This document provides an overview of the history of slavery in the New World between the 15th and 18th centuries. It discusses the origins and mechanics of the transatlantic slave trade, the development of plantation economies dependent on slave labor in the Caribbean and Americas, and the evolution of slavery and racial ideologies over time. Key points covered include the triangular trade route, the growth of the sugar and tobacco industries, differences between northern and southern slavery, and the increasing racialization of slavery in the 17th-18th centuries.

1. American history survey
4th class
slavery in the new world,
15th – 18th centuries

2. announcements
• Please turn in paper # 1. You are not eligible to
take the midterm exam unless you have turned in
paper # 1. Deadline: Tuesday 11/8.
• Please see me after class for conflicts for Mon
11/14 midterm, 10:10 – 11:45 am.
• If you saw Amistad, you may write a 3 – 5
paragraph review as one of your 3 papers this
semester. Reviews are both objective (summary)
and subjective (analysis & evaluation).

3. Indian reservations today

4. Federal & Indian land today

5. Atlantic slave trade – largest forced
migration in history –11 million

6. Middle passage

7. Triangular trade
• Africa to New World: human cargo.
• Colonies in N America to W Europe:
agricultural & other raw materials desired in
Europe: tobacco, sugar
(molasses, rum), rice, wheat, lumber.
• W Europe to Africa: manufactured
goods, textiles, iron implements, ship wares.

8. Slave trade

9. auction block, Charleston,
South Carolina

10. inspecting a potential “purchase”

11. slavery in the Caribbean -- sugar

12. Caribbean, aka West Indies
• Overwhelmingly young
men.
• Societies rapidly
became Black majority.
• European whites mostly
could not stand the
tropical climate.
• Sugar cultivators often
worked slaves to death.
• Also Brazil.

14. tobacco in the Chesapeake

15. tobacco
• The major colonial export in 18th c.
• Required year-round attention & many steps in
process.
• W Africans had been agriculturalists.
• 17th c – societies with slaves; owners, servants, slaves
worked together. 1st generation slaves had previous
experience elsewhere & participated in & utilized
British culture (church, legal system, etc.)
• 18th c – slave societies – elite owned large plantations
w hundreds of slaves. Increasingly African-born,
saltwater slaves, direct from African interior.

16. Slavery in the urban north

17. Northern cities
• New York had largest proportion of slaves.
• NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Newport – port
cities, men’s work in shipping, transportation,
& ship-building; women’s work as domestics,
weavers, etc.
• 10 – 20% of population in 17th & 18th c.
• Northern merchants began to replace British
as slave traders.

18. Slavery in South Carolina, rice

19. Lower South
• Slave societies; slavery was model for whole
culture.
• Rice required large plantations to be
profitable.
• Rise of elite planter class.
• Profits put back into extension of slavery. No
diversification of economy.

20. significance of slave-created
products
• tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea – tropical,
not grown in N & W Europe
• addictive
• proletarian hunger-killers
• sped up daily work of people who consume
• sustained work force of the Industrial
Revolution & postindustrial age, including us!

21. development of slavery
• In 17th c North America, African slaves &
European indentured servants shared many
similarities. Most slaves imported from
Caribbean or W African coast; previous
knowledge of European world. Small # of slaves.
• 1660s & later, colonial legislatures passed laws
regulating Africans – no intermarriage, heritable
status, harsh penalties for disobedience, clear
division from indentured servants based on race.

22. development of slavery
• 18th c. Africans, direct from interior, became
majority of slaves.
• Southern plantation elite dominated their
colonies. Less affluent whites moved west.
• Slavery differed substantially across time, across
geography, across economies, and from urban to
rural areas.
• Freedom for whites based on slavery of Blacks is
most important contradiction in US history.

23. assignment for next week
• Primary sources about slavery, from Zinn &
Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of the US,
51 – 61.