QUICK FACTS
Created Jan 0001
Status Verified Sarcastic
Type Existential Dread
Keywords
slavery, colonial era, slavery in the united states, thirteen colonies, atlantic slave trade, americas, early modern period, africans, indigenous peoples

Slavery In The Colonial History Of The United States

“This article concerns the deeply entrenched system of slavery that took root and flourished within the European colonies in North America during the colonial...”

Contents
  • 1. Overview
  • 2. Etymology
  • 3. Cultural Impact

This article concerns the deeply entrenched system of slavery that took root and flourished within the European colonies in North America during the colonial era . It’s crucial to distinguish this period from the subsequent development of slavery in the United States after the nation’s formation. The map here, from 1770, offers a stark visual representation of the enslaved population across the Thirteen Colonies , detailing both the absolute numbers and the proportion of each colony’s total population held in bondage. It paints a somber picture, revealing the pervasive nature of this institution.

The genesis of slavery in these nascent colonies was a complex tapestry woven from various threads. Chief among them were the insatiable labor demands required to establish and sustain these fledgling European settlements. This demand fueled the brutal engine of the Atlantic slave trade . It bears noting that slavery was not an anomaly; it was a widespread phenomenon across all European colonies in the Americas during the early modern period . Initially, both Africans and indigenous peoples found themselves ensnared by European enslavers.

As the Spanish , French , Dutch , and British gradually carved out their territories in North America from the 16th century onwards, the enslavement of indigenous peoples became a common practice. This forced labor was instrumental in developing the colonial economies. However, the devastating impact of imported diseases on indigenous populations, leading to catastrophic population losses , compelled Europeans to seek alternative sources of labor. This led to the mass importation of slaves from Africa, primarily to toil on slave plantations producing lucrative cash crops . Over time, particularly during the 18th century, the enslavement of indigenous peoples in North America was largely supplanted by the enslavement of Black Africans. Coincident with this grim development, a virulent strain of racist ideology began to fester among Europeans, serving to dehumanize and justify the subjugation of enslaved Africans. The rights of free people of color were systematically curtailed, slaves were legally codified as chattel – mere property to be bought and sold – and the condition of slavery was cemented as hereditary , passed down from mother to child.

The Thirteen Colonies of northern British America were, for significant portions of this period, less reliant on slavery than their Caribbean counterparts, or the colonies of New Spain or Brazil. Slavery’s development in these northern colonies was notably slower. The Roanoke Colony , the very first English endeavor in America, established in 1587 with roughly 112 colonists, met a tragic end, believed to have succumbed to famine or the hostility of Native American tribes. Jamestown, the second English settlement, founded in 1606 by about 214 colonists, would become the site of the first documented arrival of Africans in America. These individuals, arriving on the frigate White Lion in August 1619, are recorded in the 1624 census as an African man and woman named Antoney and Isabella.

A significant portion of the early white colonists were indentured laborers . They entered into contracts, essentially selling their freedom for a period to cover the cost of passage to the “New World,” often escaping destitution and debt in Europe. This system, known as the Headright System , promised new colonists fifty acres of land in exchange for years of indentured labor . Crucially, these early colonists were not of the same economic standing as the later European slave owners; they did not own slaves. Many struggled to repay their debts, and thus never received the promised land, hampered by the scarcity of resources in the colonies. Early attempts to cultivate European crops proved largely unsuccessful, forcing colonists to subsist on native plants and small game. Starvation claimed over half of Jamestown’s population in 1618, with many still indebted. It was the cultivation of tobacco , pioneered by John Rolfe in 1614 using seeds brought from Bermuda, that emerged as the colony’s first truly successful cash crop . This economic success, over the subsequent decade, likely paved the way for the eventual introduction of slavery in later decades, particularly in regions where tobacco cultivation thrived. By the 1650s, estimates suggest there were fewer than 100 African American colonists, representing less than two percent of the population. Up to this point, early colonists of African descent arrived primarily under the same Headright System as their white counterparts, laboring alongside them as indentured servants for the Virginia Company .

While slavery was never explicitly outlawed by the colonies prior to the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), its widespread adoption did not take hold until tobacco became a more industrialized crop around the 1660s, primarily in the Southern Colonies and extending into the southern regions of French and Spanish territories like the Mississippi River and Florida. The true boom in industrial agriculture in the mid-1700s was the catalyst for slavery’s success in these southern colonies. However, England’s earlier colonial ventures in the Caribbean, heavily reliant on sugar plantation slaves, undoubtedly played a pivotal role in facilitating the easy and successful establishment of slavery in the American colonies. English and Dutch slavers were instrumental in supplying the colonies with enslaved Africans as they expanded. By the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a significant number of Southern colonies had developed extensive slave-based plantation systems, largely mirroring the methods of slavery learned from the British. A prohibition on importing new slaves from the Caribbean between 1776 and 1808 had minimal impact, as slavery was already deeply entrenched. In contrast, slavery in the Northern colonies, lacking the suitable climate for large-scale plantations, primarily manifested as domestic labor and other forms of unpaid service, often alongside free laborers. The American Revolution did, however, spark the initial abolition laws in the Americas, though the deeply ingrained institution of chattel slavery would persist and expand across the Southern United States until its eventual abolition following the American Civil War in 1865.

This section provides a brief overview of the establishment of slavery in the colonies. The subsequent sections delve deeper into specific aspects of this history.

Native Americans

The Pequot War resulted in the enslavement of numerous Pequots by New England colonists and their indigenous allies. A 1711 petition made by Sarah Robins, a “free born Indian woman”, to New York governor Robert Hunter , protesting being threatened with enslavement for refusing to convert to Christianity.

Native Americans, prior to and following European arrival, engaged in enslaving members of their own and other tribes. This was typically a consequence of capturing individuals during raids and warfare. This practice persisted well into the 19th century. In some instances, particularly with young women and children, captive individuals were adopted into Native American families to fill the void left by lost members. Among tribes in the Southeastern United States , the children born to enslaved individuals were considered free. Captives were acquired through wars, slave raids, bartering with other tribes—sometimes from considerable distances—and through the desperate act of individuals selling themselves into servitude during times of famine or when they had nothing left to stake in gambling.

