Slavery is a subject that many people (white) turn a blind eye to and refuse to admit that slavery even happens.
Why? Because it makes white people look bad for committing acts of inhumanity!
Let’s face it, America has always been very, very evil. By and large, America was built on the backs of Africans/African Americans to build family wealth in white families. For example…
The slave trade provided:
- Political power.
- Social standing and wealth for the church.
- European nation-states.
- New World colonies and individuals.
John Greenwood connects slavery and privilege through the image of a group of Rhode Island sea captains and merchants drinking at a tavern in the Dutch colony of Surinam, a trade hub.
The Trade Commodities …
These men made money by trading the commodities produced by slavery globally — among the North American colonies, the Caribbean, and South America — allowing them to secure political positions and determine the nation’s fate.
Let’s take a look at where it all began…
Hundreds of thousands of Africans, both free and enslaved, aided the establishment and survival of colonies in the Americas and the New World.
However, many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the pirate The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia.
The crew had seized the Africans from the Portuguese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista.
Beginning in…
1607: Jamestown, the first British North American settlement, was founded in Virginia.
1619: The first African Americans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, on August 22, 1619.
Africans were captured near the Senegal River and sold to English settlers.
As the colony lacked laborers, these enslaved Africans were put to work growing tobacco, mostly under terrible conditions.
The 1620 census of Virginia records 32 Africans living in Virginia, 17 women and 15 men, listed as “in service of the English” and “in ye service of several[sic] planters.”
This census also lists four Indians laboring in the service of English planters.
A 1624 muster of Virginia’s inhabitants lists some Africans by name, including a woman named Angelo, listed as having arrived on the Treasurer.
1640: Virginia courts sentenced a black run-away servant, John Punch, to “serve his said master . . . for the rest of his natural life.”
1660: Virginia law enacted on white people running away with negroes. (White people running away with slaves)
1662: Virginia law enacted on: Run-aways.
1662: Virginia law enacted: Negro women’s children to serve according to the mother’s condition. (If the mother is a slave, the child is a slave)
Slave/Blackcodes
By the early 1700s, the Virginia Assembly had passed a set of Black Codes, or slave laws, which institutionalized life-long slaveryand stipulated that offspring of a female inherited their enslaved status from their mothers.
And if any Christian commits fornication(have sex) with a negro man or woman, he or she so offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the former act.
1667: Virginia law was enacted, declaring that slaves’ baptism did not exempt them from bondage.
WHEREAS some doubts have arisen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and holiness of their owners, made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptism, should by their baptism be made free;
It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly, and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom;
That diverse master, freed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavor the propagation
Before the American Revolution,
More enslaved people existed in British North America than anywhere else. Of course, slavery existed throughout history and was practiced by many cultures worldwide.
However, Europeans took slavery to a new level when they began to capture and enslave Africans for profit.
These conditions led to a slave trade market in Europe and its colonies.
Relying on plantations as their primary source of income, Virginia colonists came to own nearly 25% of all slaves in North America.
1710: Slave Codes Are Enforced
In 1710, Virginia passed laws that strictly regulated slaves and their owners.
The Slave Code of 1710 included laws regarding punishment, manumission (the act of legally freeing a slave), and protecting slave owners’ rights to their property.
Soon after, the first manumission laws were passed in Virginia, allowing masters to free their slaves at their death.
In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in the United States. After hundreds of years, slavery in Virginia ended.
Conclusion
In today’s society, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to whitewash history and rewrite the truth so that white people can feel better about their ancestors.
After all, it is said and done…the damage can’t be undone. It to damn late!
Thanks for Reading!
