Colonial Slavery Research Paper

The institution of colonial slavery took root during the founding of the United States, and became increasingly oppressive and denied freedom to millions of Africans and their descendants for hundreds of years to come. As slavery began to grow, the insidious nature of such an inhumane system led to a shift in the way Europeans began to view African Americans. The heinous institution that thrived in the colonies didn’t start out as such, but evolved into a system that dehumanized and degraded African slaves. Slavery is compared to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, entering the colony with stealth. “Its power for evil was discovered only when it had become a formidable social and political element” (Williams 252).

When Africans first arrived

Bacon gained the support of common planters and slaves by speaking out against Governor William Berkeley’s nepotistic policies and his refusal to settle Native American land disputes. Berkeley also increased taxes on common planters, which infuriated them. Bacon and his followers burned Jamestown to the ground in September of 1676, after Berkeley refused to comply with Bacon’s requests for more power. The rebellion came to an end when Great Britain sent troops to Virginia to aid the Great Planter Class in subduing the rebels (Bacon’s Rebellion). Bacon’s Rebellion is significant because it united both blacks and whites who were relatively in the same position in society. The unification of these two oppressed groups was a huge threat to the power of the elite. An increase in Africans from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade left plantation owners fearful of future rebellions. So in an attempt to protect said power, the elites began giving common planters power over the slave population. The colonies passed laws which restricted black movement and distinguished slaves as property, denying Africans any rights as human

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans began to question the genetics of Africans, wondering what caused their black skin. As the curiosity grew, Europeans began turning to science to explain the distinguishable differences between Africans and Europeans. Some of these explanations were outlandish, such as the theory that Africans evolved from gorillas, lacked the same cognitive abilities as Europeans, and were of a different species of human. Africans were said to lack reason and therefore were inferior and were “naturally suited for subjugation” (White 50). Such ideals helped to foster the preconceived notions of white supremacy that would later give rise to racist ideologies, and notions of superiority over their African counterparts. By the eighteenth century, skin tone and racial identity were the defining factors used to distinguish citizenship in the United States. Blacks became permanent second-class citizens, as racism and prejudice were established as social norms and linked blackness to slavery and