IV.

Slavery in the Modern Period

The coastal exploration of Africa and the invasion of North and South America by Europeans in the 15th century, and the subsequent colonization of the Americas during the next three centuries, provided the impetus for the modern slave trade. Portugal, lacking in agricultural workers, was the first modern European nation to meet its labour needs by importing slaves. The Portuguese began the practice in 1444; by 1460, they were annually importing 700 to 800 slaves to Portugal from trading posts and forts established on the African coast. These were African people captured by other Africans and transported to the western coast of Africa. Spain soon followed, but for more than a century Portugal virtually monopolized the African traffic. Throughout the 15th century, Arab traders in northern Africa shipped African people taken from central Africa to markets in Arabia, Iran, and India.

In tropical Latin America during the 16th century, Spanish colonists first forced the indigenous populations to work the land. These indigenous people, however, could not survive under conditions of slavery and were nearly exterminated, in part by exposure to European disease and excruciating labour. Africans were then brought to the Spanish colonies, primarily because it was believed that they could better endure forced labour in the generally more enervating Caribbean and mainland Latin-American climates.

England entered the slave trade in the latter half of the 16th century, contesting the right to supply the Spanish colonies held until then by Portugal. France, Holland, Denmark, and the American colonies themselves subsequently entered the trade as competitors. In 1713 the exclusive right to supply the Spanish colonies was granted to the British South Sea Company.

In North America the first African slaves landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Brought by early English privateers, they were subjected to limited servitude, a legalized status of Native American, white, and black servants preceding slavery in most, if not all, the English colonies in the New World. The number of slaves imported was small at first, and it did not seem necessary to define their legal status. Statutory recognition of slavery, however, occurred in Massachusetts in 1641, in Connecticut in 1650, and in Virginia in 1661; these statutes mainly concerned fugitive slaves.

With the development of the plantation system in the southern colonies in the latter half of the 17th century, the number of Africans imported as agricultural slave labourers increased greatly, and several northern coastal cities became centres of the slave traffic. Generally, in the northern colonies, slaves were used as domestics and in trade; in the Middle-Atlantic colonies they were used more in agriculture; and in the southern colonies, where plantation agriculture was the primary occupation, almost all slaves were used to work the plantations.

As African slaves became an increasingly important element in the English colonies in America, particularly in the South where they were considered fundamental to the economy and society, the laws affecting them were modified. By the time of the American War of Independence (1775-1783), they were no longer indentured servants but slaves in the fullest sense of the term, and laws defining their legal, political, and social status with respect to their owners were specific.

Formally, slaves in the Americas did have some legal rights, such as the right to support in age or sickness, the right to limited religious instruction, and the right to have legal representation and to give evidence in special cases. Custom gave numerous rights also, such as private property, marriage, free time, contractual ability, and, to females, domestic or lighter plantation labour, which, however, the owner was not bound to respect. In fact, basic human rights were often disregarded. Women slaves could be subjected to persistent rape by their owners, and families were often split apart as their members were sold away to separate plantations. Brutal treatment such as mutilation, branding, chaining, and murder were, in theory, regulated or prohibited by law, but instances of cruelty were common before the 19th century.