HUSH: Racial Slavery
What did the restrictions on violence dealt on enslaved people allow?
"Moderate" violence, which included physical abuse using stones, sticks, and other weapons
What were three threats and challenges free people of color faced throughout the Americas?
1. Anti-black racism 2. Unlawful enslavement 3. Legal limitations to their political, economic, and social opportunities
"Most laws concerning slavery...increased slaveholders' power and encouraged their violence against enslaved people." List three reasons for these laws.
1. Defend white people's dominance 2. Prevent revolts among enslaved people 3. Maximize the profits of the plantation system
What were the leading causes of death for indigenous people?
1. European diseases (ex. smallpox) 2. Harsh conditions and overwork on plantations 3. Violence inflicted on Native communities
How did enslaved women deal with the exploitation of their body and rights?
1. Running away for short periods of time 2. Seeking out black midwives for herbs to terminate pregnancies 3. Occasionally killing newborn babies to prevent them from enduring a life of slavery and struggles
List five ways that enslaved people resisted and pushed back against the system of slavery.
1. Women resisted the slaveholders' attempts to control their body by running away for short periods of time 2. Religious practice 3. Music 4. Dancing 5. Negotiating less work
Historians estimate that between _________________ percent of enslaved captives who survived the Middle Passage died within their first year in the Americas.
10 and 20
What happened on the Zong? (1781)
130 sick slaves are thrown overboard to get insurance money
When did the Portuguese Crown limit Indigenous enslavement?
1570s
By _______________, enslaved people in Brazil gained limited legal rights to testify against abusive slaveholders, but winning such cases only meant the continuation of enslavement under a new slaveholder.
1688
Most coastal African traders transitioned from trading gold to trading enslaved captives by ______________ due to the increased demand from Europeans.
1700
Brazil officially ended the transatlantic trade in ___________, but did not actually enforce the ban until ______________.
1831, 1850
Enslaved people represented roughly __________ percent of people who crossed the Atlantic in the sixteenth century, ___________ percent in the seventeenth century, and __________ percent in the eighteenth century.
25, 60, over 75
Some experts estimate that the Indigenous population of the Americas decreased from __________________ to __________________ people between 1500 and 1600.
50 million, 80 million
Commodity
A commodity is something that can be bought and sold—for example, goods or services.
What is the "just war" doctrine?
A doctrine that explains their right to enslave Indigenous peoples, and according to the Christian religious doctrine, "just war" was an ethical or righteous war.
Multinational Corporations
A multinational corporation (MNC) is a business enterprise based in one country that also has significant operations in at least one additional country or colony.
What caused the shift from indigenous slavery to African?
African laborers were more controllable, native population declined, new laws of 1542
Cash crops
Agricultural products that are created to be sold for a profit
Indian Removal Act (1830)
An act which forcibly relocated tens of thousands of Native American people from their homes in the southeastern U.S. to lands west of the Mississippi.
Areas colonized by Portugal
Atlantic islands of Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape Verde islands, Brazil
Areas colonized by France
Canada, North America, the Caribbean (including Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti), Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Lucia)
An emphasis on what production occurred in Brazil between 1850 and 1881?
Coffee production
Indentured servants
Colonists who received free passage to North America in exchange for working without pay for a certain number of years.
Which production intensified the slave trade in the United States in the 1820s?
Cotton production
What happened to sugar plantation workers in Brazil?
Disease flourished in the hot tropical environment where sugarcane grew. These devastating illnesses combined with inadequate food rations and inhuman treatment by overseers to cause the average lifespan for an enslaved sugarcane worker in the early seventeenth century to be just three years.
Dispossession
Dispossession of land refers to the act of taking land away from someone else
Examples of some jobs enslaved men would undertake
Distillers, carpenters, coopers (barrel makers), masons, and farmers raising stock animals
By the _________________ century, racial slavery that targeted African and Afro-descended peoples was firmly entrenched in Euro-American laws and society.
Eighteenth
List four multinational corporations that were involved in the transatlantic trade.
English Royal African Company, the Dutch West India Company, the French Compagnie du Sénégal, and the Danish West India Company.
Conditions aboard slave ships
Enslaved Africans occupied cramped dungeon-like quarters alongside people from different regions who spoke unfamiliar languages. Men were often separated from women and children. Forced migration across the Atlantic Ocean permanently separated families and severed ties between subsequent generations of relatives. Enslaved Africans often died from malnutrition, illness, physical violence, and sometimes suicide. Many enslaved people lost the will to eat due to the trauma of this painful isolation, and were then violently force-fed by white slave traders.
Forced migration statistics
Enslaved people represented roughly 25 percent of people who crossed the Atlantic in the sixteenth century, 60 percent in the seventeenth century, and over 75 percent in the eighteenth century.
Three ways slave traders prepared those enslaved to be sold
Enslaved people were given finer clothing, given more food, and were told to dance to make it seem to the buyers that they were healthy.
Why were there labor shortages in the early seventeenth century?
European colonialism had killed millions of Indigenous people in the Americas through violence and disease. There were also not nearly enough indentured servants and convict laborers to meet the labor needs of the plantation system.
