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Origins of slavery

Resources:

Colonial City: Revolutionary Battleground
Resource Type: E-Seminar

Relevant interactive tools:
The Slave Rebellion of 1741
The Slave Rebellion of 1741

The Origins of Slavery in the New World
Resource Type: E-Seminar

Relevant pages:
Introduction
Slavery in History: The Legacy of 1492
The Triangular Trades: The Slave Gun Cycle
The Triangular Trades: Continuity of Slavery
Slavery in The Americas
Slavery in the Americas: Free to Forced Labor
Slavery in the Americas: Plantation Agriculture
Laws and Statutes: Undefined Legal Status
Laws and Statues: Emerging Racism
Laws and Statues: Codifying Slavery
Laws and Statutes: Slave Labor Expands
Laws and Statues: The Virginia Slave Code
Slavery and Empire: The British Empire
Slavery and Empire: A Slave Narrative
Systems of Slavery: Diversity
Systems of Slavery: The South
Systems of Slavery: The North
Slave Resistance

Relevant texts:
Excerpt from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776).
Text from the 1662 slavery act passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Excerpt from Olaudah Equiano, The Interresting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African.

Relevant transcripts:
Professor Foner introduces the debate on slavery and freedom in American History
Professor Foner compares the benefits and misfortunes resulting from the "discovery" of America.
Professor Foner discusses the economic underpinnings of slavery.
Professor Foner discusses Bacon's Rebellion.
Professor Foner discusses the misery of the Middle Passage.
Professor Foner explains the social and economic impact of rice cultivation in the South.

Relevant interactive tools:
Professor Foner explains how European monarchs and merchants wanted to bypass the Arab, Berber, and Muslim middlemen, who dominated the international trade routes acress Africa and the Middle and Near East to India and China. A direct water route instead, from Europe to China, around the southern tip of Africa, promised the Europeans greater control and wealth.
Professor Foner explains how European monarchs and merchants wanted to bypass the Arab, Berber, and Muslim middlemen, who dominated the international trade routes acress Africa and the Middle and Near East to India and China. A direct water route instead, from Europe to China, around the southern tip of Africa, promised the Europeans greater control and wealth.
Providing a long-term perspective on the history of slavery, Professor Foner argues that slavery in the New World was different from slavery in Africa.
Providing a long-term perspective on the history of slavery, Professor Foner argues that slavery in the New World was different from slavery in Africa.
Professor Foner discusses the tobacco-based system of slavery in the Chesapeake
Professor Foner discusses the tobacco-based system of slavery in the Chesapeake

Slavery in History: New World Encounters
Resource Type: Primary Source
This detail of the same map from Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570) depicts the African continent, showing how both the interior and exterior were well known to European travelers, explorers, and cartographers. Notice the detailing of port cities on the west coast as well as the important towns and rivers inland.

Excerpt from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776).
Resource Type: Primary Source

Slavery in History: The Legacy of 1492
Resource Type: Primary Source
This hand-colored facsimile of an engraving (1564) by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues shows French settlers arriving on the Florida coast.

The Triangular Trades: The Slave Gun Cycle
Resource Type: Primary Source
The king of Dahomey leading armed women to war (1793).

The Triangular Trades: The Slave Gun Cycle
Resource Type: Primary Source
The king of Dahomey with soldiers and members of his court receiving British visitors (1793).

The Triangular Trades: The Slave Gun Cycle
Resource Type: Primary Source
Europeans buying slaves on the African coast (1729).

The Triangular Trades: Continuity of Slavery
Resource Type: Primary Source
The king of Congo's residence, where people gathering water to be carried up to the city that surrounds the king's dwelling illustrate a form of slavery that existed in Africa (mid-eighteenth century).

Slavery in the Americas: Plantation Agriculture
Resource Type: Primary Source
Tobacco vendors, most but not all of them English, began advertising on illustrated sheets or cards in the eighteenth century. This "potent herb" label is likely an eighteenth-century illustration.

Laws and Statutes: Undefined Legal Status
Resource Type: Primary Source
This detail from an eighteenth-century handkerchief shows the careers of the good and bad servants, William Goodchild and Jack Idle. Transportation in this context meant being sent to the British colonies, usually as punishment for crimes committed.

Slavery and Emancipation—E-Seminar 1, The Origins of Slavery in the New World
Resource Type: E-Seminar
Nearly 150 years after its abolition, slavery remains one of the central institutions defining American history and nationality. This e-seminar examines the origins and development of the transatlantic slave trade and the impact of slavery on colonial America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. New World slavery became more oppressive than previous forms, and the underpinnings of the institutionalization of slavery in America included new racist attitudes.

Slavery and Empire: A Slave Narrative
Resource Type: Primary Source
Olaudah Equiano. Frontispiece, The Interresting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African, 3d ed. (1790).

Excerpt from Olaudah Equiano, The Interresting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African.
Resource Type: Primary Source

Systems of Slavery: The South
Resource Type: Primary Source
Mulberry Plantation in South Carolina. The steep roofs are of slave housing, reflecting a form of African architecture (c. 1770).

Systems of Slavery: The South
Resource Type: Primary Source
The labor-intensive process of rice cultivation on a plantation near Savannah, Georgia (1867).

Systems of Slavery: The South
Resource Type: Primary Source
Charleston, with its intense maritime activities and fine urban architecture (1737–39).

Systems of Slavery: The North
Resource Type: Primary Source
The Newport Historical Society cannot determine whether the black child depicted in this portrait of the Potter family in Rhode Island is free or slave. The adult male figure here may be the John Potter who manumitted his slaves after becoming a Quaker. The British influence on the fashion and tastes of American colonial elites is conveyed through dress (c.1740-70).

Slave Resistance
Resource Type: Primary Source
A newspaper advertisement offering a reward for the return of a runaway slave (Virginia Gazette, February 15, 1770).

Slave Resistance
Resource Type: Primary Source
A slave is burned at the stake after the 1741 slave rebellion in New York City.

Southern Society: Religion and Slavery
Resource Type: Document-Based Question
Using this DBQ, students will examine the paradoxical role of religion in the lives of slaves in the antebellum South. Different kinds of religion are explored as students confront the ways in which religion served to liberate or to oppress slaves.

Equiano: A Slave's Autobiography
Resource Type: Primary Source
Olaudah Equiano was enslaved as a child after he and his sister were kidnapped in Africa. His autobiography offers a rare comparison of African and American cultures.



	Historical thinking Discovering primary sources (18) Interpreting and analysing (29) Narrating history (9) Resource types Video Transcripts (6) Text Excerpts (3)

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