (called the Slave Coast) and the region of the Congo and Angola.

19. FIGURE 4.1 Africans Imported to Mainland British North America, 1626–1800
These statistics, generated by the computer database of all documented trans-Atlantic slave voyages, demonstrate the rising importance of the slave trade in the British mainland North American colonies.
SOURCE: Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. (accessed 2010).

20. A Global Enterprise
All Western European nations participated in the African slave trade.
The slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, the Dutch in the sugar boom of the seventeenth century, and the English who entered the trade in the seventeenth century.

21. A Global Enterprise (cont'd)
New England slavers entered the trade in the eighteenth century.
Of 10.5 million Africans who arrived in the Americas, 90% went to the sugar colonies.

22. MAP 4.2 Slave Colonies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
By the eighteenth century, the system of slavery had created societies with large African populations throughout the Caribbean and along the southern coast of North America.

23. The Shock of Enslavement
Enslavement was an unparalleled shock.
African raiders or armies often violently attacked villages to take captives.
The captives were marched to the coast, many dying along the way.
On the coast, the slaves were kept in barracoons where they were separated from their families, branded, and dehumanized.

24. The Middle Passage Middle Passage Middle portion of the triangle trade
Shelves 6 feet long and 30 inches high
Crowded together spoon fashion
Little or no sanitation, food was poor
Dysentery and disease.
Slaves resistance:
jumping overboard, refusing to eat, revolting
One in six slaves died during this voyage.

25. Portrait of Olaudah Equiano
Portrait of Olaudah Equiano, by an unknown English artist, ca His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), was published in numerous editions, translated into several languages, and became the prototype for dozens of other slave narratives in the nineteenth century. In the book, Equiano described his capture in west Africa in 1756, when he was eleven years old, his “middle passage” voyage to America, and his eventual purchase by an English sea captain. After ten years as a slave, Equiano succeeded in purchasing his freedom and dedicated himself thereafter to the antislavery cause.
SOURCE: Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

26. Slaves below deck on the Portugese vessel Albaroz
Slaves below deck on the Portugese vessel Albaroz, a sketch made by Lt. Francis Meynell of the British Navy shortly after his warship captured the slaver in Slaves were “stowed so close, that they were not allowed above a foot and a half for each in breadth,” wrote one observer. This practice of “tight packing,” which originated in the fifteenth century, continued to the end of the trade in the late 1860s.

27. Political and Economic Effects on Africa
Slavery enriched a few in Africa, but slave wars ravaged populations, spreading death and destruction far inland.
Loss of population and access to cheap European goods led to economic stagnation and prepared the way for direct European colonization in the nineteenth century.

28. The Development of North American Slave Societies

29. Africans herded from a slave ship
Africans herded from a slave ship to a corral where they were to be sold by the cruel method known as “the scramble,” buyers rushing in and grabbing their pick. An engraving by William Blake in John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).

30. FIGURE 4.2 Africans as a Percentage of Total Population of the British Colonies, 1650–1770
Although the proportion of Africans and African Americans was never as high in the South as in the Caribbean, the ethnic structure of the South diverged radically from that of the North during the eighteenth century.
SOURCE: Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman. Copyright © 1974 by Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

31. The Development of North American Slave Societies
By 1770, Africans and African Americans numbered 460,000 in British North America–comprising over 20% of the colonial population.

32. Slavery Comes to North America
1619: first Africans in Virginia
From a society with slaves to a slave society
Decline in servant immigration
Better opportunities for English servants
The Royal English African Company
labor shortage was filled with slaves.
Virginia: comprehensive slave code

33. Slavery Comes to North America (cont'd)
1700–1710: More Africans imported than in the entire previous century

34. The Tobacco Colonies Tobacco: 25% of the value of all colonial exports
Slavery allowed expansion of tobacco production
Using slave labor, tobacco grown on large plantations and small farms

35. The Tobacco Colonies (cont'd)
Natural increase of slave population in Chesapeake
1750s: 80% of Chesapeake slaves were “country born,” adding to planters’ capital.

36. The Lower South South Carolina: slave society from its founding
Indian slave trade.
Rice and indigo
Large plantations—slaves dominated.
Georgia prohibited slavery

37. The Lower South (cont'd)
1770: About 80% of the coastal population of South Carolina and Georgia was African American.

