A brief history of the "peculiar institution" of slavery

16^th-18^th centuries, in North America & Britain

Sponsored link.

Topics in this essay:

Inadequacy of information about slavery:

The historical record of slavery deals almost completely with the beliefs and actions of whites in  Europe and North America. The full story is yet to be told. The contribution of the slaves themselves has been incompletely documented.  "How slaves transformed their African experiences into revolutionary action against the institution of slavery still has to be explored. Even specialists of Africa have inadvertently overlooked the importance of black abolitionist thought and action." ₁

Slavery during the 16 ^th to18^th centuries:

African slaves were transported to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central & South America, starting very early in the 16th century.

Landowners in the American colonies originally met their need for forced labor by enslaving a limited number of Natives, and "hiring" many more European indentured servants.  In exchange for their transportation across the Atlantic, the servants committed to work for the landowner for 4 to 7 years. A few slaves were imported from Africa as early as 1619. With the spread of tobacco farming in the 1670's, and the diminishing number of people willing to sign-on as indentured servants in the 1680's, increasing numbers of slaves were brought in from Africa. They replaced Native American slaves, who were found to be susceptible to diseases of European origin. "...small numbers of white people were also enslaved by kidnapping, or for crimes or debts." ₂ The Africans "came from many racial stocks and many tribes, from the spirited Hausas, the gentle Mandingos, the creative Yorubas, from the Igbos, Efiks and Krus, from the proud Fantins, the warlike Ashantis, the shrewd Dahomeans, the Binis and Sengalese." ₃ Eventually 600 to 650 thousand slaves arrived in America against their will. ₄

Slavery was an attractive proposition to landowners. In 1638, "the price tag for an African male was around $27.00 while the salary of a European laborer was about 70 cents per day." ₂ A slave had less value at the time than 40 days of labor by a European.

Both slave transportation, and slavery itself in the U.S. were brutal institutions. It was  not unknown to have a 50% mortality rate during the passage from Africa. Slaves who were too ill to survive the trip were sometimes thrown overboard to drown. Once on American soil, slaves were largely treated as property, to be freely bought and sold.  Some slave owners allowed their slaves to marry; others imposed marriages on them. Slave marriages were not recognized by the states. The owner was free to split up a couple or family at any time simply by selling some of his/her slaves. Slave children were sent into the fields at about 12 years of age where they worked from sun up to sun down.

Slavery was also brutal in Canada. In 1734, a black slave, Marie-Joseph-Angelique, objected to slavery and her expected sale. She burned down her owner's home in Montreal in protest. The fire spread and eventually destroyed 46 buildings. Her sentence was to have her hands chopped off and then to be burned alive. This was reduced on appeal to simple hanging.

"Even in 1824, an 18-year old New Brunswick boy was 'hung by the neck until dead' for having stolen 24¢. In Upper Canada, [Ontario] theft can mean being branded with a red-hot iron on the palm of the hand or a public whipping." ₅

Many, perhaps most, slaves engaged in passive resistance:

"They worked no harder than they had to, put on deliberate slowdowns, staged sit-down strikes and fled to the swamps en masse at cotton picking time. They broke implements, trampled the crops and 'took' silver, wine, money, corn, cotton and machines." ₃

Others were more aggressive:

"They poisoned masters and mistresses with arsenic, ground glass and 'spiders beaten up in buttermilk.' They chopped them [slaveholders] to pieces with axes and burned their houses, gins and barns to the ground."

There were many slave conspiracies and revolts during the era of slavery. One source ₆ writes that they went through three phases: