- How did slavery in the northern colonies differ from slavery in the Chesapeake and other southern colonies?
- How did New Englanders ethically come to terms with the practice of slavery?
- By what means did slaves try to secure their freedom in the North?
- What was the public image of African and African-American slaves in the New England mind?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Sweet, chapter 2
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The way the New Englanders came to terms ethically with slavery was as Sweet mentions that some New englanders thought that " Slaves existed outside the polity" sweet points out this " was crucial to the network of relationships that enabled some New Englanders to enslave others." In the last paragraph on page 65 sweet also points out that for New Englanders " Restricting slavery largely to Africans helped English settlers avoid thinking much about the process of enslavement." The most compelling evidence of how the New Englanders came to terms ethically with slavery is seen on pg 66 when sweet says speaking in reference to the slave master " With considerable success they attempted to convince the public to accept slavery as both a private relationship, withing the domain of their house holds, and as a public institution, integral to the social order."
Slavery in the northern colonies was different than the southern colonies due mainly to the terrain. Southern colonies had larger tracts of land, and needed larger numbers of slaves to work the fields. In the north, Sweet writes the slaves were more likely to work in dockyards, ships, and in workshops. He also goes on to say the relationship in the north between the slave and owner was much more intimate, more complex.
Slavery in the northern colonies differed strongly from slavery in the southern colonies, as well as from slavery in the Chesapeake colonies. Slavery in the northern colonies, particularly New England, was not as prevalent as in the other colonies. However, slaves worked as household servants or in the shipyards working in industry. Slaves in the Chesapeake colonies were used in the agricultural aspect -- to farm tobacco which was the cash crop of Virginia in the colonial times. In the southern colonies/"Low Colonies", slavery was different all together. Slaves were given precise labor objectives to finish for the day/week and once they finished the task, then the slaves were allowed to take time for themselves. At the time, slaves worked in a task system and not in gang labor, which would come later. Also in the southern colonies, African culture persisted here longer than anywhere else. Slaves were able to have families and teach their children oral history, language, and their culture/religion, as well as raise livestock and have their own garden.
However, this would all begin to change in the early 1700s after Virginia passed the "VA Slave Code of 1705" which made slaves "property." This was the beginning of the end of any autonomy for slaves outside rare instances.
Many runaways went to Indian tribes. The tribes understood the blacks and the difficulties of dealing with colonist relationships. So for the most part they got along. Runaways also ran to English employers. The employers were happy because the blacks offered cheap labor.
By having mostly African slaves New Englanders didn’t have to think about the actual process of enslaving someone because Africans arrived already as slaves. New Englanders viewed slavery as private, permanent and absolute. A few ways they did this was by restricting illegal kidnappings, instilling paternalist views to help masters have permanent power over slaves, and giving slaves names that were not usually used for the English and that showed their degraded status. Also, New Englanders thought of slaves as being outside of the normal social order and within the private relationship of masters and slaves.
Settlers in colonial New England faced a constant struggle to understand, explain and rationalize slavery. They ethically came to terms with practicing slavery by restricting slavery largely to Africans, which helped the English settlers avoid thinking too much about the process of enslavement. They also thought that since Africans arrived enslaved, this somehow lessened their guilt. New Englanders also felt that they did not have the right to question enslavement and they accepted it. Many times New Englanders "looked the other way" when blacks' rights were trampled on.
For the most part slavery that existed in Southern colonies was done on plantations or small farms, primarily revolving aroung argriculture. And in the South there were typically a larger slave population on farms and especially on large plantations. The work was strenuous, and their conditions were not very good. In the North however most slaves were either domestic, or they had a trade that they worked on. Some worked in their masters shops working on a particular task, and some even worked at the docks in large urban cities, working on ships and in ship yards. And the slaves in the North typically had better living and working conditions.
Northern Colonists had a different view of slavery than the Southern Colonies. This difference was mainly an issue of demographics, geography and industry. Because there were few large plantations in the Northern colonies, many family owned one or two slaves as household servants. There were also slaves used for Gang Labor in the more industrial areas, such as the Boston Shipyard.
Slavery in New England differed greatly from slavery in the south. In the South, most slaves were held on large plantation estates working the land. In the North, however, slaves were held by wealthy merchants in the cities. This only allowed even the richest people to have a few slaves at most. This also meant that slaves had to live in close quarters with the family that owned them, creating a more family type relationship. IN some ways, life was better for northern slaves since they were more likely to receive an education and even gain large sums of money from their own trading. On the other hand, it was harder for northern slaves to run away since they could not blend in as easily. Plus, most New Englanders were very good at spotting and returning runaways.
The practice of slavery was generally accepted in New England despite misgivings about the practice and struggles to establish it. One way New Englanders came to terms with slavery was the overall view of Africans as slaves. They came into North America already enslaved and only Africans were slavery candidates. The idea of slavery was that it was a private practice, one that was not very social or public. Also, people of color were considered outsiders to the English communities and even looked upon as "socially dead." These views and more helped ease any guilt or misgivings about slavery.
Slavery in the northern colonies differed from slavery in the Chesapeake and other southern colonies because of the need that each area had of slaves as well as the way society and economy worked in the area. In the northern colonies masters and slaves had a more intimate relationship than in the Chesapeake and other southern colonies. This was so because most New Englanders could not afford that many slaves and living space was also much smaller than it would have been at a large plantation. A second difference is that slaves had less cultural autonomy in northern colonies and there was a lot more surveillance than in the South, again this is due to the proximity in which northern slaves lived and interacted with the white population.
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