Chapter 2: Drawing the Color line

W.E.B. Du Bois: Points out Americas trouble in the 17th century with: “the

color line.” (Zinn 23).

Zinn asks: How does it start and how might it end?

Zinn also points out that although African slaves, at this time are considered by many to be like white indentured servants, they were treated differently, and in fact were slaves (Zinn 23).

Around 1617, Viginians needed laborers to grow its profitabletobacco crops and couldn’t force Indians to work, so turned to

African slaves (Zinn 25).

Virginia figured out how to grow Tobacco

Zinn Points out one ugly truth about slavery, which is that Africans were easier to enslave given that they had been torn from their land and culture,

forced into an institution of slavery (Zinn 26).Europeans sometimes tried to justify their slave

trade by pointing out that slavery already existed in Africa (Zinn 27).

Slaves were brought to America in large number and exploited for their labor by wealthy white land owners.

First the Dutch then the English dominate the slave trade.

By 1795 Liverpool had over one-hundred ships carrying slaves. (Zinn 29)

-By 1800, 10 to 15 million blacks had been transported as slaves to America.

-It is estimated that one in every three blacks transported overseas died.

Slavery as an institution

Although slavery had not been legalized Africans were treated differently under the law.

-In 1639, a law passed stated that: “all persons but negroes were to get arms” (Zinn 30)

-In 1640, an African women had a child by a

white man and was punished by being whipped and having to stand in the hot sun

Zinn 30).

-Unfair treatment of Africans violated the bill of rights and the principles of the constitution.

African and White servants began to work together

• In 1661 a law was passed which forbade relations between black and white servants (Zinn 31)

-In 1691 Virginia passed a law that banished any “white man or woman being free who shall intermarry with a negro, mulatoo, or Indian man or woman bond or free” (Zinn 31).

-Slavery was not only institutionalized but it had the full backing of the law. Yet the institution seemed to contradict the Declaration of Independence which states that: “…all men are created equal…”

By the 1700’s Slavery flourished in Virginia

• As Plantations grew so did slavery and by 1700 there were 6,000 slaves and by 1763 the number had multiplied almost 30 times with 170,000 slaves working, or about half the population (Zinn 32).

-Blacks would begin to retaliate and resist, under pain of punishment and further oppression.

The mid 1700’s saw serious signs of resistance by the slavery

population.

• In 1729, a report released revealed that many African slaves had planned to band together and escape to the mountains, taking only basic essentials and survival equipment (Zinn 32). This attempt was foiled but was a worrying sign to plantation owners.

Further Rebellions would continue and increase into the 1800’s

• According to Zinn, newspaper advertisement between 1736 and 1801 report 1,138 men and 141 women ran away, under the threat of mutilation and punishment (Zinn 34).

-In 1742 seven slaves were put to death for poisoning their masters (Zinn 34).

-The misery of slave life had become so unbearable, that Africans would rather run away then remain beholden to racist whites.

Racist Whites tried to create a system of slavery but slaves

continue to resist• Zinn points out that the system of slavery was an: “…an intricate and powerful system of control that the slave owner’s developed to maintain their labor system (Zinn 35).

-Furthermore, he explains that the system is psychological and physical. That is slaves

were taught to discipline and to know their place (Zinn 35).

-In spite of attempts by racist whites to make slaves conform to their system of oppression, rebellions would spread through the colonies creating chaos and unrest.

South Carolina faced its own rebellions

-In 1739, at Stono South Carolina twenty slaves rebelled, killed two guards, stole guns and headed south killing people and burning buildings along the way (Zinn 36).

-Militia men found them and after a fierce battle about twenty five militia men were killed, and about 50 slaves died (Zinn 36).

-These rebellions were worrying signs to plantation owners and resulted in further passage of laws regulating slaves and further divisions between Americans about the moral

implications of slavery.

New York faced its own problems with challenges to its system of

slavery• Slaves made up 10 percent of New Yorks population, the highest in all the Northern states (Zinn 35)

-In 1712, twenty-five blacks and two Indians set fire to a building, then killed nine whites. They were put on trial and executed (Zinn 35-36).

• Boston and New York experienced many mystery fires, believed to be the work of slaves (Zinn 36).

*Slavery not only violated the principles of the constitution, Bill of Rights and

Declaration of Independence, it caused trouble and major social unrest.

Rebellions continued across the colonies

In New York in 1741 fires began to break out and after a trial and episodes of mass hysteria two white women and two white men wereexecuted, while thirteen slaves were burned alive and eighteen were hanged (Zinn 37).These prosecutions were based on forced confessions and baselessaccusations and again violated the rights of the accused to due process and other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

Slavery as a failed institution

• There are many causes that resulted in the forced slavery for many Africans. In Africa the conditions for oppression were ripe for any powerful nation to exploit. In America the tobacco crop and other land needed slaves to work. These forces combined to create conditions for slavery to flourish for a short period of time.

-As Zinn points out: “the desperation of settlers, the special helplessness of the displaced blacks…” and many other factors contributed to the enslavement of Africans.

-But as history has shown this period did not last, and this example illustrates that any system of exploitation will eventually be dismantled and will always be resisted.

Works Cited

• Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins.

(2005). Book.