American history survey

4th classslavery in the new world,

15th – 18th centuries

announcements

• Please turn in paper # 1. You are not eligible to take the midterm exam unless you have turned in paper # 1. Deadline: Tuesday 11/8.

• Please see me after class for conflicts for Mon 11/14 midterm, 10:10 – 11:45 am.

• If you saw Amistad, you may write a 3 – 5 paragraph review as one of your 3 papers this semester. Reviews are both objective (summary) and subjective (analysis & evaluation).

Indian reservations today

Federal & Indian land today

Atlantic slave trade – largest forced migration in history –11 million

Middle passage

Triangular trade

• Africa to New World: human cargo. • Colonies in N America to W Europe:

agricultural & other raw materials desired in Europe: tobacco, sugar (molasses, rum), rice, wheat, lumber.

• W Europe to Africa: manufactured goods, textiles, iron implements, ship wares.

Slave trade

auction block, Charleston, South Carolina

inspecting a potential “purchase”

slavery in the Caribbean -- sugar

Caribbean, aka West Indies• Overwhelmingly young

men.• Societies rapidly

became Black majority.• European whites mostly

could not stand the tropical climate.

• Sugar cultivators often worked slaves to death.

• Also Brazil.

tobacco in the Chesapeake

tobacco

• The major colonial export in 18th c.• Required year-round attention & many steps in process.• W Africans had been agriculturalists.• 17th c – societies with slaves; owners, servants, slaves

worked together. 1st generation slaves had previous experience elsewhere & participated in & utilized British culture (church, legal system, etc.)

• 18th c – slave societies – elite owned large plantations w hundreds of slaves. Increasingly African-born, saltwater slaves, direct from African interior.

Slavery in the urban north

Northern cities

• New York had largest proportion of slaves. • NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Newport – port

cities, men’s work in shipping, transportation, & ship-building; women’s work as domestics, weavers, etc.

• 10 – 20% of population in 17th & 18th c.• Northern merchants began to replace British

as slave traders.

Slavery in South Carolina, rice

Lower South

• Slave societies; slavery was model for whole culture.

• Rice required large plantations to be profitable.

• Rise of elite planter class. • Profits put back into extension of slavery. No

diversification of economy.

significance of slave-created products

• tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea – tropical, not grown in N & W Europe• addictive• proletarian hunger-killers• sped up daily work of people who consume• sustained work force of the Industrial

Revolution & postindustrial age, including us!

development of slavery

• In 17th c North America, African slaves & European indentured servants shared many similarities. Most slaves imported from Caribbean or W African coast; previous knowledge of European world. Small # of slaves.

• 1660s & later, colonial legislatures passed laws regulating Africans – no intermarriage, heritable status, harsh penalties for disobedience, clear division from indentured servants based on race.

development of slavery

• 18th c. Africans, direct from interior, became majority of slaves.

• Southern plantation elite dominated their colonies. Less affluent whites moved west.

• Slavery differed substantially across time, across geography, across economies, and from urban to rural areas.

• Freedom for whites based on slavery of Blacks is most important contradiction in US history.

assignment for next week

• Primary sources about slavery, from Zinn & Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of the US, 51 – 61.