The institution of slavery is a dark and terrible part of American History. Slavery existed in our country for over 240 years. The racism that developed alongside lasts to this day. It is important to face this part of our past in order to understand and eradicate the racism that is still present in the United States.
Learn of the Atlantic slave trade, the growth of slavery in colonial times, and of examples of resistance and rebellion from enslaved African Americans.
Slavery is the treatment of human beings as property. As a slave, a person is deprived of all rights.
The Atlantic slave trade was the trade of African slaves from the West Coast of Africa to the Americas. It began in the 1400's and continued into the 1800's.
Between the 15th and 19th centuries, how many Africans were taken as slaves as part of the Atlantic slave trade?
In the beginning, the African captives were mostly criminals or prisoners of war.
But as the demand for slaves increased, some Africans made a business out of capturing innocent people from neighboring ethnic groups and selling them.
European slave traders gave manufactured goods, weapons, and rum in exchange for captive Africans.
The video referred to captains of slave ships as 'tight packers.' This diagram of a slave ship illustrates that concept. The men and women were forced into extremely cramped conditions on the lower decks of the ship.
The journey from Africa to the Americas is known as the Middle Passage. Historians estimate that 10 to 20 percent of the men, women, and children who were taken from Africa died during this part of the voyage. Starvation and disease were the main causes of death along the journey.
On March 25, 1807 the parliament of the United Kingdom passed a law that abolished the slave trade within the British Empire.
While many of the act's supporters hoped it would lead to the end of slavery, it took many more years. Slavery was not officially abolished in the British Empire until 1833.
Slavery was not officially abolished in the United States until the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
Twenty captive Africans are sold as slaves in Jamestown, Virginia.
Eleven African male slaves are brought into New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company.
A slave carrier named Desire is built in Massachusetts. Its launch marks the beginning of colonial North America's slave trade.
A group of runaway servants is caught in Virginia - two white, one black. As punishment John Punch, the black servant, is sentenced to servitude for life. He is the first documented slave "for life" in the American colonies.
His two white companions are given a lesser punishment: an extension of their servitude.
A law passed in New Netherland forbids colonists from helping runaway slaves.
Massachusetts legalizes slavery. It is the first American colony to do so.
Virginia allows "the right of Negros to own slaves of their own race."
The decision was a result of a civil case involving an African former indentured servant, Anthony Johnson. He sued to have his own indentured servant, African John Casor, be declared as a slave for life.
*Negro is a term that is today considered offensive. It was used to describe a person with black skin.
An indentured servant is a person under contract to work for another person for a definite period of time, usually without pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country.
When Africans were first brought to the American colonies they were sold as indentured servants. However, this system was soon replaced by slavery.
In Virginia, a law is passed to establish hereditary slavery. This means any new born children whose parents are slaves become slaves themselves.
Only about 6 percent of kidnapped Africans went directly to the American colonies (the majority went to the Caribbean and South America.)
Yet, by 1825, 25 percent of African descendants in the Americas were in the U.S. How could this be?
First, the death rates for slaves in the Caribbean and South America were very high. These areas had to continually import new slaves from Africa.
On the other hand, in the American colonies the birth rate was high. Slaves there had a birth rate 80 percent higher than those in the Caribbean and South America.
The average slave woman in the American colonies had about 9 children in her lifetime. Because of the hereditary slave laws, each child born to a slave became a slave himself.
