Summary
Highlights
Slavery was present in all British colonies due to demand for labor, though its concentration varied. New England had fewer enslaved people due to small farms and climate, while the Middle Colonies (like New York and New Jersey) used them in port cities and large grain plantations. The Chesapeake region and Southern Colonies, with warmer climates and longer growing seasons, heavily relied on enslaved labor for large-scale plantations and high-demand crops like tobacco, with the British West Indies having the largest concentration due to sugar cultivation, where the black population outnumbered the white by 4 to 1.
To control the growing enslaved black population, a new definition of slavery emerged: chattel slavery, meaning enslaved people became the complete and perpetual property of the slaveholder. The Barbados Slave Code, which stripped rights from enslaved blacks and gave planters complete power, was adopted in the southern colonies, leading to brutal punishments. Laws were also passed stating that children born to enslaved women would also be perpetually enslaved, consolidating race-based slavery.
Initially, indentured servants (both black and white) were the primary labor force, contracting to work for a period to pay off their migration debt, after which they would receive land. However, around the mid-17th century, the racial divide began to sharpen. The 1640 case of John Punch, an enslaved black indentured servant condemned to lifelong slavery while his white counterparts received extended indentures, signaled a shift toward race-based slavery. The breakdown of the indentured servitude system in Virginia due to scarcity of land, coupled with growing resentment, led to Bacon's Rebellion.
Bacon's Rebellion, led by Nathaniel Bacon in the second half of the 17th century, was a violent uprising of disgruntled indentured servants and poor farmers, both black and white, against Governor William Berkeley. The rebellion, fueled by land scarcity and the governor's perceived favoritism towards the elite, initially targeted indigenous people before turning on Berkeley. The rebellion, though ultimately crushed, deeply concerned wealthy southern planters. It highlighted the risk of unified, poor, and disgruntled labor forces, leading to the enforcement of earlier slave codes and race-based laws. These laws elevated even the poorest whites above black people, preventing future alliances between poor white and black laborers and solidifying demand for enslaved Africans as the dominant labor system in the South.
Enslaved Africans resisted the brutal system in various ways. Covert resistance included maintaining family structures despite threat of separation, working slower, breaking tools, and preserving cultural elements like gender roles, religious beliefs, and traditional languages. They also introduced musical instruments like drums and banjos, and blended African, European, and indigenous traditions to create syncretic cultures (e.g., gumbo, jumbalaya, Mardi Gras). Overt resistance, though less widespread, had a significant impact. This included slave rebellions such as the 1712 New York City revolt where enslaved people burned a building and killed nine white people, and the prolonged resistance of maroons in Jamaica. The most famous rebellion was the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina in 1739, where a group of recently arrived enslaved people attacked white settlements and grew to about 100 rebels before being defeated. These rebellions instilled deep fear in southern planters, leading to even more severe slave codes and further entrenching the institution of slavery.