What justification did Europeans use in enslaving and converting indigenous people?
Europeans used the Bible to justify the enslavement of Indigenous and African people during the early phases of colonization.
For what roles did Europeans start to increasingly value African women?
Field laborers and potential mothers of enslaved children
Colonialism is a form of _____________________.
Imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism is a system in which a foreign power exerts cultural, economic, or political influence over other societies. NOTE: Imperialism does not require direct political rule and includes a much broader array of policies and actions that powerful states use to control or influence the affairs of less powerful states.
Examples of some people needed to maintain the transatlantic slave trade
Investors, shipbuilders, sailmakers, barrel makers, craftsmen, farmers and fishermen to provide provisions
What did the construction of racial differentiation lead to?
It created the ideas of white supremacy and anti-black racism, resulting in horrific realities for generations of people of African descent.
Why did West and Central African merchants and leaders agree to trade slaves for firearms, swords, horses, and bars of iron with Europeans?
It would give them a competitive edge against their regional rivals
Why was enslaved people's knowledge of food and agriculture important to their physical and cultural survival?
Knowledge of food and agriculture was important to enslaved people's physical and cultural survival because it allowed them to grow and cook food that has origins from Africa, and this allowed them to retain some aspect of their culture and community, and even provide some sort of comfort.
Areas colonized by the Netherlands
Mid-Atlantic region of America, Part of Brazil, a couple Caribbean islands
When did some Spanish and Portuguese religious and political officials began to condemn the enslavement of Indigenous people in the Americas?
Mid-sixteenth century
Type of labor enslaved Africans in the Spanish American and the Caribbean colonies went through
Mining for silver and gold (primarily Spanish America), cultivate food and construct public works (such as roads, bridges, canals, and government buildings)
Where did Spain colonize in the Americas and what did they acquire?
Modern-day Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and all of South America except Portuguese Brazil; they acquired wealth through American silver and gold mines.
Where did the vast majority of enslaved people who endured the slave trade within North America pass through?
New Orleans
Did Spain's New Laws affect the enslavement of Indigenous people in other European colonies?
No
Did the limits placed on enslavement by the Portuguese Crown end up being effective?
No
Were successful revolts on slave ships frequent?
No
Areas colonized by England
North America, Canada, and the Caribbean
Examples of some jobs enslaved women would undertake
Nurses, midwives who delivered babies and cared for new mothers, and seamstresses who made and repaired clothing
What was one of the most successful revolts on a slave ship?
One of the largest and most successful revolts took place in 1752, when four hundred Africans aboard the Marlborough, a British slave ship, rose up and killed thirty-three of the thirty-five-person crew, leaving two to assist in sailing the ship back to Africa.
Indigenous
Originating or naturally existing in a place
For their part, colonial officials lived in constant fear of revolts from enslaved people. These officials encouraged and justified slaveholders' violence as a means of ________________________.
Preventing rebellions
Why did Europeans see Africans as a better source of labor than Native Americans?
Race was a visual marker of difference between Europeans and Africans. This formed racist ideas in Europeans about people of African descent as particularly suited to laboring under harsh conditions.
Where did slave trade in the Americas generally take place?
Rio de Janeiro and Salvador in Portuguese Brazil, Cartagena in the Spanish Caribbean, Willemstad (Curaçao) in the Dutch Caribbean, Martinique and Saint-Domingue in the French Caribbean, Kingston (Jamaica) in the British Caribbean, and Charleston (South Carolina) in British North America
Why did Europeans begin to turn to different forms of labor?
Rising death rates and Spanish and Portuguese religious prohibitions against enslaving Indigenous people inspired white colonists to seek other sources of labor.
As early as the _________________________, Arab and African traders in East and North Africa traded in enslaved people.
Seventh century
Why did the violence grow more intense as enslaved people of African descent outnumbered white people?
Slaveholders hoped to discourage slave rebellions and increase their own profits.
Commodity
Something that can be bought and sold
Which monarchies introduced slave laws in their respective colonies?
Spain, France, and Portugal
Enslaved Africans in Brazil and the Caribbean cultivated cash crops, especially ________________.
Sugar
What did enslaved people in Brazil primarily produce?
Sugar and coffee
List two reasons why slaveholders switched from primarily preferring enslaved African men to preferring both African men and women.
The Europeans and slaveholders developed the extremely racist idea of using skin color for the defining quality of enslavement, and slaveholders also wanted children for enslavement, which is why they sought both enslaved men and women.
Which European countries dominated the slave trade?
The Portuguese dominated the slave trade from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries. The Dutch dominated the slave trade from the 1630s, until England, desiring the trade's massive profits, seized control of it in the eighteenth century.
Colonialism
The conquest, acquisition, exploitation, and political rule of a territory by a foreign power for its own economic and political benefit.
Monocrop agriculture
The cultivation, processing, and export of a single crop
What can the origins of racial slavery be linked to?
The efforts of Europeans to colonize territory in the Americas
Contribution of religion to the enslaved people's struggle for freedom: United States
The enslaved people in the United States sang music that spoke of their resilience and included religious elements. These songs were known as spirituals and these songs would often include themes that talk about freedom from slavery after death and heavenly deliverance.
