Posted on 02/22/2020 11:06:26 AM PST by kathsua
The initial forced labor in the British North American colonies involved indentured servants who served a limited amount of time and were then freed. Many whites volunteered to serve a period of time in exchange for funds to pay for their trip to North America. Although these indentured servants were only temporary slaves, they were slaves in every sense of the word. Owners could mistreat them and even choose their sexual partners. Use of indentured servants continued through April, 1775, when prominent Virginia planter George Washington advertised a reward for the return of 8 white and 2 black runaways. s The Africans and many Irish were forced to travel to the British colonies. Irish were sometimes sentenced to "transportation to America" for illegal acts. Over 300,000 Irish were sent to North America and the West Indies as slaves. . Thousands of children from London streets were rounded up and sent to the Americas.
Most indentured servants were white, particularly Irish, but some were Africans like Anthony Johnson who like white indentured servants was given some land after being freed. Johnson used indentured servants on his land.
Later when a decision was made to allow people to be held as permanent slaves, only Africans could be permanent slaves because they were foreigners. The law didn't allow British subjects to be permanent slaves. However, initially black children of indentured servants could be treated as permanent slaves because the mother's status as free or nor free determined the child's status. If the mother was a slave the child woul be a slave. This practice differed from the traditional practice of having the father's social status determine the child's status. A white slave child would be considered an indentured servant. A black slave child would become a permanent slave.
By the time permanent slavery began whites and blacks had been having relationships for years and produced children of mixed ancestry. Some plantation owners forced white female indentured servants to mate with black men so the children would become permanent slaves. This practice increased the portion of the slave population that had European [white] genes as well as African [black] genes. The slave population received additional white DNA from slave owners and overseers.
The relationships among those of mixed ancestry and between those with mixed ancestry and whites were producing children who could " pass for white " in the 18th Century. Some with a slightly dark complexion might have claimed to be of North American or Mediterranean ancestry to gain acceptance as whites.
The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his sister-in-law and virtual wife Sally Hemings provides an example of this situation. Hemings was the daughter of a union between Jefferson's father-in-law John Wayles. and a slave. Wayles took Hemings' mother as his concubine after his first three wives died. Hemings was legally classified as "white" and had long straight hair, but the social situation and laws governing slavery likely made an actual marriage impossible. Some of their children later passed for white after being freed and leaving Virginia.
This situation demonstrates that slavery was no longer about "race" or "color" in 1800. Even though Hemings was the "white" daughter of a plantation owner, she was still considered a slave who became part of the property of her father's estate when he died in 1774.
Various accounts in the following years indicate that household servants were often of lighter complexion than field slaves. Many suggest this situation indicates color prejudice. The more likely explanation is that the household servants had lighter complexions because they were related to the plantation owner.
By the time of the Civil War there were 5,000 black slave owners and many slaves who were light complexioned or even white.
The strange case of Jane / Alexina Morrison demonstrates that slavery wasn't necessarily about color. According to the slave trader who sold her in Louisiana the blonde haired blue-eyed young woman he called "Jane" was born a slave. The woman who called herself "Alexina" sued him for kidnapping her after she escaped from him. The case bounced around the Louisiana courts just before the Civil War with juries siding with the woman and the courts with the slave trader. It apparently is still technically before the courts. Regardless of which person was telling the truth, the fact that the courts even considered the possibility of Morrison being a slave demonstrates that white slaves were a part of southern slavery by the start of the Civil War. Some of the escaped slaves whose narratives were published before the Civil War mentioned having seen white slaves. Harpet's Weekly in January carried a picture of slaves recently freed by the Union army who were white.
This is racist white supremacy propaganda!/s
It really kind of is. Indentured work in exchange for passage, was nothing like the African slave trade. This is some Stormfront kind of stuff
Interesting thanks for the post.
“Although these indentured servants were only temporary slaves, they were slaves in every sense of the word.“
As long as sense of the word dies not mean being born into slavery and being a slave until the moment you die.
This does not fit the politically correct narrative.
Even on FR this might get zotted, regardless of reality.
The Confederacy solved this confusion in their Constitution
Article I section 9 (4)
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed
Article IV section 4 (3)
In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized
I’ve read part of one book that states that the African slave trade evolved from the indentured servitude system. If the latter was still around in 1775, the “evolution” was some sort of a branching off from indentured servitude, but existed simultaneously with it.
It’s possible that as the forced shipping of captives from Africa became big business, the indentured servitude system adjusted itself towards enslaving blacks born to indentured mothers for life, while the mother would go free at the end of her servitude, provided she was not convicted of anything for which the penalty was enslavement for life in the interim.
There is absolutely no way, however, that indentured servitude could evolve directly into filling the hold of a ship with bound captives. The two are simply not compatible.
African slaves’s standard of living increased immediately upon capture by Arabs.
Muhammad Ali once said, “Thank God my Granddaddy Got on that Boat”
This article and the claims made are mostly bogus.
None of this mentions the Islamic slave trade. It was even more brutal. The word for black and slave is the same word in Arabic. Since slavery is built into the Koran it still exists in Islamic countries today.
The children of an indentured servant mother were born free, according to this story:
https://video.kpbs.org/video/finding-your-roots-wanda-sykess-free-ancestors-1600s-and-1700s/
Her ancestors were a long line of free people all the way back to the 1600's. Traced to a white indentured servant woman. That woman was punished with 39 lashes, but her child was born free.
For anyone who did not see Part 1 of this article: https://reasonmclucus.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-real-story-of-slavery-part-1.html
My #9 on this thread I think is closer to the truth.
The first part has more the ring of truth than the second.
Considering that the average lifespan was about 35 and the living conditions of the indentured a 15 or 20 year indenturment would be for life in most cases. The indentured were much cheaper (the cost of passage) than slaves who were resistant to the rampant malaria and were therefore treated worse because of the ease of replacement.
REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY? GIVE ME A BREAK!!
EXCEPT FOR UNDER MOST DEMOCRAT ADMINISTRATIONS, MY WHITE EUROPEAN ANCESTORS PROBABLY EXPERIENCED MORE SLAVERY THAN ANY AMERICAN BLACK.
https://www.brighteon.com/5842523575001
Most indentured servants were convicts sentenced or had their sentences commuted to 7 or 14 years working on a plantation.
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