The Foundation of Europe's New World
began some time in the second half of the fifteenth century, with the Portuguese sending slaves to Europe and the Canary Islands. With the European revelation that there was more between them and Asia than originally thought, the African slave trade would become a practice every colonizing nation would engage in. The Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, and French traders all entered the fray by the late 1500s. The English would not engage in this inhuman practice until the early 1660s. But as Indian populations decreased and the number of European indentured servants emigrating from the motherland decreased, Europe would turn to the "dark continent" as its primary source of labor by 1700.14
Though the African trade began in the early 1400s, it is rather difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first Africans arrived on the North American continent. But it was not in 1619 at Jamestown as many conclude. A more reasonable estimate would be in 1526 in present-day South Carolina. A group of around five hundred Spaniards settled near the Pee Dee River along with one hundred Black slaves. Only a few months would go by before disease and conflicts with neighboring Indian tribes reduced the colonies population. Then the slaves rebelled, killing some of their masters and escaping into nearby Indian villages. The remaining 150 or so Spaniards fled to Haiti, and the ex-slaves that stayed behind most likely amalgamated with the local Native American tribes.15
Those first Africans to arrive on the English Jamestown settlement and others were not yet viewed as slaves as understood in the contemporary lexicon. They, like their European counterparts, were viewed as servants not necessarily bound to their master for life. Black servants were quite prevalent in the North also, where they worked as assistants to artisans and blacksmiths, and many held a large share of the labor responsibility in the maritime industry. In the South, Blacks worked in what is now seen as the more traditional areas, the fields that grew the colonies' staple and cash crops.16
Technically, many black servants would be released after a set term. In this way they differed from European indentured servants only in slight degrees. Indeed, the two groups were treated very much alike in the early days of the English colonies. An undesirable result of this was the fraternization between black and white servants and their seeing their common position as reason to rebel against their rich oppressors. Black and
Latest Articles