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Explore the intertwining histories of Africans, American Indians, and the Spanish Empire in North America, spanning from Christopher Columbus's voyages to the emergence of chattel slavery and plantation life. Discover how these diverse populations influenced and shaped each other's lives in this fascinating journey through history.
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The Peoples of North America • African slaves adapted to their new environment and along the way preserved their African culture while also coming in contact with new cultures such as the American Indians.
American Indians • Indians • The diverse peoples called Indians as a result of Christopher Columbus’s mistaken belief that in 1492 he had landed in the “Indies.” • However, these people saw themselves as very different and diverse populations.
The Spanish Empire • Following Christopher Columbus’s voyage in 1492, the Spanish rapidly built colonies in America. • Africans came early to these borderlands. In 1526 Luis Vasquez de Ayllon brought one hundred African slaves with him from Hispaniola.
The British and Jamestown • The English were slower to establish colonies in the Americas. • They were considered a poorer nation than Spain. • John Cabot established the first colony on the East Coast of North America called Jamestown.
Africans in Jamestown • By the early months of 1619, there were thirty-two people of African descent—fifteen men and seventeen women—living in the English colony at Jamestown.
Black Servitude in the Chesapeake • From the 1620s to the 1670s, black and white people—as well as American Indians—worked in the tobacco fields together, lived together, and slept together. As members of an oppressed working class, they were all unfree indentured servants. Indentured servitude had existed in Europe for centuries.
Race and the Origins of Black Slavery • By 1700 the tobacco plantations had at least 20% population of slaves.
Race and the Origins of Black Slavery (cont'd) • Britain was gaining more control of the Atlantic Slave Trade, thus sending slaves to the American Colonies, as slaves were cheaper poor white people found better opportunities for themselves in other regions of British North America, driving up the price of European indentured servants in the tobacco colonies.
The Emergence of Chattel Slavery • House of Burgesses - Virginia’s governmental body empowered to enact legislation for the colony. This governing body set legislation that said that a child born to a slave mother would also be a slave for life. • Beginning of slave codes • Slaves were reduced legally to the status of domestic animals
Bacon’s Rebellion and American Slavery • Bacon’s Rebellion - Failed rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon and white indentured servants against Virginia’s tobacco planting elite. • Indentured servants were given free passage to America and free housing. Had to pay off their debts through work. • Bacon tried to get black slaves to join his rebellion and unite against the master class • Rebellion prompted plantation owners to switch from dangerous white servants to enslaved blacks.
Plantation Slavery, 1700-1750 • Between 1700 and 1770, some 80,000 Africans arrived in the tobacco colonies, and even more African Americans were born into slavery there.
Tobacco Colonies • Between 1700 and 1770 some 80,000 Africans arrived in the tobacco colony. • By 1750, 144,872 slaved lived in Virginia and Maryland—another 40,000 lived the rice producing regions of South Carolina and Georgia. • The living conditions of these slaves varied.
Tobacco Colonies (cont'd) • On smaller farms slaves worked with their master • On larger farms slaves had an overseer • Worked from Sun up to sun down on both farms • Domestic work in the house lasted all day and night and could be more taxing
Low-Country Slavery • In the low country, black people were chattel from the start. • Carolina Low Country • 40,000 Slaves • Concentrated on growing rice • Georgia Low Country • 15,000 Slaves • Also grew rice
Slave Society • Whites were afraid of a revolt. • By 1698 Carolina had the strictest slave code in North America.
Slave Society (cont'd) • A Creole population that had absorbed European values lived in close proximity to white people in Charleston and Savannah. Members of this Creole population were frequently mixed-race relatives of their masters and enjoyed social and economic privileges denied to slaves who labored on the nearby rice plantations.
Slave Society (cont'd) In what ways did the sugar plantations of the West Indies provide a model for the rice plantations of Georgia and the Carolinas?
Slave Life in Early America • Not much was recorded in the early American colonies about how the slaves lived their daily lives. • They lived in temporary, hastily built housing. • Slave dress was minimal during the summer. • Food consisted of corn, yams, salt port and occasionally salt beef and salt fish.
Slave Life in Early America (cont'd) What was like life for black slaves in the first half of the eighteenth century?
Slave Life in Early America (cont'd) In what ways could slaves shape their own lives? Which slaves had the most freedom in this respect? Which had the least?
Miscegenation and Creolization • When Africans first arrived in the Chesapeake during the early seventeenth century, they interacted culturally and physically with white indentured servants and with American Indians. This mixing of peoples changed all three groups.
Miscegenation • Miscegenation between blacks and whites and blacks and Indians was extensive throughout British North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. • Miscegenation between blacks and Indians was extensive, and striking examples of black-white marriage also occurred in seventeenth-century Virginia.
Miscegenation (cont'd) How did miscegenation and creolization contribute to the emergence of a distinct African American identity?
The Origins of African American Culture • Families • Creolization and miscegenation transformed the descendants of the Africans who arrived in North America into African Americans. • The second generation of Africans born in America did lose their parent’s native language, but many aspects of their native culture remained intact.
The Origins of African American Culture (cont'd) • African American family life began to flourish in the late 1750s. • African religions both indigenous and Islamic predominated well into the nineteenth century. Often masters refused to let their slaves become Christian.
The Origins of African American Culture (cont'd) What key elements of African culture survived the process of transportation and enslavement?
The Great Awakening • The major turning point in African-American religion came in conjunction with the religious revival known as the Great Awakening. • Great Awakening Eighteenth-century religious revival that grew out of growing dissatisfaction among white Americans with a deterministic and formalistic style of Protestantism.
The Great Awakening (cont'd) • With the Great Awakening, a process of general conversion began with slaves being converted to Christianity.
Roots of Culture Look closely at the painting of slaves on a South Carolina Plantation. What evidence does it provide of the translation of West African culture in America?
Roots of Culture How did music fit into the lives of the slaves? Should it be considered a form of resistance?
Roots of Culture (cont'd) What major elements of West African culture were retained and passed on by the second generation of people of African descent in North America?
The African-American Impact on Colonial Culture • African American culture also influenced the development of white culture. • Everything from music to festival celebrations were influenced by African culture. • African Americans also used West African culture and skills to shape the way work was done in the American South during and after colonial times.
The African-American Impact on Colonial Culture (cont'd) What opportunities did African Americans have to shape colonial culture?
