The enslavement of people in what became the European colonies of the Americas began long before the United States was recognized. The first European explorers were on the continent known as North America before the 1500s with Columbus being a latecomer in 1492 to the Caribbean. The Vikings subjugated the natives they encountered circa 1000 A.D.. The western continent was largely inhabited by the native peoples of what is now Mexico long before the Spanish influence that we recognize. Spain laid its first claim in 1493 after Columbus’s claim for the Spanish monarchs when landing in Hispaniola. Spain saw the indigenous peoples as part of the resources to be claimed and subjugated them accordingly. The native occupants were “invited” to become part of the Spanish empire by force under both the civil and religious rule of Spain. Portugal did likewise with the region of Brazil while England, France and the Dutch colonized further north on the continent. Remember – what we now call New York City, the southern tip of Manhattan Island was earlier, circa 1620s, the capital of the Dutch Republic known as New Netherland and the city of New Amsterdam. It wasn’t until the 1660s that England took it away from the Dutch.
Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the Aztecs were occupying the central and southern regions of Mexico. The Aztecs were the final indigenous natives culminating the city-states that date back 2500 years before Cortes arrived. But, the Mexican culture goes back to the Olmecs first known in 1200 B.C., the Zapotecs circa 300 B.C., the latter Mayans beginning in the mid-200s and then the Toltecs until 1100s. Each successive group “used” the remnants of the former group to build their kingdom. “To the Victor goes the Spoils” is not a modern observation of the rights of conquest.
While Australia is readily known as the British penal colony, a century and a half earlier England used the Colonies on the North American continent as their first off-island prison colony. In 1615, King James I initiated the legal transport of convicts from the British penal system to the Empire’s Colonies “… as a profitable service abroad where it be found fit to employ them.” While it was a couple years before the movement began, it became a reasonable source of labor for colonial entrepreneurs who would buy prisoners out of English jails and use them as labor for their Colonial enterprises. These workers became indentured servants destined to serve according to the outstanding debt or length of service required by the British system.
It would be another half-century before the captives from Africa began to supplement the white slaves. The importing from England ceased for a short span of years towards the end of the 1600s but by 1718 Parliament had passed laws subsidizing the practice. It became an effective way to decrease the English prison populations with over 20,000 convicts shipped to Virginia between 1697 and the beginning of hostilities in the Colonies circa 1775. Britain ceased the movement of prisoners to the Colonies out of concern for the slaves fighting in the Colonies against the British. Australia became the favored destination.
Personal Note from Will Jackson: The forefather of my family came to the Colonies as a six-year-old prisoner. “Emigrant in Bondage: William Uriah, deported from England to Colonies 1752, relocation instituted to further prevent Robbery, Burglary, and other Felonies. Age 6.” William Uriah was a street urchin like those depicted in Dickens’ 1848 “A Christmas Carol”.
The English included Irish into the population of prisoners sent to the Colonies beginning in the mid-1600s. Ireland was part of the British Empire and it was not uncommon for the Irish to become indentured and suffer the consequences of debtors’ prison. This debt-related slavery continued up to the decade before the American Civil War and was culminated with the Irish Great Famine which lasted from mid-1840s through mid-1850s with the collapse of the potato crops. The commoner of Ireland was dependent upon subsistence farming and with the loss of potatoes for several years, many were unable to support themselves and first sold their children and then themselves into indentured-ship as a means to survive.
Enslaved Africans first arrived in the English American Colonies circa 1620 when 20 Africans were captured by privateers and sold in Virginia. They apparently had been destined for the Caribbean islands or Florida where Spain, Portugal and the British had other colonies. In the following years, over 12 million Africans were transported to the Colonies with approximately 10% dying in the process. The settlers of the Colonies which became the States found Africans to be a more pragmatic source of labor (cheaper, better workers) than the indentured slaves from England or the captured indigenous peoples whose land was being taken by the settlers.
Surprisingly, on the American side of the Revolutionary War was 5,000 African-descended soldiers. This again was repeated when over 10% of the Union troops were of African heritage (186,000). While Africans did ‘serve’ for other reasons, the Confederacy did not issue weapons to their black Americans until very late in the war.
None of this is meant to justify the enslavement of any ethnic or national group but rather to bring a little clarity to who is the “most” oppressed, the most downcast populace and how they achieved that status. Most people groups have lessened the value of any people group besides their immediate community or belief group. History is too often the story of oppression of anyone that we can identify as different than ourselves. My early years were spent in California where those who traveled west from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl/Great Depression years were disdained as “Okies”, a lesser class of folks, almost equivalent to White Trash of the Deep South. Over a million former residents of the Midwest came to California looking for the opportunity to survive in the worst of times and became the labor force of California’s Central Valley and surrounding region. Forty years later, Okies were the ancestors of over 3.5 million Californians and had risen far beyond being a “lesser” population and became authors, actors, builders, even politicians in the most populated state in the country.
Origins are not determinate of the destination of any people group. Modern law and social perception have removed the limitations of class or ethnic restrictions except in the minds and hearts of those who have a history of subjugation and repression. Yes, “Black Lives Matter” and so do Whop (Italy), Spic (Spanish-American), Dago (Italy or Spain), Okie (Oklahoma), Paddy or Mick (Ireland), Chink (China) – all who added immeasurably to the American and world cultures. Read the articles on Kingdoms and see the accomplishments of those that might be considered “lesser” than yourself. Can you honestly say that they are inferior when they have the opportunity to be productive beyond the limitations of perception? The lowest class of people I have ever known were those who did not take advantage of the opportunities afforded them so they could become more productive than they expected of themselves. Too often, limitations are how we see ourselves and our lack of response to going beyond, expecting life to give us more than we contribute out of our resources used to the full. There is a wisdom in the reality of seeing ourselves as we are and not what we might have been by inheritance. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. that said in his 1963 I Have a Dream address, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Character begins with how we see ourselves, how we define ourselves, the limits we put upon our capacity to achieve what is significant and not what we expect others to give us or what we take from others. Few things change civilizations as much as productive accomplishment that leaves critics without recourse.
In reality, how do you perceive yourself?
Image at top: SLAVERY Prison ship HMS Jersey by Bookhout, Edward, engraver Darley, Felix Octavius Carr, 1822-1888 , artist – http://theweeklynabe.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/hms-jersey-the-hell-afloat/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22657572 The HMS Jersey, 1736-1783 was NOT a prison ship until 1780
