The discussion of American or rather United States history is often recalls particular themes and topics—many are “flushed out” more than others. Westward Expansion, a few of the presidents and several wars are the things that readily come to mind when discussing the history of America. However, recent studies show that the flushing out of what many have come to know as American history was in fact a finely curated weaving of various threads and fabricated lies. The power structure of the United States changed—more so through economic means. Thus, creating inequality in the United States. The economy of the United States slave trade was impacted by the types of crops that were grown. In turn, the lives of captured Africans were impacted and changed forever—generations later.
We must examine the transatlantic slave trade and focus on the Caribbean as a major starting point of colonization instead of the colonies at Jamestown. The wealthiest colonies were in the Caribbean, in Barbados and then in the United States in the state of South Carolina. In her book, Bonds of Empire: The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660–1783, Lee B. Wilson describes this relationship as something that solidified the use of African slaves to interred in brutal living conditions—making slaves themselves commodity as well as the crops they grew using their agricultural skills and knowledge attained through years of slavery.
Wilson also discusses how English law did not create opposition to the enslavement of Africans and indigenous peoples. Those laws which had been on the books since the early 1600s were used to seize land in the Caribbean and North America as well as take Africans and indigenous people as slaves—making them property.
Many consider the beginning of slavery in the United States in the year 1619 --most commonly known as Jamestown located in the state of Virginia. However, the Spanish brought slavery to what is now Florida as early as the 1500s. In the US, planters first demanded that enslaved people produce tobacco, rice, and other crops. Eventually cotton, popular and easily grown in the warm southern climate states, transformed the landscape. In the Caribbean, there was an even earlier history of enslavement. Sugar was the desired crop and motivator for individuals wishing to establish generational wealth. The region became so wealthy that privateers entered. Privateers are individuals who were similar to pirates, although they sometimes even had permission from various empires to operate. They had armed sailors but often commandeered other sailing vessels and robbed them of their cargo. Many times, the cargo was human – in the form of forced slaves. According to Britannica.com, privateers “were individuals commissioned by governments to carry out quasi-military activities.” They sailed in privately-owned ships fortified with weapons. The privateers would then steal from merchant ships and then ransack settlements belonging to rival countries.
Real-life Pirates and The Caribbean
According to Hampton, Virginia’s website, Hampton History Museum, a group of approximately 20 to 30 enslaved Africans most likely from Angola arrived on that ship that docked in what was known as Point Comfort, today called Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA, in 1619. The Africans were traded for supplies – – the value for human life was equated with tools necessary to support the lives of the English colonists there. According to the site there was a second ship that arrived within a few days – –The Treasurer. This ship also contained stolen Africans who were enslaved. The African slaves from both ships were actually stolen in what we would consider an act of piracy from a Spanish slave ship called The San Juan Bautista. Not understanding the mindset of exchange of human cargo for goods and services--the English colonists began to lay the groundwork for slavery in The United States of America. Hampton History Museum describes this as “handful of bound African laborers to a legalized system of full-blown chattel slavery took many decades, 1619 marks the beginning of race-based bondage that defined the African American experience.”
According to the website, gilderlehrman.org, the timing of the Atlantic Slave Trade occurred from approximately 1526 to 1867. During this time, “some 12.5 million slaves were shipped from Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas.” Between 1700 and 1850 about eight out of 10 Africans forced into slavery crossed the Atlantic ocean. Clearly, the history of slavery surrounding the North American colonies begin earlier than 1619.
Life of Slavery or Revolt
Some of the myths that have forged clouds around the understanding of the brutal economic reality of slavery include the “accepted” and singular narrative that enslaved were happy, or content to live out generations of slavery. The United States narrative that has often been used to cover the violent humanitarian and economic evils of slavery is “mammification” of the Black woman. A single narrative has worked for centuries to hide the human tragedy of African enslavement in America via the Mammy trope.
The reality is that people resisted enslavement constantly. In this unit, we will consider the question of resistance. Slaves who revolted on the Caribbean Islands were deported and taken to other places—even as far as Canada. In many cases, the slaves held in the Caribbean tried to use the law or ask for the intervention of legal assistance to prove their freedom or assert their rights. In some cases, people who were free or even those who had their freedom purchased were stolen and then enslaved. This was common during the early times of the British colonization of the West Indies. This directly contradicts the single narrative of the “happy” slave who is grateful for life on his master’s care and protection.
According to Freedom Roots, by coauthors Richard Lee Turits and Laurent Dubois, some of the oldest and most successful maroon communities were in Jamaica. Maroons were mixed indigenous and African descent. They lived in place even before the British invaded in 1655. What might seem odd is that the Spanish attempted to squash the invasion by seeking and enlisting the help of the maroons—enslaved and free. People of Jamaican maroon descent still tell that story as part of their history.
