Paper Topic:

African American History

1 . The process of enslavement had been , for that time , a complex evolving event . The final outcome was the result of a historical background which combined elements of both cultural and economic nature The North American colonies were a part of the British Empire which represented an important factor that motivated the import of ideas related to a superiority of the white race as opposed to others Therefore , the cultural imperial input had determined the colonists to see difference as being inferior . This mentality was pictured in the treatment of Indian , black

, Caribbean descendent people . At first though , slavery in the Americas during the 17th century was an institution that made little distinction as to the race of the enslaved or the free man (Slavery , 2005 . Yet , as the practice became more common , there was an obvious tendency of distinguishing between white workers and black ones , the latter being given a much harsher treatment The economic factor that triggered the explosive development in slave trade was motivated by the increase in demand for southern goods which were manufactured with slave labor and the ever more growing volume of trade in the British Empire

In the beginning , black people were used as servant in the houses of well-off southerners the practice was especially popular in Jamestown Virginia . Most often , they were indentured servants who were guaranteed freedom after the passage of a period of seven years (Wikipedia , 2006 Therefore , in the early XVII th century , as black people were brought from the Caribbean regions and then from Africa , the first steps towards setting in place a slave trade mechanism were made

Technological changes and the opening of new agricultural land in the Deep South intensified the demand for slave labor in the early national era . The cotton gin enabled planters to increase production from under 300 ,000 bales in 1820 to nearly 4 .5 million in 1860 . Slave-produced cotton dominated the nation 's foreign exports and fueled the early industrialization of Great Britain and New England mill towns like Lowell and Waltham , Massachusetts (Trotter , 2006 . Therefore , the terrible transformation ' was the result of the historical development of the colonies which soon came to depend on black people 's labor , as the need for cheap or unpaid labor soon arouse in to offset a portion of the expense , some Africans were made into servants for life and Indians were used as laborers ) In 1661 , Virginia officially recognized slavery by statute (Slavery , 2005 . The situation in Maryland , South and North Carolina , New York took a similar turn , yet the law which officially recognized slavery only took act in later decades (McElrath , 2006 . Soon , slave codes ' were set in place to reinforced their enslavement (Trotter , 2006 , as there was a serious concern over the possibility of the slaves to rebel . Consequently , the master had been given property rights ' over his slaves , and thus could even decide in crucial matters

Such a development was , one could say , inevitable , as the new colonies were entering...

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