Spanish explorers, in three expeditions between 1514 and 1525, ventured into the Carolinas and enslaved Native Americans, transporting them to their base in Santo Domingo . While the Spanish Crown’s charter for its 1526 colony in the Carolinas and Georgia included stipulations for humane treatment, fair payment, and conversion to Christianity for Native Americans, it also permitted the purchase and export of Native Americans already enslaved by other tribes to the Caribbean. The colony’s short lifespan makes it unclear if any slaves were actually exported. The Spanish also utilized the encomienda system to enslave Native Americans in Florida. Both New England and the Carolinas colonies captured Native Americans during conflicts and distributed them as slaves. Conversely, Native Americans also captured and enslaved some early European explorers and colonists.

Within larger societies structured as chiefdoms , slaves performed unpaid agricultural labor. In band societies , the ownership of enslaved captives served as a testament to the captor’s military prowess. Some war captives endured ritualized torture and execution. Historians such as Alan Gallay and others emphasize the distinctions between the forms of enslavement practiced by Native Americans and the European slave trading system, into which many native peoples were ultimately integrated. Richard White , in his seminal work The Middle Ground, meticulously details the intricate social dynamics between Native American groups and the early European empires, including the development of ‘slave’ culture and the practice of scalping. Robbie Ethridge contends that:

“Let there be no doubt…that the commercial trade in Indian slaves was not a continuation and adaptation of pre-existing captivity patterns. It was a new kind of slave, requiring a new kind of occupational specialty … organized militaristic slavers.”

A vivid illustration of this militaristic slaving can be observed in the actions of Nathaniel Bacon in Virginia during the late 1670s. In June 1676, the Virginia assembly effectively granted Bacon and his men a license to hunt for slaves by decreeing that any enemy Native Americans captured were to be enslaved for life. Furthermore, soldiers who captured Native Americans were granted the right to “reteyne and keepe all such Indian slaves or other Indian goods as they either have taken or hereafter shall take.” Through this decree, the assembly publicly sanctioned the enslavement of Native Americans. In the subsequent years, other laws contributed to the classification of Native Americans alongside other non-Christian imported servants (including Negro slaves ) as slaves for life.

Puritan New England, Virginia, Spanish Florida, and the Carolina colonies all engaged in the large-scale enslavement of Native Americans, frequently employing indigenous proxies to wage war and capture slaves. In New England, slave raiding was a grim byproduct of the Pequot War and King Philip’s War, though its prevalence diminished after the latter conflict concluded in 1676. Enslaved Native Americans were present in Jamestown from the settlement’s earliest days. However, significant collaboration between English slave traders and the Westo and Occaneechi peoples, whom they armed with firearms, did not commence until the 1640s. These groups conducted enslaving raids across what are now Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and possibly Alabama. The slave trade originating in Carolina, encompassing both commerce and direct colonial raids, was the most extensive among the British colonies in North America, with estimates suggesting between 24,000 and 51,000 Native Americans were enslaved, according to Gallay.

Historian Ulrich Phillips posited that Africans were deemed more suitable for enslavement and a better solution to the labor shortage in the New World. His reasoning was that Native American slaves, being more familiar with the local environment, could more easily escape into known frontier territories. Africans, on the other hand, faced greater difficulties surviving in unfamiliar terrain. Furthermore, Africans possessed greater familiarity with large-scale indigo and rice cultivation, techniques unknown to Native Americans. Early colonial America was heavily dependent on rice and indigo cultivation, crops that harbored disease-carrying mosquitoes responsible for malaria , a disease to which Africans exhibited far greater resistance than Native American slaves.

Numerous Native Americans were subjected to enslavement during the California Genocide perpetrated by American settlers.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Native American slavery —the enslavement of Native Americans by European colonists —was a prevalent practice. Many of these enslaved Native individuals were exported to the Northern colonies and to overseas colonies, particularly the Caribbean sugar islands. The precise number of Native Americans enslaved remains elusive due to the infrequent and often absent record-keeping of vital statistics and census data. Historian Alan Gallay estimates that between 1670 and 1715, slave traders operating in the Province of Carolina exported between 24,000 and 51,000 Native Americans into slavery as part of the Indian slave trade in the American Southeast . AndrĂ©s ResĂ©ndez provides an estimate suggesting that between 147,000 and 340,000 Native Americans were enslaved across North America, excluding Mexico. Even after the cessation of the Indian Slave Trade around 1750, the enslavement of Native Americans continued in the western territories and, through kidnappings, in the Southern states .

Slavery in colonial and Mexican California was largely organized through Franciscan missions. While theoretically entitled to ten years of Native labor, these missions, in practice, maintained Native Americans in perpetual servitude until their authority was revoked in the mid-1830s. Following the U.S. invasion of 1847–48, “loitering or orphaned Indians” were effectively enslaved in the new state from its admission in 1850 until 1867. This form of slavery necessitated the posting of a bond by the slaveholder and occurred through raids and a four-month servitude imposed as punishment for Indian “vagrancy ”.

The First Enslaved Africans

Carolinas

The initial presence of African slaves in what would eventually become the United States of America dates back to the early 16th century in Puerto Rico , brought by Portuguese traders. The island’s indigenous population had been conquered by the Spanish settler Juan Ponce de LeĂłn , aided by a free West African conquistador named Juan Garrido , by 1511. The slave population on the island saw growth after the Spanish Crown granted import rights to its citizens, though it didn’t reach its zenith until the 18th century. African slaves disembarked in Winyah Bay (off the coast of present-day South Carolina ) on August 9, 1526, as part of a Spanish expedition led by Lucas VĂĄzquez de AyllĂłn . AyllĂłn brought 600 colonists to establish a settlement named San Miguel de Gualdape . Historical records indicate the inclusion of enslaved Africans among the colonists, though the exact number is not specified. Approximately one month later, AyllĂłn relocated the colony to its present-day location in Georgia.