38. image of Mulberry Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina, about 1800.
Artist Thomas Coram painted this image of Mulberry Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina, about The cabins of the slaves line the path to the mansion. Their steep roofs, an architectural feature introduced in America by enslaved African builders, kept living quarters cool by allowing the heat to rise and dissipate in the rafters.
SOURCE: Thomas Coram, View of Mulberry Street, House and Street. Oil on paper, 10 ✕ 17.6 cm. Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association

39. Slavery in the Spanish Colonies
Papacy denouncement, but basic part of the Spanish colonial labor system
Varied by region
Cuba sugar plantations: brutal
Florida: Household slavery as in Mediterranean and African communities
New Mexico: Mine labor, house servants, fieldworkers

40. Slavery in the Spanish Colonies (cont'd)
Spain declared Florida a haven for runaway slaves from the British colonies and offered land to those who would help defend the colony.

41. Slavery in French Louisiana
Natchez Rebellion 1629
The Natchez Indians and the slaves of Louisiana joined together in an armed uprising killing 10% of the colonial population, but were crushed
French Louisiana became a society with slaves.
Slaves made up only about 1/3 of population

42. Slavery in French Louisiana (cont'd)
Louisiana did not become an important North American slave society until the end of the eighteenth century.

43. Slavery in the North
Slavery was legal and part of the labor system in some northern commercial farming areas but only made up ten percent of the rural population in these regions.
In port cities, slavery was common.

44. Slavery in the North (cont'd)
By 1750, the slave and free African populations made up 15 to 20% of the residents of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Antislavery sentiment first arose among the Quakers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

45. African to African American

46. A Musical Celebration in the Slave Quarters

47. The Daily Lives of Slaves
Africans were majority of plantation labor force
As agricultural peoples, Africans were used to rural routines and most slaves worked in the fields.
Slaves were supplied rude clothes and hand-me-downs from the master’s family.
Small plantations / farms
Africans worked along side masters

48. The Daily Lives of Slaves (cont'd)
Large plantations
Population necessary for the development of an African American culture.

49. Families and Communities
In the development of African American community and culture, the family was the most important institution.
Families were often separated by sale or bequest.
Slaves created family structures developing marriage customs, naming practices, and a system of kinship.

50. Families and Communities (cont'd)
Fictive kinship was used by slaves to humanize the world of slavery.

51. African American Culture
Eighteenth century: formative period of African American community
Development of sustaining spiritually
dance, music, religion, and oral tradition.
Great Awakening conversions
Death and burial important religious practices
Foundations of music and dance

52. African American Culture (cont'd)
Gullah and Geechee languages

53. The Africanization of the South
Acculturation occurred in two directions—English influenced Africans and Africans influenced English.

54. The Africanization of the South (cont'd)
Africanization was evident in:
cooking: barbecue, fried chicken, black-eyed peas, and collard greens
material culture: basket weaving, wood carving, and architecture
language: goober, okay, tote, buddy
music and dance: banjo
Even the Southern “drawl” may show African influence.

55. Violence and Resistance
Slave system based on force and violence
Africans resisted by:
Refusing to cooperate and malingering; mistreating tools and animals; Running away
Revolting (NYC, 1721; Stono, 1739)
Fear of uprisings but slaves in North America rarely revolted
Conditions for a successful revolt were not present

56. Violence and Resistance (cont'd)
Slaves had also developed culture and communities and did not want to risk losing these things.

57. Fugitive slaves flee through the swamps in Thomas Moran’s Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia (1862).
Fugitive slaves flee through the swamps in Thomas Moran’s Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia (1862). Many slaves ran away from their masters, and colonial newspapers included notices urging readers to be on the lookout for them. Some fled in groups or collected together in isolated communities called “maroon” colonies, located in inaccessible swamps and woods.
SOURCE: Thomas Moran (American, 1837–1926), Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia, Gift of Laura A. Clubb, ©2008 The Philbrook Museum of Art, Inc.,Tulsa, Oklahoma.

58. Slavery and the Economics of Empire

59. Eighteenth-century ships being unloaded
Eighteenth-century ships being unloaded of their colonial cargoes on London’s Old Custom House Quay. Most of the goods imported into England from the American colonies were produced by slave labor.
SOURCE: Samuel Scott, Old Custom House Quay Collection. V&A IMAGES, THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON.