Why did African slavery dramatically increase in the seventeenth and eighteenth century?
The increase in sugar production and other cash crops
What is the Middle Passage?
The journey of slaves from Africa to the Americas
Code Noir (1685)
The law prohibited slaveholders from torturing or killing enslaved people, but allowed them to use whips and canes to beat enslaved people.
What parts of the edited Bible for the enslaved omit?
The parts about freedom, individuality, equality, and liberation are excluded in this edited part of the Bible, and this was probably done in order to ensure that the enslaved people don't get "ideas" and try to revolt against the slaveholders for their freedom, quoting the Bible.
What trade networks connected European colonialism in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific with African trade systems?
The trade along the Gold Coast of Africa
What methods did enslaved people use to resist the slave system?
They appealed to judicial systems and government officials for acknowledgement of their limited rights, for protection from slaveholders' violence, and to acquire their freedom.
Why did plantation owners turn to monocrop agriculture?
They determined that large plantations were more profitable than small farms.
Why didn't those who held and sold enslaved people respect family ties?
They did not respect family ties because they considered enslaved people to be economic good to be bought, sold, and separated from their loved ones instead of humans with rights.
Why did slaveholders see black healers as a threat?
They saw them as threats because they suspected that the enslaved people wanted to harm them and also realized that their practices challenged their attempts to dehumanize enslaved people and take control of their bodies.
Why did European nations colonize the Americas?
They were in search of wealth, such as gold and silver deposits or exportable cash crops, in order to achieve economic and political dominance.
How did slaveholders emotionally abuse those enslaved?
They would threaten to tear them apart from their loved ones and friends, severing emotional bonds formed, and this would sometimes be done in order to prevent unity and a rebellion against the slaveholders. It was also done to influence the behavior of those enslaved.
Why did Europeans establish the system of racial slavery?
To confront labor shortages on their American plantations
What did enslaved people in the United States primarily produce?
Tobacco, rice, cotton
Examples of cash crops
Tobacco, sugar, cotton, indigo, rice, coffee
What connected countries across the world?
Trade
_________________________ Africans were captured and enslaved by Atlantic slave traders between ___________ and ___________.
Twelve and a half million, 1500, 1870
Contribution of religion to the enslaved people's struggle for freedom: Haiti
Voodoo was used as a way to bring communities together, and it was disguised by elements of French Catholicism to throw off suspicion. It allowed people to assert some control over their own lives.
How were the motivations of black healers different from those of white physicians?
White physicians were paid by slaveholders and only cared about the ability of the enslaved person's ability to produce cash crops and children, while black healers genuinely cared about the patient's well-being.
Type of labor enslaved Africans in the Americas went through
Work on shipping docks, build public works, transport goods, or work in households
The capture and sale of enslaved men, women, and children strengthened the __________________________ of the European countries as they expanded their empires in the Americas.
capitalist economies
European preferences for trading varied depending on __________________ and _______________.
circumstances, needs
Similarities in colonization between European nations?
commercial agriculture, violence, enslavement of indigenous peoples
What led to African leaders participating in slave trade?
depletion of gold, captives of war increase, decrease in demand for precious metals, increasing demand for labor, tribal rivalries in Africa demand weaponry from Europe
Why did native populations decline in the Americas?
disease, harsh labor practices, war with Europeans
1808
end of transatlantic slave trade in America
1831
end of transatlantic slave trade in Brazil
Just as laws did not really protect enslaved people from physical abuse, they gave plantation authorities the right to exercise control over enslaved people through ________________________________.
food, clothing, and medical care
Differences in colonization between European nations? (Spain)
gold and silver mining
Which direction did the slave trade move within the Americas
inward movement
what systems is racism imbedded in today?
law, education, healthcare, police
What were the laws of 1542?
laws limiting ability to enslave native populations
Of the ___________________ survivors of the Middle Passage that arrived in the Americas, __________________ disembarked (got off of) ships in Brazil, ________________ in the British Caribbean, ________________ in the Spanish Americas, and ___________________ in the French Caribbean.
more than 10 million, nearly 4.9 million, 2.3 million, 1.3 million, 1.1 million
Plantation managers and overseers relied upon ______________________________ as their primary tactics for labor control.
physical and emotional abuse
8 elements of plantation function
plantation owner, overseers, slaves, slave drivers, merchants, banks, military, consumers
what records from the non-enslaved do historians examine?
planters' diaries, abolitionist records, legal codes, correspondences between whites
what type of material objects do historians examine?
pots/pans, clothing, dolls
Slaves in ancient slavery were due to
religion, captives of war, debt peonage, status
Rhode Island played a leading role in the transatlantic slave trade, as ________________ percent of all African captives forcibly brought to North America were transported on Rhode Island ships.
roughly 17
types of narratives
slave narratives, court records, records from the non-enslaved, material objects
Who were slave drivers
slaves acting as lower overseers over other slaves
Differences in colonization between European nations? (France)
trade with native peoples
What are the downsides with slave narratives?
very few were literate, number in only the 100s, only luckier slaves could record their experiences
