Afericans in America

During the 17th and 18th centuries, African American slaves lived in all of England's North American colonies. Although, the number of African American slaves grew slowly at first, by the 1680s they were essential to the economy of Virginia. Before Great Britain prohibited its subjects from participating in the slave trade, between 600,000 and 650,000 Africans had been forcibly transported to North America.

The effects of the institutionalization of slavery in America are still felt today. It is difficult to think of an element of society not affected by the historical reality of slavery. Whether it is political, social, or economic all facets of society were influenced, shaped and impacted by the historical development of slavery.

What is fascinating about the development of slavery is that it occurred over a relatively short period of time. In 1619 at the time of the first recorded landing of Africans in the British colonies, there was no institutionalized system of slavery in the colonies. However by 1700, slavery was a fully institutionalized system due to a great demand for plantation workers. In a span of 80 years the emergence of slavery had occurred.

The mining of natural resources and especially the warm climate and fertile soil encouraged the development of plantations that grew rice, tobacco, sugar cane, and later cotton. Most plantation slaves worked in the fields. The others were craft workers, messengers, and servants.

The development of sugar cane plantations in Central America stimulated the slave trade. Planting, harvesting,

and processing sugar cane for export required a sizeable workforce. Because labor in the sugar fields was strenuous and an exhausting task, plantation owners used slave labor. Planters worked their slaves in inhuman ways, from dawn to dusk, bringing in the cane before it rotted in the fields. Planters could not make similar demands on typical workers of the time. Most of the workers were feudal serfs who were legally bound to work

on the land owned by their landlords.

The Dutch and English entered into slave activity during the 1600s somewhat later than the Portuguese and the Spanish. By the 1600s the European demand for New World products such as sugar, tobacco, coffee, and other crops created the high demand for slave labor to meet the demands of the labor-intensive agricultural activities.

During the early years, of British settlement, there was relatively little demand for slaves. The demand for labor during these years, and for much of the seventeenth century was met by indentured servants. As Peter Kolchin

once noted "so long as a ready supply of indentured labor continued to exist, colonists saw little reason to go to

the expense and bother of importing large numbers of Africans".

Maryland also became very active in the development of African slavery. In a 1664 statute, Maryland used the important phrase "durante vita", which means "for life". A question arose in the legislature. If an Englishman had a sexual union with a Negress, and a child was born, what then is the status of the child? Virginia resolved this issue if the mother is Negro. But what if the sexual union is between an African male and a European female? The Maryland statute resolves this dilemma in the following way: "And all children born of any Negro or other slave shall be slaves as their fathers were for the term of their lives. Terms of their lives means for their entire lives or Durante vita. Even conversion to Christianity would not save the slaves or their offspring from the condition of slavery. In 1667, Act III dealt with this issue. It begins: "Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptism be made free" Again, doubts have arisen regarding the legal status of certain individuals.