Until the early 18th century, acquiring enslaved Africans in the British mainland colonies proved challenging. The majority of enslaved Africans were transported from Africa to the West Indies to support the labor-intensive sugar trade. The extensive plantations and high mortality rates necessitated a continuous influx of enslaved individuals. One of the primary centers of African slavery within the English North American colonies emerged with the founding of Charles Town and the Province of Carolina (later South Carolina) in 1670. This colony was largely established by sugar planters who had migrated from Barbados , bringing with them a substantial number of African slaves to cultivate new plantations in the Carolinas.

To meet the demands of agricultural labor, colonists also practiced Indian slavery for a period. The Carolinians significantly transformed the Indian slave trade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by treating enslaved Native Americans as commodities to be exported, primarily to the West Indies . Historian Alan Gallay estimates that between 1670 and 1715, an estimated 24,000 to 51,000 captive Native Americans were exported from South Carolina to the Caribbean. This figure substantially surpasses the number of Africans imported into the English mainland colonies during the same timeframe.

In 1733, George Burrington, the royal governor, expressed his dissatisfaction, noting that no ships were bringing slave cargoes directly from Africa to the Province of North Carolina .

Georgia

The earliest African slaves in what is now the state of Georgia arrived in mid-September 1526, accompanying Lucas VĂĄzquez de AyllĂłn ’s establishment of San Miguel de Gualdape under the auspices of the Spanish Crown. These enslaved individuals subsequently rebelled, joined forces with indigenous peoples, and ultimately led to the destruction of the Spanish colony in less than two months.

Two centuries later, the Province of Georgia was established as the last of Britain’s Thirteen Colonies and the southernmost. It bordered Spanish Florida to its south. Founded in 1733, the British colony and its influential backers were not inherently opposed to slavery as an institution. However, their initial economic strategy centered on labor sourced from Britain, primarily targeting England’s impoverished population. The British also harbored security concerns, given the proximity of Spanish Florida and Spain’s consistent offers of freedom to escaped slaves. Despite this underlying support for slavery, it was not until the defeat of the Spanish by Georgia’s British colonists in the 1740s (during the Battle of Bloody Marsh ) that arguments favoring the legalization of slavery gained significant traction. To provide the necessary labor force for Georgia’s burgeoning rice plantations and settlements, the colony’s proprietors relented in 1751, and the institution of African slavery grew rapidly. Following its transition to a British royal colony in the 1760s, Georgia began importing slaves directly from Africa.

Georgia holds a significant place in the history of American slavery due to Eli Whitney ’s pivotal invention of the cotton gin in 1793. The gin was first publicly demonstrated on the plantation of General Nathanael Greene , a hero of the Revolutionary War , near Savannah . The invention of the cotton gin not only spurred the dramatic growth of cotton as a major cash crop but also revitalized the system of agricultural slave labor in the northern states. The economy of the United States soon became profoundly dependent on cotton production and its subsequent sale to northern and English textile manufacturers .

Florida

Selling a freedman to pay his fine: Monticello, Florida (1860)

One enslaved African, Estevanico , arrived with the NarvĂĄez expedition in Tampa Bay in April 1528. He journeyed north with the expedition until September, when the survivors embarked on rafts from the Wakulla River , attempting to reach Mexico. African slaves arrived again in Florida in 1539 with Hernando de Soto , and during the founding of St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. At the time of St. Augustine’s founding in 1565, the area was already inhabited by enslaved Native Americans whose ancestors had migrated from Cuba. The Spanish settlement remained sparse, and they held relatively few slaves.

The Spanish Crown implemented a policy of offering freedom to refugee slaves escaping from the English colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. This strategy aimed to destabilize English settlements. Upon conversion to Catholicism and agreement to serve in a Spanish militia, these former slaves could attain Spanish citizenship. By 1730, a settlement known as Fort Mose had developed near St. Augustine, Florida and was subsequently fortified. Two known Fort Mose sites existed in the eighteenth century, and its male inhabitants played a role in defending St. Augustine against the British. It is recognized as “the only known free black town in the present-day southern United States that a European colonial government-sponsored. The Fort Mose Site, today a National Historic Landmark , is the location of the second Fort Mose.” During the nineteenth century, this site gradually transformed into marsh and wetlands.

In 1763, Great Britain acquired Florida from Spain in an exchange following their victory over France in the Seven Years’ War . Spain evacuated its citizens from St. Augustine, including the inhabitants of Fort Mose, transporting them to Cuba . As British colonists began developing the territory for plantation agriculture, the proportion of slaves in the population surged from 18% to nearly 65% within twenty years, by 1783.

Texas and the Southwest

An African slave, Estevanico , reached Galveston Island in November 1528, as part of the remnants of the NarvĂĄez expedition from Florida. The group journeyed south along the mainland in 1529, attempting to reach Spanish settlements. They were captured and held by Native Americans until 1535. From there, they traveled northwest to the Pacific Coast, then south along the coast to San Miguel de CuliacĂĄn , which had been founded in 1531, and subsequently reached Mexico City.

Spanish Texas had a limited number of African slaves, but its colonists extensively enslaved Native Americans. Commencing in 1803, Spain began offering freedom to slaves who escaped from the Louisiana territory, which had recently been acquired by the United States. Subsequently, more slaves of African descent were brought to Texas by American settlers.

Virginia and Chesapeake Bay

The first documented Africans to arrive in Virginia did so in late August 1619. The White Lion , a privateer ship commissioned by Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick but sailing under a Dutch flag, docked at what is now Old Point Comfort (in present-day Hampton). It carried approximately 20 Africans who had been captured from a Portuguese slave ship, the “SĂŁo JoĂŁo Bautista,” in the region of present-day Angola . To acquire these Africans, the Jamestown colony traded provisions with the ship. Some of these individuals appear to have been treated as indentured servants , as formal slave laws were not enacted until later, in 1641 in Massachusetts and 1661 in Virginia. However, from the outset, consistent with the practices of the Atlantic slave trade , the majority of this relatively small group were likely treated as slaves, with terms like “African” or “negro” becoming synonymous with “slave.” Virginia enacted laws pertaining to runaway slaves and “negroes” in 1672.