60. MAP 4.3 Triangular Trade Across the Atlantic
The pattern of commerce among Europe, Africa, and the Americas became known as the “triangular trade.” Sailors called the voyage of slave ships from Africa to America the “Middle Passage” because it formed the crucial middle section of this trading triangle.

61. Slavery and the Economics of Empire
The slave trade was the foundation of the British economy.
Created a large colonial market for exports that stimulated manufacturing
Generated huge profits that served as a source of investments
Supplied raw cotton to fuel British industrialization

62. FIGURE 4.3 Value of Colonial Exports by Region, Annual Average, 1768–72
With tobacco, rice, grain, and indigo, the Chesapeake and Lower South accounted for nearly two-thirds of colonial exports in the years preceding the American Revolution.
SOURCE: Shipping, Maritime Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial America, James J. Shepherd, and Gary M. Walton, Eds. Copyright © 1972 Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.

63. The Politics of Mercantilism
First advanced in Louis XIV’s France, later adopted in Britain
Colonies existed to benefit the mother country
The economy should be controlled by the state
The economy was a “zero-sum” game where profits for one country meant losses for another.

64. The Politics of Mercantilism (cont'd)
Competition between states was to hoard the fixed amount of wealth that existed in the world.

65. British Colonial Regulation
State trading monopolies
1651–1696: Navigation Acts
legal and institutional structure of Britain’s colonial system.
“Enumerated Articles” such as sugar could only be sent to Britain.
Wool, Hat, and Iron Acts
Great Britain did not allow colonial tariffs, banking, or local coinage.

66. British Colonial Regulation (cont'd)
The increase in colonial trade led Britain to pursue a policy of “salutary neglect.”

67. Wars for Empire
The English, French, and Spanish struggled for control over North America and the Caribbean in a series of wars that had their European counterparts.
Wars in the southern region of the colonies focused on slavery.
Wars in the northern region were generally focused on the control of the Indian trade.

68. Wars for Empire (cont'd)
Down to 1744, the wars were a stalemate, with no nation winning the upper hand in the Americas.

69. The Colonial Economy Despite wars, the colonial economy grew rapidly.
The New England shipbuilding was stimulated by trade.
Benefits for northern port cities
Participation in the slave trade to the South and West Indies

70. The Colonial Economy (cont'd)
Trading foodstuffs for sugar in foreign colonies
Between the 1730s and 1770s, the commercial economies of the North and South were becoming integrated as well as part of the British Atlantic economy.

71. Slavery Prosperity and Freedom, ,
Slavery, Prosperity, and Freedom

72. Advertisement in the Virginia Gazette on September 14, 1769.
Thomas Jefferson placed this advertisement in the Virginia Gazette on September 14, Americans need to seriously consider the historical relationship between the prosperity and freedom of white people and the oppression and exploitation of Africans and African Americans.

73. The Social Structure of the Slave Colonies
Slavery produced a highly stratified class society.
Elite planters held more than half of the land and sixty percent of the wealth.
Small planters and farmers made up half of the adult white male population.
Many kept one to four slaves.

74. The Social Structure of the Slave Colonies (cont'd)
Slavery produced a highly stratified class society.
Throughout the plantation region, landless men constituted about forty percent of the population.
Work included renting land, tenant farming, hiring out as overseers, or becoming indentured servants.

75. White Skin Privilege Skin color determined status.
Legal and other racial distinctions were constant reminders of the freedom of white colonists and the debasement of all African Americans, free or slave.

76. White Skin Privilege (cont'd)
Mixed-ancestry (mulattoes)
Majority of mulattoes were slaves.
Masters often fathered unacknowledged children with female slaves—perhaps Jefferson with Sally Hemings.
Racism created contempt between African Americans and colonists.

77. Conclusion
Slavery, Prosperity, and Freedom

78. Slavery and Empire,
Southern planters, Northern merchants and British traders were all equally involved in slavery.
Slavery permeated colonial societies and made colonies profitable to the mother countries.
Mercantilism supported and reinforced slavery as profits flowed back to England.

79. Chronology
Chronology