A Brief History of Slaver in the United States of America 1619-1861

 
The first step on the road of slavery took place by the arrival of 20 Africans to Jamestown in 1619 (“Timeline”). They were transported by a Dutch ship all the way from Africa. They were brought to work as servants. Slavery was first legalized in “colonial Massachusetts” in 1641 (“Slavery”). This first ship to deliver slaves arrived to America in 1645. The ship was called “Rainbowe” (“Timeline”). In Virginia, slavery started to get colonist’s attention. They needed physically-qualified workers to work in their “plantations”. Thus, slavery became legal in Virginia in 1661. The slavery law “provided that the status of an African child would be determined by the status of its mother. If the mother of a child was a slave, then her child was doomed to slavery”. The first step in slavery was catching Africans by the Dutch people or even by other Africans. Slaves were transported to America by many companies like the “Dutch West India”. This company was specialized only in the business of slavery. There were other big companies like the “East India Company” and “the Royal African Company”. The slavery companies didn’t take good care of slaves when they were transporting them. As a result, a lot of slaves died before reaching America.

African slaves always showed resistance. In 1688, black slaves started to get help from “Quakers” and the “Society of Friends”. Quakers “publicly declared that slavery was at odds with Christianity”. Most of them were in Pennsylvania (“Slavery”).

The slaves’ situation was different between different colonies. In the north, the main economic activity was trading, and that made colonists there involved in slave trading only. The “New England colonies” legalized slavery and illegalized some of the slaves’ freedoms. In the south, slavery was legal too but the situation there was worse because the southern states stricter. In the “middle colonies”, the laws were in the favor of slavery and against the slaves’ rights. New York was one of the middle colonies (“Slavery”). New York’s laws were extremely abusive to slaves:

In New York, for example, any slave found forty miles north of Albany was presumed to be escaping to Canada and could be executed upon the oath oftwo witnesses. In New York City, slaves could not appear on the street after dark without a lighted lantern. (“Slavery”).

Although the New York’s laws were very harsh toward slaves, slavery was not common like it was in the south. And that’s because plantations were small and didn’t need slaves to fulfill the needs of labor. Also, many people didn’t agree on the concept of slavery.

European colonists needed slaves to work in their plantations (especially in the south states). Thus, some laws were quite decent toward slaves. Those laws regulated the number of hours of work for a slave everyday (“Slavery”).