A number of the colony’s early Africans gained their freedom by fulfilling work contracts or by converting to Christianity. At least one individual, Anthony Johnson , subsequently acquired slaves or indentured servants for his own labor force. Historians such as Edmund Morgan suggest that this evidence points to a greater flexibility in racial attitudes in early 17th-century Virginia than would later develop. A census conducted in 1625 recorded 23 Africans in Virginia. By 1649, this number had risen to 300, and by 1690, it reached 950. Throughout this period, the legal distinctions between white indentured servants and “Negros” widened, evolving into lifelong and inheritable chattel-slavery for Africans and individuals of African descent.

New England

The 1677 publication The Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians documented the enslavement of hundreds of Praying Indians —those allied with the New England Colonies —and their subsequent transport to the West Indies by the colonists in the aftermath of King Philip’s War . Captives taken from indigenous groups who opposed the colonists, including women and children, were also sold into slavery at considerable profit, destined for transport to the West Indies colonies.

While enslaved Africans and Native Americans constituted a smaller segment of the New England economy—which was primarily based on yeoman farming and skilled trades—compared to the South, and a smaller fraction of the overall population, their presence was notable. Most were employed as domestic servants, though some also engaged in farm labor. The Puritans formally codified slavery in 1641. The Massachusetts Bay royal colony enacted the Body of Liberties , which, while prohibiting slavery in certain contexts, did permit three legal grounds for enslavement: being a captive of war, voluntarily selling oneself into slavery, purchasing individuals from elsewhere, or being sentenced to slavery by the governing authority. The Body of Liberties used the term “strangers” to refer to individuals bought and sold as slaves, as they were generally not native-born English subjects. Colonists began to equate this term with Native Americans and Africans.

In 1714, the New Hampshire General Court passed “An Act To Prevent Disorders In The Night,” a precursor to the development of sundown towns in the United States:

“Whereas great disorders, insolencies and burglaries are oft times raised and committed in the night time by Indian, Negro, and Molatto Servants and Slaves to the Disquiet and hurt of her Majesty’s subjects, No Indian, Negro, or Molatto is to be from Home after 9 o’clock.”

Notices reiterating and reinforcing this curfew were published in The New Hampshire Gazette in 1764 and 1771.

New York and New Jersey

The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the arrival of eleven enslaved Black individuals who worked as farmers, fur traders, and builders in New Amsterdam , the capital of the nascent province of New Netherland . The Dutch colony expanded across the North River (Hudson River) to Bergen (in what is now New Jersey). Subsequently, slaves were also privately held by settlers in the region. Despite their enslaved status, these Africans possessed certain basic rights, and families were generally kept intact. They were permitted to join the Dutch Reformed Church, married by its ministers, and their children could be baptized. Slaves could testify in court, sign legal documents, and initiate civil actions against white individuals. Some were allowed to work after hours, earning wages comparable to those paid to white workers. When the colony surrendered to the English in the 1660s, the Dutch West India Company freed all of its slaves, establishing an early nucleus of free Negroes in the area.

The English continued the practice of importing slaves to New York. Slaves in the colony performed a diverse range of skilled and unskilled jobs, predominantly in the rapidly developing port city and surrounding agricultural areas. While the existing narrative often emphasizes slavery in plantation-based economies, slavery in northern colonies exhibited distinct characteristics in non-agrarian settings. In port cities like New York City, enslaved Africans constituted approximately 20% of the population by 1740, working as dockworkers, blacksmiths, and in shipbuilding. In 1703, over 42% of New York City ’s households owned slaves, a percentage higher than in the cities of Boston and Philadelphia , and second only to Charleston in the South.

Midwest, Mississippi River, and Louisiana

A frontispiece of the Code Noir, from the 1742 edition.

The French introduced legalized slavery into their colonies of New France , both in the regions near the Great Lakes and along the Mississippi River . They also utilized slave labor on their island colonies in the Caribbean, such as Guadeloupe and, most significantly, Saint-Domingue . Following the establishment of the port of New Orleans in 1718 with access to the Gulf Coast, French colonists imported a greater number of African slaves to the Illinois Country for agricultural and mining labor. By the mid-eighteenth century, slaves accounted for as much as one-third of the limited population in that rural region.

Slavery was considerably more prevalent in lower colonial Louisiana , where the French developed extensive sugar cane plantations along the Mississippi River. Slavery was maintained throughout the periods of French (1699–1763 and 1800–1803) and Spanish (1763–1800) governance. The initial enslaved population under the French consisted of Native Americans, who could easily escape into the familiar surrounding countryside. Beginning in the early 18th century, the French began importing Africans as laborers in their efforts to develop the colony. High mortality rates affected both colonists and Africans, necessitating the regular importation of new workers.

Implemented in colonial Louisiana in 1724, Louis XIV of France ’s Code Noir established regulations for the slave trade and the institution of slavery within the French colonies. As a result, Louisiana and the areas around Mobile, Alabama developed distinct patterns of slavery compared to the British colonies.

While the Code Noir, as written, granted certain rights to slaves, including the right to marry, and authorized severe corporal punishment under specific circumstances, it also forbade slave owners from torturing slaves, separating married couples, or separating young children from their mothers. It mandated that owners instruct slaves in the Catholic faith, thereby implicitly acknowledging Africans as human beings endowed with souls—a concept not universally recognized prior to this.

The Code Noir prohibited interracial marriages; however, interracial relationships were common in La Louisiane from its earliest days. Particularly in the society of New Orleans , a formal system of concubinage, known as plaçage , emerged. These arrangements, typically between young white men and African or African-American women, were often formalized through contracts that sometimes included provisions for the freedom of the woman and her children (if she remained enslaved), educational opportunities for the mixed-race children of the union, particularly boys, and occasionally a property settlement. Free people of color developed into an intermediate social caste situated between whites and enslaved Black individuals. Many of them pursued artisan trades, and some achieved education and acquired property. Certain white fathers even sent their mixed-race sons to France for education in military schools.

