today we're looking at the beginning of slavery in america
hello welcome to the daily bellringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the
questions down in the description so today we're looking at the beginning of slavery in america
and this is a topic that is very sensitive and a topic that should not be taken lightly
as this is one of the worst human rights violations in human history but it's important
to note as we look at this what many consider to be the starting point of slavery in america
is you know something that is not unique to the united states uh unfortunately slavery
has been part of just about every major civilization every major nation's history
from the ancient egyptians to the romans to the british and up until today with human trafficking
issues the subjugation and labeling of some races as being inferior not equal is a terrible fact of
our history as humankind and something that we need to recognize and understand so that we can
eradicate it and get rid of it forever slavery is going to be an extremely important theme
that runs throughout american history and i'll be coming back and covering different aspects of it
as i move through history the origins of the of enslavement of africans in america is traced to
1619 at jamestown now this does not mean that these were the first africans or enslaved people
on the north american continent in fact there's records of africans traveling with christopher
columbus to the new world and slavery was already being practiced throughout the caribbean
uh central america and south america before jamestown was even established in 1607.
in fact european involvement in the trade of enslaved africans dates back to the 1400s
but as far as the english colonization of north america the first enslaved africans arrived near
jamestown virginia in late august of 1619 about 20 enslaved africans landed at jamestown aboard the
english ship the white lion it is believed that these people had come from present-day angola
and were actually part of a group of enslaved people who had been forced to board the san juan
batista one of several portuguese slave ships that carried human cargo across the atlantic
to north and south america this trip from africa to the americas came to be known as the middle
passage as it was the middle leg of what became known as the triangular trade system in which raw
materials such as sugar tobacco and cotton would be loaded on ships and sent to europe and from
america and then processed and refined in europe in europe into textiles or cloth and rum and other
manufactured goods that would then be shipped to western africa and traded for enslaved people
that would be forced to board crowded slave ships and brought to north and south america and i'll be
making another bellringer fully devoted to the horrors and atrocities of the middle passage as
i move through colonial history on the san juan batista enslaved africans were forced
to march hundreds of miles from the interior of africa and then placed on the ship carrying 350
enslaved people on the journey it's estimated that over 150 captives died when the san juan batista
approached present-day mexico they were attacked by the english pirate ship the white lion the
surviving enslaved people were taken captive by the white lion and then brought to jamestown john
rolfe who was the englishman that brought tobacco to jamestown and of course would marry pocahontas
was actually the secretary of jamestown and wrote about the arrival of the white lion
the captives were sold to wealthy planners there in jamestown despite jamestown not actually having
clear laws concerning slavery unfortunately it was just simply accepted that slavery would be allowed
and with tobacco becoming the primary crop that was very labor intensive slavery slavery became
very important to the early colonial economy more enslaved people would shortly arrive to jamestown
as by march of 1620 a record indicated 32 africans living in jamestown now some records indicate
that some africans were treated as indentured servants or someone that would work on a contract
usually for about seven years before being allowed to be free however by the early 1660s laws were
changed in jamestown to make slavery a lifelong burden thus beginning the system of what today
is known as chattel slavery in which enslaved people were considered property and not a person
and the children of enslaved people were also considered to be the property of the slave owner
over the next 200 years hundreds of thousands of africans were forced to endure the middle passage
and brought to america to endure a life of forced servitude the united states would become
economically dependent upon enslaved people's labor especially in the south on large sprawling
plantations as agriculture became the dominant southern economic activity and by the beginning
of the american civil war in 1861 there would be over 4 million enslaved people in america
so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you