Virginia's act

Virginia’s Act XII of 1662: Negro Women’s Children to Serve according to the Condition of the mother.

This first law says that, to dissuade settlers from having sexual relationships with black women slaves, the status of the baby depends on its mother’s status (mother = slave / baby = slave). It was also to prevent the rise of a métis population.

Virginia’s Act III of 1667: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slave from Bondage.

This second law says that even if a baby is baptized, its status of being slave or free wouldn’t change. So even if a slave converts to Christianism to gain his or her freedom, a slave would remain a slave.

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789).

He tells about his life as a black slave.

Slavery was divided into two separates periods. Began in mid-17th and ended in 1865.

• Mid17th – 1800
• 1800 – 1865

Before 1808, slaves were still imported from Africa but they banned imports afterwards.

Slavery is a complex issue, it’s an institution that involved and transformed overtime, so the definition of it also changed. It helped to create a strong racial feeling, that is still today deeply embedded in the American society.

The idea is to say that, not only they weren’t paid while they were slaves, the damage that was done to the people who were actual slaves back in the days, is still felt today by their descendants, because they could not accumulate well.

The laws were written by white settlers whereas the third document was written by a slave. We have two different point of views of this institution of slavery.

The very first African slaves worked in the British colonies in 1619, they were brought by the Spanish colonies. But slavery was not very developed in the UK, because the English were still settling. We noticed that the British colonies started developing in the 1620-30, and that at that time trading wasn’t necessary, for that reason, they didn’t need slaves.

The second reason is that in the 1640s and 1650s, England had a lot to deal with the civil war (1642-1651) which ended with the king being hanged and the monarchy being abolished. It was in 1660 when monarchy came back, that they realized the commercial power of the colonies.

Where do you mostly find slaves in the English colonies, and why?

•  In southern colonies, such as in Virginia, because their colony was based on agriculture. They would grow tobacco, corn, cereals, rice, grapes, silk, oranges. It required a lot of work.

However, they weren’t as many slaves sin the northern colonies, they were mostly used for daily chores and domestic work.

The number of slaves started rising after 1660, partly because the situation was getting a lot better in England. The English economy was transformed, people had more money to spend and better wedges. Great Britain was also the first country to go through the industrial revolution meaning that they had more money to spend on good, so they would import products from the colonies, and because they now had an industry that was able to transform products, they needed raw materials (metal, wood).

Demands were growing, colonies had to produce more, so they required more hand labors.

1660 = Britain imported about 421k pounds worth of goods from USA every year. That number had more than doubled in 1700 as they were now importing 863k worth of good. This is why we get the idea of why slavery came to be an American institution.

Was slavery the first option the Americans turned to for labors? 

The first instinct was to get indentured servants to work for the Americans. They were full English people, who wanted to go to USA, but didn’t have enough money to pay the boat to go there.

They would:

• Sign contracts (such as plantation contracts)
• Set a certain period of time of work
• Were paid very lowly
• Once their contract was up, they were free to do whatever they wanted in the colonies.

At first, slavery was just an addition to indentured servants, the first few slaves were bought by the Spanish. The number was low when the monarchy restored.

The king decided creating the Royal African company, which gets the monopoly of selling slaves to the British colonies, meaning if someone in these colonies wants to buy a slave, they have to go there and go the British crown to make the money, not the Spanish crown.

Between 1492, when Columbus discovered America, and 1770, just before the declaration of independence, they were more Africans than Americans that came to America. By the 1690, they were more slaves than English indentured servants in Virginia and Maryland.

Slavery was a process. It wasn’t something fixed or settled, it was something that changed overtime. There was a new question of rising. Every time doubts arises, they set laws.

The people that wrote these laws were white settlers. To have power you needed to have land and money. The people were also probably the one benefiting from these laws the most. These laws only applied to Virginia but there were very similar ones in other colonies. For example, Maryland (in 1663) passed a law to forbid marriage between black women and white men, and later forbade slaves’ claim of freedom.

Their relationship was based on hierarchy. They established a hierarchy with the settlers at the top. Settlers considered black people as economic asserts. The laws were made to continue slavery, to forbid slaves to have any rights or freedom. They were dehumanized and objectified.

They were turned into property which belonged to the master, everything gained by the slaves were given to the masters, but also their children. There's an ownership of the black body and what they produce, meaning goods and babies.

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