Gradually, within the English colonies, slavery evolved into a racial caste system that generally encompassed all individuals of African descent, including those of mixed race. From 1662, Virginia adopted the principle of determining social status based on the mother’s status, a departure from English common law , where a father’s status determined the legitimacy and social standing of his children. Consequently, under the doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem , children born to enslaved mothers were considered slaves, irrespective of their paternity. Similarly, children born to free mothers were also free, regardless of their racial background. At one point, Virginia had prohibited the enslavement of Christian individuals, but this restriction was lifted with the law passed in 1662. In the 19th century, laws were enacted to restrict the rights of free people of color and mixed-race individuals (sometimes referred to as mulattoes ), particularly following early slave revolts. Throughout the centuries of slavery in the British colonies, the number of mixed-race slaves steadily increased.

Slave Rebellions

Context

Before 1700

18th Century

19th Century

Notable leaders

Colonial slave rebellions before 1776, or before 1801 for Louisiana, include:

16th Century

While the British were aware of Spanish and Portuguese slave trading practices, they did not implement slave labor in their American colonies until the 17th century. British travelers were fascinated by the dark-skinned peoples they encountered in West Africa, developing mythologies that situated them within their understanding of the cosmos. The first Africans to arrive in England did so voluntarily in 1555, accompanying John Lok (an ancestor of the renowned philosopher John Locke ). Lok’s intention was to teach them English to facilitate trade in material goods with West Africa. This approach shifted towards a slave trade initiated by John Hawkins , who captured 300 Africans and sold them to the Spanish. Although Black individuals in England faced marginalization, they remained legally free, as slavery was never sanctioned by law in England itself.

In 1607, the English established Jamestown, Virginia as their first permanent settlement on the North American continent. Tobacco quickly became the colony’s primary commodity crop, largely due to the efforts of John Rolfe in 1611. Once the economic significance of tobacco became evident, a greater workforce was required to cultivate this labor-intensive crop. British plantation owners in North America and the Caribbean also needed laborers for their cash crop plantations. Initially, this labor was supplied by indentured servants from Britain, before transitioning to the use of Native American and West African slave labor. During this period, the English established colonies in Barbados in 1624 and Jamaica in 1655. These and other Caribbean colonies generated considerable wealth through the production of sugar cane, a commodity in high demand in Europe. They also emerged as early centers of the slave trade within the expanding English colonial empire.

English colonists simultaneously held two contrasting views toward indigenous Native Americans. Due to their lighter skin tones, they were perceived as more akin to Europeans and thus as potential candidates for “civilization.” Concurrently, because they occupied land coveted by the colonists, they were, from the outset, frequent targets of colonial violence. Initially, indentured servants were utilized for labor. These servants provided up to seven years of service in exchange for their passage to Jamestown, paid for by a sponsor there. The sponsor was granted additional land through headrights, proportional to the number of individuals whose passage they funded. Upon completion of their seven-year term, indentured servants who survived were free to reside in Jamestown as ordinary citizens. However, colonists began to perceive indentured servants as increasingly costly, partly due to the high mortality rate necessitating constant replenishment of the workforce. Furthermore, an improving economy in England reduced the number of individuals willing to enter into indentured servitude under the harsh conditions prevalent in the colonies.

17th Century

In 1619, the English privateer White Lion , operating under Dutch letters of marque, brought 20 Africans, seized from a Portuguese slave ship, to Point Comfort. Several colonial colleges utilized enslaved individuals as laborers, relying on them for operational support.

Development of Slavery in 17th-Century America

The First Slave Auction at New Amsterdam in 1655, an illustration by Howard Pyle .

The legal framework governing slavery and its enforcement became more stringent in the latter half of the 17th century, progressively diminishing the prospects for Africans and their descendants. By 1640, Virginia courts had already sentenced at least one Black servant, John Punch , to life servitude after his attempt to flee his service. The two white individuals who fled with him received only an additional year of indenture and three years of service to the colony. This marked the first de facto legal sanctioning of slavery in the English colonies and represented one of the earliest legal distinctions drawn between Europeans and Africans. In 1656, Elizabeth Key successfully brought a suit for freedom , arguing her status based on her father’s condition as a free Englishman, her baptism as a Christian in the Church of England , and the establishment of a guardianship for her that was intended as a limited indenture. Following her case, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law in 1662 adopting the doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem , stipulating that any child born in the colony would inherit the status of its mother, whether bond or free. This law overturned a long-standing principle of English common law , which dictated that a child’s status followed that of the father. It absolved white fathers of any responsibility for children born out of wedlock to enslaved women, effectively freeing them from the obligation to acknowledge or support their resulting offspring.

During the latter half of the 17th century, the British economy experienced improvement, leading to a decline in the supply of British indentured servants as poor Britons found better economic opportunities at home. Concurrently, Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 prompted the planter class to express concerns about the potential dangers associated with creating a large population of restless, landless, and relatively impoverished white men (many of them former indentured servants). Wealthy planters in Virginia and Maryland began prioritizing the purchase of slaves over indentured servants during the 1660s and 1670s, a trend that poorer planters followed suit with by approximately 1700. (Initially, the higher cost of slaves meant that only the affluent could afford to invest in them.) The first European colonists in Carolina introduced African slavery into the colony in 1670, the year of its founding, and Charleston eventually became the busiest slave port in North America. Slavery expanded from the South Carolina Lowcountry to Georgia, and then across the Deep South , mirroring Virginia’s influence as it extended across the Appalachians into Kentucky and Tennessee. Northerners also purchased slaves, albeit on a considerably smaller scale. Enslaved individuals outnumbered free whites in South Carolina from the early 1700s until the Civil War. An authoritarian political culture evolved to suppress slave rebellions and legitimize white slave ownership. In the North, enslaved people typically resided in towns rather than on plantations, as was common in the South, working as artisans and their assistants, sailors, longshoremen, and domestic servants.

In 1672, King Charles II of England rechartered the Royal African Company (originally established in 1660), granting the company a monopoly on all English trade with Africa, which explicitly included the slave trade. This monopoly was revoked by an Act of Parliament in 1697. The slave trade to the mid-Atlantic colonies saw a substantial increase in the 1680s. By 1710, the African population in Virginia had grown to 23,100 (representing 42% of the total population), while Maryland contained 8,000 Africans (23% of its total population). During the early 18th century, Britain surpassed Spain and Portugal to become the world’s leading slave-trading nation.

