RACE-BASED CHATTEL SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES

Slave Codes.

In the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland, Africans were initially treated much like indentured servants—with a limited term of service, after which they gained their freedom (but not equality). By the 1640s, however, slavery had become a hereditary condition bound by race.

The case of John Punch (1641) marked the beginning of inequities among various groups of people, and some historians argue it marks the origin of racial slavery. Punch, an indentured servant from Africa, ran away with two other servants—a Scotsman named James Gregory and a Dutchman named Victor. All three worked for Hugh Gwyn, and they escaped together. However, when caught, James and Victor received an extension of their indentured service for a few extra years. Punch, because he was African, was punished with slavery for the rest of his “natural life.” This case reflects the fact that colonial legislatures formalized the institution of race-based slavery, with detailed slave codes regulating most aspects of enslaved people’s lives. The South Carolina code, for example, defined all “Negroes, Mulattoes, and Indians” sold into bondage as having become enslaved for life, as were the children born of enslaved mothers.

In 1667, the Virginia legislature declared that enslaved individuals could not serve on juries, travel without permission, or gather in groups of more than two or three. Some colonies even prohibited manumission, the practice whereby owners could free their enslaved people. Those who were enslaved usually were forbidden to use their native languages, practice African religions, or sustain their native cultures. With only rare exceptions, enslaved people were prohibited from owning anything unrelated to their work. Most enslaved Africans worked on farms or plantations from dawn to dusk, in oppressive heat and humidity.

The slave codes allowed owners to punish enslaved people by whipping them, slitting their noses, cutting the Achilles tendons in their ankles, castrating men, raping women, or killing them altogether. A 1669 Virginia law declared that accidentally killing an enslaved person who was being whipped or beaten was not a serious crime. In 1713, a South Carolina planter punished one of his enslaved men by closing him up in a coffin to die, only to have the trapped man’s son slip in a knife so that he could kill himself rather than suffocate.

More Africans, Fewer Indentured Servants.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the sugar-based economies of the French and British West Indies and Portuguese Brazil sparked greater demand for enslaved Africans. By 1675, the island colonies in the Caribbean had more than 100,000 enslaved people, while the colonies on the North American mainland had about 5,000.

As tobacco, rice, and indigo crops became more established in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, however, the number of enslaved Africans in those colonies grew substantially, while the flow of White indentured servants from Britain and Europe to America slowed. Until the eighteenth century, English immigrants made up 90 percent of American colonists. After 1700, the largest number of new arrivals were enslaved Africans, who totaled five times more than all European immigrants combined. While most enslaved people were in the southern colonies, all thirteen colonies embraced slavery.

Slavery in New York City.

In contrast to their experience in the southern colonies, most enslaved people in the northern colonies lived in towns or cities. Ethnically diverse New York City had more enslaved people than any other American city, and by 1740 it was second only to Charles Town, South Carolina, in the percentage of enslaved people in its population.

More information

The title page of a document called, “A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of Conspiracy formed by some white people, in conjunction with Negro and other slaves, for burning the city of New York in America, and murdering the inhabitants.” The journal describes the trials held, presents additional incriminating evidence, and lists the sentencing of several individuals.

As the number of Africans increased in the city, fears and tensions mounted—and occasionally exploded. In 1712, several dozen enslaved people revolted; they started fires, then killed Whites trying to fight the blaze. Called out to suppress the “Negro plot,” the militia captured twenty-seven Africans, six of whom committed suicide. The rest were executed. New York officials thereafter passed a citywide black code that strictly regulated the behavior of both free and enslaved Blacks.

However, the harsh regulations did not prevent other acts of resistance. In March 1741, city dwellers worried that enslaved people were setting fires, including one at the governor’s house. “The Negroes are rising!” shouted terrified Whites. Mary Burton, a sixteen-year-old White indentured servant, told authorities that enslaved Blacks and poor Whites were plotting to “burn the whole town” and kill the White men. The plotters were supposedly led by John Hughson, a White trafficker in stolen goods. His wife, two enslaved people, and a prostitute were charged as co-conspirators. Despite their denials, all were convicted and hanged. Within weeks, more than half of the adult enslaved males in the city were in jail.

What came to be called the Conspiracy of 1741 ended after seventeen enslaved people and four Whites were hanged. Thirteen more Blacks were burned at the stake, while many others were deported to the Caribbean colonies.

Freedom Seekers and Slave Rebellions.

Many enslaved people who ran away (freedom seekers) in colonial America faced severe punishments when caught. For example, a man named Antonio was an enslaved West African who tried to escape several times. After his last attempt, in 1656, his owner, a young Dutch planter named Syman Overzee, tortured and killed him. Authorities charged Overzee with murder—only to have an all-White jury acquit him.

In a few cases, enslaved people organized rebellions in which they stole weapons, burned and looted plantations, and killed their captors. On Sunday morning, September 9, 1739, while White families were attending church, some twenty enslaved Africans attacked a store in Stono, South Carolina, twenty miles southwest of Charles Town. The rebels seized weapons, killed and decapitated two shopkeepers, and fled south toward Spanish Florida. Along the way, they gathered more recruits.

Within a few days, the Stono rebels had burned six plantations and killed about two dozen Whites. They spared one innkeeper because he was “kind to his slaves.” The rebels continued to free enslaved people as they moved southward. Then well-armed militiamen on horseback caught up with them. Most of the rebels were killed, and sixty of those captured were decapitated by enraged planters.

The Stono Rebellion, the largest uprising of the colonial period, so frightened White planters that they convinced the South Carolina assembly to ban the importation of enslaved Africans for ten years. They also convinced the assembly to pass the Negro Act of 1740, which called for more oversight of enslaved people’s activities and harsher punishments for rebellious behavior. Enslaved people could no longer grow their own food, gather in groups, learn to read or write, or earn money on the side. Those leaving their owner’s supervision were required to have a pass documenting their whereabouts. The law also reduced the penalty for a White killing an enslaved person to a minor offense, and it banned enslaved people from testifying in courts.

By the time of the American Revolution, slavery in North America wasa rapidly growing phenomenon driven by high profits and justified by a pervasive racism. The colonists believed they were entitled to enslave Africans and Native Americans because, in their view, these were people in need of civilizing. But at the same time, the colonists benefited from the diverse skills of enslaved laborers in helping to produce crops and goods that improved the colonists’ quality of life and sustained their dynamic economy. As the enslaved population expanded, worsening race relations and slave rebellions in the North and South prompted the issuing of slave codes to regulate the movement of all enslaved people. They were regarded merely as chattel—that is, as property. Not even the American Revolution’s ideals of freedom and equality (for Whites) would change that attitude.