Bacon's Rebellion Chattel Slavery

The primary sources in the Primary Source Readings (PSR) tell us about the many backstories of the Atlantic Slave Trade not explicitly shown in most historical textbooks. Many slave owners, merchants, and lawmakers used religions, laws, and publications to prevent slave rebellions both on plantations and aboard ships. After the Bacon’s Rebellion, the fear of another unpleasant uprising led plantation owners and merchants seeking for a lower risk alternatives, such as adopting the chattel slavery system. In order to prevent any future slave rebellion uprising, they conspired to create a system of suppression towards the people of colors using the Atlantic slave trade. Most importantly, they also controlled the social conducts of Africans by

History, “Bacon’s Rebellion helped to catalyze the creation of a system of racial slavery in the Chesapeake colonies” (79). The demand for higher benefits displeased many business owners which influenced them to seek other lower risk laborers. After the Bacon’s Rebellion, plantation owners and merchants feared of another costly dispute among their indentured servants. The practice of chattel slavery offered as a more promising prospect for preventing future rebellion. The underlying pattern of the conspiracy was to select people who were illiterate and destitute to work in the foreign land of the Atlantic World. The demand for numbers of slaves increased as more and more slave owners and merchants favored this system as opposed to indentured servants. As a result, slave trades became one of the most profitable business that led many millions of African captives into the Atlantic

Several documents were printed to improve the number of casualties during the transportation of the Africans. One of these contributions was James Barbot Jr. who wrote the “General Observations on the Management of Slaves.” Resistant among the captives did occurred aboard ships as Barbot described one of his personal account of the revolt aboard Don Carlos. He argued that mistreatment of the African captives was the main reason they became desperate to escape the imprisonment. Although his suggestions appeared more humane in treating the African captives with proper care and nourishment, it was to keep the number of their prized captives alive during the transportation. In order to monitor and manage the captives aboard ships, they seek to educate slave traders how to treat the Africans to maximize profits. The fact that they conspired to abduct other people from a foreign country justified their differences and insensitivity to the suffering of the Africans in their conduct to increase their economic