The North American royal colonies not only imported Africans but also captured Native Americans, forcing them into slavery. Many Native Americans were transported as slaves to the Caribbean. A significant number of these enslaved individuals from the British colonies managed to escape by fleeing south to the Spanish colony of Florida. There, they were granted their freedom upon pledging allegiance to the King of Spain and accepting the Catholic Church. In 1739, Fort Mose was established by formerly enslaved African Americans and served as the northern defensive outpost for St. Augustine, Florida . The fort was destroyed during the War of Jenkins’ Ear in 1740 but was subsequently rebuilt in 1752. Because Fort Mose became a sanctuary for escaped slaves from the Southern Colonies to the north, it is considered a precursor site to the Underground Railroad .

Chattel slavery developed in British North America prior to the full legal framework that would support it. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, stringent new slave codes severely restricted the rights of African slaves and eliminated their avenues to freedom. The first comprehensive slave code in British North America was enacted in South Carolina in 1696, drawing heavily from the colonial Barbados slave code of 1661. This code was regularly updated and expanded throughout the 18th century.

A Virginia law passed in 1691 prohibited slaveholders from emancipating slaves unless they financed their transportation out of Virginia. Virginia also criminalized interracial marriage in 1691, and subsequent laws stripped free Black individuals of their rights to vote, hold office, and bear arms. In 1705, Virginia’s House of Burgesses established the fundamental legal structure for slavery in the colony.

Atlantic Slave Trade to North America

Of the enslaved Africans brought to the New World , an estimated 5–7% ultimately arrived in British North America . The vast majority of slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean were destined for the Caribbean sugar colonies, Brazil , or Spanish America . Throughout the Americas, but particularly in the Caribbean, tropical diseases took a heavy toll on the enslaved population, necessitating continuous replacements. Many Africans possessed limited natural immunity to diseases like yellow fever and malaria ; however, malnutrition, inadequate housing, insufficient clothing allowances, and excessive labor demands contributed significantly to a high mortality rate.

In British North America, the enslaved population experienced rapid growth through natural reproduction, a phenomenon not observed to the same extent in the Caribbean colonies. Potential reasons for this disparity include inadequate nourishment, sexual suppression, and poor health conditions. Of the limited number of infants born to enslaved mothers in the Caribbean, only approximately one in four survived the harsh conditions on sugar plantations . The involvement in the Atlantic slave trade was not limited to the major Western European colonial powers like France, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic. Other nations, including Sweden and Denmark–Norway , also participated, albeit on a significantly smaller scale.

Sexual Role Differentiation and Slavery

“Depending upon their age and gender, slaves were assigned a particular task, or tasks, that had to be completed during the course of the day.” In certain contexts, men were assigned strenuous labor, such as farm work, while women typically worked within the household. They might “be sent out on errands but in most cases their jobs required that they spend much of their time within their owner’s household.” These gender-based distinctions were most commonly observed in the Northern colonies and on larger plantations. However, in Southern colonies and on smaller farms, men and women often performed the same types of work, including laboring together in the tobacco fields.

Despite the similarity in day-to-day tasks for enslaved men and women in some regions, “the female slave… was faced with the prospect of being forced into sexual relationships for the purpose of reproduction.” This reproduction could be coerced between enslaved individuals or involve the slave woman and the enslaver. Slave owners viewed enslaved women primarily in terms of their reproductive potential, thus enabling the multiplication of slaves on a plantation without the necessity of purchasing additional Africans. In contrast to the patriarchal society of white Anglo-American colonists, “slave families” often functioned more matriarchally in practice. “Masters believed that slave mothers, like white women, had a natural bond with their children that therefore it was their responsibility—more so than that of slave fathers—to care for their offspring.” Consequently, women bore the additional burden of childcare on top of their other daily duties. Men, in turn, were frequently separated from their families. “At the same time that slaveholders promoted a strong bond between slave mothers and their children, they denied to slave fathers their paternal rights of ownership and authority…” Biological families were often fractured through sale.

Indentured Servitude

This section requires citations to reliable sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to verifiable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2021)

Some historians, including Edmund Morgan and Lerone Bennett, have proposed that indentured servitude served as a model for the development of slavery in the Crown colonies of the 17th century. In practice, indentured servants were typically teenagers in England whose fathers voluntarily contracted their labor for a set period (usually four to seven years) in exchange for free passage to the colonies, room and board, clothing, and vocational training. Upon completion of their term, they received cash, clothing, tools, and/or land, and became ordinary settlers.

The Quaker Petition Against Slavery

In 1688, four German Quakers residing in Germantown , a town located outside Philadelphia , drafted a petition against the existence of slavery within the Province of Pennsylvania . They presented this petition to their local Quaker Meeting, which expressed sympathy but deferred a decision on the appropriate course of action. The Meeting subsequently forwarded the petition up the hierarchical chain to the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting , where it continued to be largely ignored and was eventually archived, remaining unaddressed for 150 years.

The Quaker petition stands as the first public American document of its kind to formally protest slavery. It also represents one of the earliest public declarations of universal human rights .

18th Century

During the Great Awakening in the late eighteenth century, Methodist and Baptist preachers traveled throughout the South, attempting to persuade slaveholders to manumit their slaves, grounding their appeals in the concept of equality in the eyes of God. They also welcomed slaves as members and allowed them to serve as preachers in newly established chapels and churches. The first Black churches (all Baptist) in what would become the United States were founded by enslaved and free Black individuals in Aiken County, South Carolina in 1773, followed by Petersburg, Virginia in 1774, and Savannah, Georgia in 1778, all predating the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.

Slavery was officially recognized as a serious offense in 1776 by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting had held anti-slavery sentiments since the 1750s.

