Slavery in America is one of the broad topics on the civilization development in those western countries. To better understand the slavery in America, one must review the history of America since they gained independence through how some the powers colonized other countries. This will help one to understand deeply the regions from which the slaves were outsourced. Slavery can be dated many years back closely to the discrimination periods where people the color were seen as of less important compared to the white people. In this paper am going to cover the history, development and the basic characteristics of slavery in four of America countries. The countries are Portuguese-Brazil, Spanish Caribbean, French Caribbean, and British North America.
The arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil as colonialists around 1500 was totally different from the arrival of Spain in Peru and Mexico. On arrival in Brazil, the Portuguese did not find developed civilization with valuable artifacts like precious metals. Neither did they find a social system or organization that could provide a steady system that they could adopt. The Brazilian Indians practiced hunting and gathering though a certain percentage was switching to agricultural practices though at small scales. By then the Brazilians had no urban areas or domestic animals, there was a high spread of illiteracy among the people. During the first years of Portuguese settlement in Brazil, they realized that they could not subject the Indians into slavery because they had high mortality after being exposed to the western infections. Some of the Indians took the home advantage and ran away from the working areas into the hiding places. Instead, the Portuguese opted to source slaves from Africa especially to provide the manual labor.
Spain started practicing slavery by enslaving the indigenous people who were locals of their colonies. The Spanish forced the locals into slavery using production quotas; their major aim was to get returns for the expenditure on colonization process that they viewed as a form of investment. Unlike the Portuguese who did not reward the slaves, the Spanish used the production quotas, their colonization of American begun when Columbus captured and enslaved Americans especially people from Native Caribbean. Columbus with his voyages and other Spaniards used enslavement to mobilize native labor and met their planned production quotas. However, the Spanish continued to import slaves from African for centuries. It was until the 19th century when they outlawed slavery in all their colonies except in Cuba and Puerto Rico. The Spanish opted to import slaves from Africa to help develop the plantations in the Caribbean. Many other colonies exploited slavery early unlike the Spanish colonies In the Caribbean which was among the last to stop slavery. The Spanish monarchs are the ones who gave out the directions to the Caribbean colonists to buy slaves from Africa. This decision came after the initial years of Spanish in the Americas that is the Caribbean; there was an outbreak of the flu that claimed the lives of both the Caribbean and Spanish. It was believed that the Africans were able to provide more reliable labor following a rapid decrease of the Native American population
French Caribbean refers to the parts of Caribbean which were colonized by the France nationals. The French wanted to boost the success of their sugarcane farming. They took the enslaved people to provide manual labor in those firms: Antigua, St. Kitts and Saint Lucia are among the Lesser Antilles were the initial important slave’s societies that existed in the Caribbean. The economic switch from Tobacco to Sugarcane farming made the French to embrace slavery.
Every layperson that has the interest of understanding Slavery in America has to cover the slavery in the British North America. Amongst a good number of the mainland countries which were colonies of British North America slavery was not a common practice of the South. This took place later after the American Revolution and the initial decades of the 19th century. The slave trade had been taking place in North America since 1619 but up to the 17th century the percentage of slaves represented in the American work force was very low. Towards the last quarter of the 17th century, the population of slaves grew to a point that African Americans contributed about 20% of the total population living in the mainland colonies. Research shows that less than four percent of slaves who left Africa that were taken to North America. The low demand of slaves shows the regional differences that existed within America; there are those regions that chose the labor intensive crops like tobacco and rice. Such regions include Brazil and West Indies where a majority of slaves were taken to work in the plantations. It’s was believed that such crops were profitable as compared to the other type of crops that required little or no labor. British North America was a minor destination for slaves from Africa and other parts of the World.
In British North America especially after the American Revolution, South Carolina, and Virginia comprised of 60% and 40% slaves respectively. While in some parts the slaves had to work for long hours with limited freedom, those in South Carolina were many and worked in large plantations. There big numbers enabled them to work with little supervision by the white and after work they were allowed time to interact with the other African Americans. For example, one unit in South Carolina could have up to fifty or more slaves that were after 1750. Although the largest population of slaves was found in The South, slavery practices mostly existed in the Northern colonies
Work Cited:
Alender, D. (1963) A History of American Foreign Policy. Print.
Blackburn, R. (1997) The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern. London. Print.
Butler, B. (1990) Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838. Print.