History of the United States - Charles A. Beard

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Only by a slow process did chattel slavery take firm root and become recognized as the leading source of the labor supply. In 1650, thirty years after the introduction of slavery, there were only three hundred Africans in Virginia.

      The great increase in later years was due in no small measure to the inordinate zeal for profits that seized slave traders both in Old and in New England. Finding it relatively easy to secure negroes in Africa, they crowded the Southern ports with their vessels. The English Royal African Company sent to America annually between 1713 and 1743 from five to ten thousand slaves. The ship owners of New England were not far behind their English brethren in pushing this extraordinary traffic.

      As the proportion of the negroes to the free white population steadily rose, and as whole sections were overrun with slaves and slave traders, the Southern colonies grew alarmed. In 1710, Virginia sought to curtail the importation by placing a duty of £5 on each slave. This effort was futile, for the royal governor promptly vetoed it. From time to time similar bills were passed, only to meet with royal disapproval. South Carolina, in 1760, absolutely prohibited importation; but the measure was killed by the British crown. As late as 1772, Virginia, not daunted by a century of rebuffs, sent to George III a petition in this vein: "The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity and under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of Your Majesty's American dominions. … Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech Your Majesty to remove all those restraints on Your Majesty's governors of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce."

      All such protests were without avail. The negro population grew by leaps and bounds, until on the eve of the Revolution it amounted to more than half a million. In five states—Maryland, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia—the slaves nearly equalled or actually exceeded the whites in number. In South Carolina they formed almost two-thirds of the population. Even in the Middle colonies of Delaware and Pennsylvania about one-fifth of the inhabitants were from Africa. To the North, the proportion of slaves steadily diminished although chattel servitude was on the same legal footing as in the South. In New York approximately one in six and in New England one in fifty were negroes, including a few freedmen.

      The climate, the soil, the commerce, and the industry of the North were all unfavorable to the growth of a servile population. Still, slavery, though sectional, was a part of the national system of economy. Northern ships carried slaves to the Southern colonies and the produce of the plantations to Europe. "If the Northern states will consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase in slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers," said John Rutledge, of South Carolina, in the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. "What enriches a part enriches the whole and the states are the best judges of their particular interest," responded Oliver Ellsworth, the distinguished spokesman of Connecticut.

      Footnotes

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      E. Charming, History of the United States, Vols. I and II.

      J.A. Doyle, The English Colonies in America (5 vols.). J. Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors (2 vols.). A.B. Faust, The German Element in the United States (2 vols.). H.J. Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America. L. Tyler, England in America (American Nation Series). R. Usher, The Pilgrims and Their History.

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      1. America has been called a nation of immigrants. Explain why.

      2. Why were individuals unable to go alone to America in the beginning? What agencies made colonization possible? Discuss each of them.

      3. Make a table of the colonies, showing the methods employed in their settlement.

      4. Why were capital and leadership so very important in early colonization?

      5. What is meant by the "melting pot"? What nationalities were represented among the early colonists?

      6. Compare the way immigrants come to-day with the way they came in colonial times.

      7. Contrast indentured servitude with slavery and serfdom.

      8. Account for the anxiety of companies and proprietors to secure colonists.

      9. What forces favored the heavy importation of slaves?

      10. In what way did the North derive advantages from slavery?

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      The Chartered Company.—Compare the first and third charters of Virginia in Macdonald, Documentary Source Book of American History, 1606–1898, pp. 1–14. Analyze the first and second Massachusetts charters in Macdonald, pp. 22–84. Special reference: W.A.S. Hewins, English Trading Companies.

      Congregations and Compacts for Self-government.—A study of the Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut and the Fundamental Articles of New Haven in Macdonald, pp. 19, 36, 39. Reference: Charles Borgeaud, Rise of Modern Democracy, and C.S. Lobingier, The People's Law, Chaps. I-VII.

      The Proprietary System.—Analysis of Penn's charter of 1681, in Macdonald, p. 80. Reference: Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies in America, p. 211.

      Studies of Individual Colonies.—Review of outstanding events in history of each colony, using Elson, History of the United States, pp. 55–159, as the basis.

      Biographical Studies.—John Smith, John Winthrop, William Penn, Lord Baltimore, William Bradford, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Thomas Hooker, and Peter Stuyvesant, using any good encyclopedia.

      Indentured Servitude.—In Virginia, Lodge, Short History, pp. 69–72; in Pennsylvania, pp. 242–244. Contemporary account in Callender, Economic History of the United States, pp. 44–51. Special reference: Karl Geiser, Redemptioners and Indentured Servants (Yale Review, X, No. 2 Supplement).

      Slavery.—In Virginia, Lodge, Short History, pp. 67–69; in the Northern colonies, pp. 241, 275, 322, 408, 442.

      The People of the Colonies.—Virginia, Lodge, Short History, pp. 67–73; New England, pp. 406–409, 441–450; Pennsylvania, pp. 227–229, 240–250; New York, pp. 312–313, 322–335.

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      The Land and the Westward Movement

      The Significance of Land Tenure.—The way in which land may be acquired, held, divided among heirs, and bought and sold exercises a deep influence on the life and culture of a people. The feudal and aristocratic societies of Europe were founded on a system of landlordism which was characterized by two distinct features. In the first place, the land was nearly all held in great estates, each owned by a single proprietor. In the second place, every estate was kept intact under the law of primogeniture, which

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