East Indian Slaves

In the early 21st century, emerging research has brought to light the presence of small numbers of East Indians brought to the Thirteen Colonies as slaves during the period when both India and the colonies were under British control . For instance, an advertisement published in the Virginia Gazette on August 4, 1768, describes a young “East Indian” as “a well made fellow, about 5 feet 4 inches high” who possessed “a thin visage, a very sly look, and a remarkable set of fine white teeth.” Another advertisement identifies a slave as “an East India negro man” who spoke both French and English. The majority of these Indian slaves had already converted to Christianity , were fluent in English, and adopted Western names. Their original names and places of origin remain unknown, although some reportedly hailed from Bombay and Bengal . Their descendants have largely assimilated into the African-American community, which also incorporated European ancestry. Today, descendants of such East Indian slaves may possess a small percentage of DNA from Asian ancestors, but this likely falls below detectable levels in modern DNA tests, as subsequent generations have primarily comprised individuals of African and European ethnic ancestry.

Beginning of the Anti-Slavery Movement

African and African-American slaves articulated their opposition to slavery through armed uprisings, such as the Stono Rebellion (1739) in South Carolina. More common forms of resistance included work slowdowns, the deliberate breaking of tools, and running away, either for short durations or permanently. Until the Revolutionary era, virtually no white American colonists publicly opposed slavery. Even the Quakers generally tolerated slaveholding (and slave trading) until the mid-18th century, although they later emerged as prominent opponents of slavery during the Revolutionary era. During the Great Awakening, Baptist and Methodist preachers in the South initially urged slaveholders to free their slaves. By the nineteenth century, their appeals more frequently focused on advocating for better treatment of enslaved individuals.

Further Events

Late 18th and 19th Centuries

During and in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, the northern states collectively abolished slavery, with New Jersey being the last to do so in 1804. Some of these state jurisdictions enacted the earliest abolition laws in the entire New World . In states that implemented gradual abolition laws, such as New York and New Jersey, children born to enslaved mothers were required to serve an extended period of indenture into young adulthood. In other instances, certain slaves were reclassified as indentured servants, effectively perpetuating the institution of slavery under a different designation.

Often citing Revolutionary ideals, a number of slaveholders freed their slaves in the first two decades following independence, either directly or through their wills. The proportion of free Black individuals rose significantly in the Upper South during this period, before the invention of the cotton gin created a renewed demand for slaves in the burgeoning “Cotton Kingdom” of the Deep South.

By 1808 (the earliest year permitted by the Constitution for the federal prohibition of the import slave trade), all states except South Carolina had banned the international buying or selling of slaves. Acting on the recommendation of President Thomas Jefferson , who condemned the international trade as “violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, in which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe,” Congress also banned the international slave trade in 1807. However, the domestic slave trade persisted in the South, generating considerable wealth, particularly for New Orleans , which evolved into the country’s fourth-largest city, its growth significantly fueled by its port. In the antebellum years, over one million enslaved African Americans were transported from the Upper South to the developing Deep South, primarily through the slave trade. Cotton cultivation, intrinsically linked to slavery, formed the economic foundation of new wealth in the Deep South.

In 1844, the rediscovered Quaker petition became a focal point for the burgeoning abolitionist movement .

Emancipation Proclamation and End of Slavery in the US

On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation , which declared slaves in Confederate-held territories free as Union troops advanced southward during the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment (abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude) was ratified in December 1865.

Social and Cultural Developments During the Colonial Period

First Slave Laws

In the early history of Virginia’s history , no specific laws governed slavery. However, in 1640, a Virginia court sentenced John Punch , an African man, to life servitude after he attempted to flee his apprenticeship. The two white individuals with whom he fled were sentenced to an additional year of indenture and three years of service to the colony. This event is considered the first de facto legal sanctioning of slavery in the English colonies and marked one of the earliest legal distinctions made between Europeans and Africans.

Slaves shipped to regions that now constitute the United States:

DateSlaves
1626–1650824
1651–16750
1676–17003,327
1701–17253,277
1726–175034,004
1751–177584,580
1776–180067,443
1801–1825109,545
1826–18501,850
1851–1875476
Total305,326

In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony became the first colony to officially authorize slavery through enacted legislation. Massachusetts passed the Body of Liberties, which, while prohibiting slavery in many instances, permitted individuals to be enslaved under specific conditions: if they were captives of war, if they willingly sold themselves into slavery, if they were purchased from elsewhere, or if they were sentenced to slavery as punishment by the governing authority. The Body of Liberties referred to individuals bought and sold as slaves as “strangers,” as they were generally not native-born English subjects. Colonists began to equate this term with Native Americans and Africans.

In 1654, John Casor , a Black indentured servant in colonial Virginia, became the first individual declared a slave in a civil court case. Casor had alleged to an officer that his master, Anthony Johnson , had held him beyond the term of his indenture. Johnson himself was a free Black person who had arrived in Virginia from Portuguese Angola in 1621. A neighbor, Robert Parker, informed Johnson that he would testify in court to this fact if Johnson did not release Casor. Under local laws, Johnson risked losing some of his headright lands for violating the terms of indenture. Under duress, Johnson freed Casor, who then entered into a seven-year indenture with Parker. Feeling wronged, Johnson sued Parker to reclaim Casor. A court in Northampton County, Virginia ruled in favor of Johnson, declaring that Parker was illegally detaining Casor from his rightful master, who legally held him “for the duration of his life.”

First Inherited Status Laws

During the colonial period, the legal status of enslaved individuals was influenced by interpretations concerning the status of foreigners in England. England lacked a formal system for naturalizing immigrants to its island or its colonies. As individuals of African origin were not English subjects by birth, they were classified among those peoples considered foreigners, generally falling outside the purview of English common law . The colonies grappled with how to categorize individuals born to foreigners and subjects. In Virginia in 1656, Elizabeth Key Grinstead , a mixed-race woman, successfully secured her freedom and that of her son by challenging her status as the baptized Christian daughter of the free Englishman Thomas Key. Her legal representation by an English subject may have aided her case (he was also the father of her mixed-race son, and the couple married after Key’s freedom was granted).

