From: glhewitt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gary Livingston Hewitt)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: slavery and the founding fathers
Date: 6 Nov 92 18:46:44 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Nov4.233934.27600@newstand.syr.edu> crdunlea@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Christopher R. Dunlea) writes:
>In article <1992Nov4.172041.4705@ncsu.edu> mhmulli@eos.ncsu.edu (MARTIN HARPER MULLIS) writes:
>>
>> An interesting fact that few Know about. When blacks first came to 
>> this country they were indentured servents. It was not until one 
>> "master" sued in court to keep African servants for life that slavery
>> was formed. This "master" was himself African.
>>
>
>Or that the price of white indentured servants was only 20 pounds sterling,
>as opposed to 60 sterling for the Africans. After all, most of the people
>of colonial America came over as convicts or refugees, and cost nothing
>to procure.

That price differential is from the 18th century, when the difference
between slaves and servants was already quite clear.  Though see
below...

There is no moment that historians can determine, when Africans suddenly
became slaves and were no longer "servants."  There exist clear evidence
of free Africans in Virginia in the 1630s, but the laws which codifided
slavery don't appear until the 1650s.  And while slaves appear in
Virginia in 1618 (or before), they do not become the utterly important
part of Virginia until the 1680s....  The transformation in the
Caribbean is a little more clear (it happens quickly in the 1640s).

There are 2 salient features that differentiate African slavery from
European servitude, each of which deserve a little attention.

(1) Service for life.  Most historians witness the price differential
between servants from Europe and those from Africa, and make the logical
conclusion that African servants were expected to serve for life, while
the European ones were expected to serve for only a few years.  That
difference is less meaningful,  considering the rates of mortality in
the West Indies and in the Chespeake, where most of these people were
going, but it was enough to command a premium for African labor.

(2) Enslavement of progeny.  Servants were primarily male and therefore
progeny wasn't an issue.  Female servants were prohibited (how?) from
having children -- generally in order in order to ensure that they would
serve out their terms in a VERY marriageable climate...  No one, as far
as I can tell, suggested that the children of European servants would
become bound to the parent's master.  HOWEVER, American slave societies
quickly (these are English colonies, I should qualify) adopted a policy
that the child follows the condition of the mother (by 1650 or so).
This breaks with Roman Law, which was the primarily "law of slavery" for
all Europeans, where children followed the father's condition.  Maryland
tried the Roman route for a few years, but they didn't like it.

The classic texts in American history on this subject are: Oscar and
Mary Handlin, "The Southern Labor Force," or something like that, from
the William & Mary Quarterly 1959; Winthrop Jordan, _White_Over_Black
(Chapel Hill, 1968); Edmund Morgan, _American Slavery/American_Freedom_:
The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (NY: 1975).

Gary
-- 
  ++====+========+==========+=======+===++
  ||    |    Gary| L. Hewitt|       |   ||  HELP!  I've been imprisoned
  || glh|ewitt@ph|oenix.prin|ceton.e|du ||  by my .signature!  HELP!
  ++====+========+==========+=======+===++