In 1662, shortly after the Elizabeth Key trial and similar legal challenges, the Virginia royal colony enacted a law adopting the principle of partus sequitur ventrem (colloquially known as partus), decreeing that all children born within the colony would inherit the status of their mother. Consequently, a child born to an enslaved mother would be born into slavery, irrespective of whether the father was a freeborn Englishman or Christian. This represented a reversal of the established common law practice in England, which held that children of English subjects inherited the father’s status. This legal shift formalized the power imbalances between enslavers and enslaved women, absolved free white men of legal responsibility to acknowledge or financially support their mixed-race children, and somewhat confined the overt scandal of mixed-race children and miscegenation to the confines of the slave quarters.

First Religious Status Laws

The Virginia slave codes enacted in 1705 further defined individuals imported from non-Christian nations as slaves. Native Americans sold to colonists by other Native American tribes (from rival groups) or captured by Europeans during village raids were also classified as slaves. This codified the earlier principle of enslaving non-Christian foreigners.

First Anti-Slavery Causes

Ledgers detailing the sale of 118 slaves in Charleston, South Carolina , circa 1754.

In 1735, the Georgia Trustees enacted a law prohibiting slavery in the new colony, which had been founded in 1733 with the aim of providing a fresh start for “worthy poor” individuals and persecuted European Protestants. At that time, slavery was legal in the other twelve English colonies. Neighboring South Carolina’s economy was heavily reliant on enslaved labor. The Georgia Trustees sought to mitigate the risk of slave rebellions and enhance Georgia’s defensive capabilities against potential attacks from the Spanish to the south, who actively offered freedom to escaped slaves. James Edward Oglethorpe , the primary driving force behind the colony and the only trustee to reside in Georgia, opposed slavery on both moral and pragmatic grounds. He vigorously defended the ban against strong opposition from Carolina merchants involved in the slave trade and from land speculators.

The Protestant Scottish highlanders who settled in what is now Darien, Georgia , contributed a moral argument against slavery in their 1739 “Petition of the Inhabitants of New Inverness,” a perspective that became increasingly rare in the South. By 1750, Georgia authorized slavery within the colony, having struggled to secure sufficient indentured servants for labor. As economic conditions in England improved during the first half of the 18th century, workers had fewer incentives to emigrate, particularly to face the inherent risks associated with the colonies.

Slavery in French Louisiana

A slave shackle discovered during excavation on Baronne Street in New Orleans, now donated to the Kid Ory Historic House museum.

Louisiana was founded as a French colony. In 1724, colonial officials implemented Louis XIV of France ’s Code Noir , which regulated the slave trade and the institution of slavery in New France and the French West Indies . This resulted in Louisiana, acquired by the United States in 1803, having a distinct system of slavery compared to the rest of the United States. The Code Noir, as written, granted certain rights to slaves, including the right to marry. While it authorized and codified severe corporal punishment under specific circumstances, it prohibited slave owners from torturing slaves, separating married couples, or separating young children from their mothers. It also mandated that owners instruct slaves in the Catholic faith.

Coupled with a more flexible historical French system that afforded certain rights to gens de couleur libres (free people of color ), who were often born to white fathers and their mixed-race concubines , a significantly higher percentage of African Americans in Louisiana were free as of the 1830 census (13.2% in Louisiana compared to 0.8% in Mississippi , whose population was predominantly white Anglo-Americans ). The majority of Louisiana’s “third class” of free people of color, positioned between the native-born French and the mass of enslaved Africans, resided in New Orleans . The free people of color in Louisiana were often literate and educated, with a considerable number owning businesses, properties, and even slaves. Although the Code Noir forbade interracial marriages , interracial unions were widespread. Whether a formalized system of concubinage, known as plaçage , existed is a subject of debate. The mixed-race offspring (Creoles of color) resulting from these unions were among those who constituted the intermediate social caste of free people of color. In contrast, the English colonies operated within a binary system that treated mulatto and Black slaves equally under the law and imposed equal discrimination against free Black individuals, regardless of their skin tone.

Upon the United States’ acquisition of Louisiana, Americans from the Protestant South began to enter the territory and impose their societal norms. They officially discouraged interracial relationships (though white men continued unions with Black women, both enslaved and free). The gradual “Americanization” of Louisiana led to a binary racial system, resulting in a decline in status for free people of color as they were increasingly grouped with enslaved individuals. They lost certain rights as American whites officially classified them as “Black.”

Early Abolitionism

The earliest advocates for the abolition of slavery were the Puritans. For instance, in 1700, Massachusetts judge and Puritan Samuel Sewall published “The Selling of Joseph,” the first anti-slavery tract authored in America. In this work, Sewall denounces slavery and the slave trade, refuting many of the common justifications for slavery prevalent at the time.

The influence of Puritan thought on the issue of slavery remained significant during the American Revolution and in subsequent periods. In the decades leading up to the American Civil War , abolitionists such as Theodore Parker , Ralph Waldo Emerson , Henry David Thoreau , and Frederick Douglass frequently invoked the nation’s Puritan heritage to support their cause. The Liberator, the most radical anti-slavery newspaper of the era, referenced Puritans and Puritan values over a thousand times. Parker, in urging New England Congressmen to support the abolition of slavery, wrote, “The son of the Puritan… is sent to Congress to stand up for Truth and Right…”

Legal challenges against slavery in the Thirteen Colonies commenced in 1752, spearheaded by lawyer Benjamin Kent , whose cases were documented by his student, the future president John Adams . Kent represented numerous enslaved individuals in their pursuit of freedom. He handled the case of Pompey, a slave who sued his master. In 1766, Kent became the first lawyer in the United States to win a case securing the freedom of a slave, Jenny Slew . He also secured a victory in the Old County Courthouse for a slave named Ceasar Watson in 1771. Kent further represented Lucy Pernam in her divorce proceedings and the freedom suits of Rose and Salem Orne.

In Massachusetts, slavery faced a successful legal challenge in 1783 through a freedom suit brought by Quock Walker . Walker argued that slavery contradicted the state’s new constitution of 1780, which proclaimed the equality of all men. Freed slaves in the North were subjected to racial segregation and discrimination, and in many instances, they were denied the right to vote until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.

Judge Samuel Sewall , whose essay “The Selling of Joseph” criticized slavery in 1700 (portrait by John Smibert , Museum of Fine Arts, Boston , Massachusetts).

See also