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Examples Of Primary Source Analysis Of Slavery

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Primary Source Analysis During the 1600’s, many Africans were being shipped from Africa into the Colonies so that they could be used for the production of difficulty harvested crops like tobacco, sugarcane,and cotton. The use of slaves helped plantation owners become wealthy quickly, and it led to more and more slaves being brought to the colonies until there were more Africans than there were Europeans. This worried many slave owners and led the creation of black codes. The General Assembly in Virginia created “An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves” in October of 1705 to establish new laws regarding slaves and indentured servants. The IV, XVII, and XXXIV laws display how the General Assembly wanted to justify slavery by making non-converted …show more content…

They had their own goals in mind, which was prominently money. 2 One of the purposes presented in the document was to prove that slavery is not wrong because it involves people who have not converted to Christianity. In Act IV, it states that any servant that was brought to the colonies that is not a Christian will automatically become a slave, even if they convert afterward. This shows that the General Assembly believed that slavery was okay because the bible, which is against slavery, did not apply because the slaves were not Christians. They wanted only non-Christians to become slaves so that it would be clear to people that they are only making people who have not converted slaves. Another purpose of this document was to prevent the revolt of slaves since there were more slaves than Europeans in the country. This is obvious in Act XXXIV that states that slaves cannot resist their owner and if they do they can be killed for it. This prevents slaves from revolting because they know the consequences for getting caught leaving could be fatal. This connects to the General assemblies main purpose of creating these laws of wanted to continue to make more and more money. If they have fewer slaves running away, they can make more money. Another purpose is …show more content…

Leah Lefler’s article about slavery shows more on each of the laws and the way they affected Africans. In the article, she states how these laws affected almost free indentured servants and turned them into slaves and how slaves were treated like animals because of these laws. This reveals that the General Assembly did not consider or care about the effects the laws would have on the slaves. In Ira Berlin's article named “The Origins of Slavery” he explains how the reason slavery began in the United States was to make money from plantations and that proves that the intentions of the General Assembly who created the laws were to make money. This further demonstrates that the General assembly's main intention while creating these laws was to make

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304 Words | 2 Pages

This set of laws was written on March 5th in 1624 and named, Laws and Orders Concluded by the Virginia General Assembly. It was written by the General Assembly of Virginia. In these laws, the General Assembly was enforcing the Anglican religion on the Virginia colony. Motives for writing this document were to aid in nurturing the Virginia colony and giving purpose to the lives of those who lived there. Some of the laws included give clarification on issues such as going to church, establishing places of worship, and providing equality for the free people of Virginia.

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707 Words | 3 Pages

a) When it came to levying taxes, Congress would count slaves as three fifths of a person when determining population. E. Slavery in the Constitution 1. The slavery clauses in the Constitution were designed upon compromise as to not upset states that were strongly for or against slavery. a) After twenty years, Congress banned the importation of new African slaves on the first day they were allowed to. b)

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303 Words | 2 Pages

A majority of the sources Kolchin used in the book, American Slavery: 1619-1877 were secondary. The purpose of the book was to bring together research, ideas, and opinions from historians from over the years on American Slavery. Kolchin used a multitude of secondary resources that had primary sources listed and verified by the original authors. This allowed his secondary sources to be legitimate and trustworthy for the most part. Just one of his many secondary sources included: Hyman, ed.,

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650 Words | 3 Pages

They wanted to gain inspiration from other countries so they looked at a document called the Magna Carta from England. In the document it says, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or

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506 Words | 3 Pages

The legal status of blacks in early colonial Virginia is a hard issue to grasp and make sense of. It was not easy to determine the legal status of an individual of African descent in colonial Virginia because there were hardly any laws and regulations that were developed upon the arrival of the first group of blacks in 1619,through developing rules and regulation relating to slavery was how the legal status of people of African descent in colonial Virginia began to take place and into effect. It was when these rules and laws were already established was when Virginian colonists began to take notice of the blacks and how they were different, distinguishing them from the rest of the Virginians. In this paper the following issues will be discussed, how the first Africans came to Virginia, the legal status of blacks, how those laws came to be created, and the different type of methods that were used to distinguish blacks from the Virginians.

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925 Words | 4 Pages

The ordinance itself was intended to speed up expansion of the states into other territories and include them all under the pre-existing government. Territories or principalities formed outside of the American government would inevitably cause discontent and division of resources. This ordinance forced any newly settled lands to become part of the country and obey the same laws. As for the restriction on slavery in the new states, it was a sorely needed refuge for those who had begun to believe that enslavement of another person was wrong. The parties in America had already formed separate opinions on the issue.

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867 Words | 4 Pages

You can see this in Document B, wherein 1858 Lincoln says this: “I have no purpose . . . to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists . . .” Later on in the same document he also states, “There is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights . . . in the Declaration of Independence- the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” While Lincoln was running for president, he promised to leave slavery alone in the South, but he also stays true to his personal morals through his time, that slavery

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400 Words | 2 Pages

Are “all men created equal”? Why did the Constitution allow slavery to continue? The framers of the Constitution allowed slavery to continue because of political, economic, and social issues. They wanted their nation to be unified and the number of states to stay intact. They wanted to secure wealth and slavery was a great part of their economy.

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Document 2, written by Ahmed Baba, a Muslim cleric of Mali, says, “…he should be set free directly…” referring specifically to Muslim slaves, but still expressing concern with slavery imposed on some people. Baba, while considering slavery imposed on non-Muslim African to be acceptable, still shows reservation on the institution as a whole because Muslims can be slaves. Document 3, written by an African slave and addressed to the Bishop of London, is a plea to the Bishop to grant more rights to the slaves to worship God more effectively and to let the slaves’ children be educated and taught to read the Bible. Overall, this document documents the harsh reality of slavery and shows an attempt at getting a Bishop across the Atlantic Ocean to realize this reality.

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470 Words | 2 Pages

Howard Zinn discussed the actuality of Colonial America, in which the wealthy handled poor whites, black slaves, and Native Americans as undesirables. Zinn’s thesis was the idea of plutocracy, government by the wealthy, controlling American society. Class lines hardened, distinctions between rich and poor became sharper. Wealth equated to power, slaves, and estate subsequently, fortifying their superiority over the disadvantaged. This inequality of wealth and power caused disapprobation among the impoverished populace and defiances such as Bacon’s Rebellion undertook.

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517 Words | 3 Pages

The process of black slavery taking route in colonial Virginia was slow. Black slavery mostly became dominant in the 1680s. Slaves became the main labor system on plantations. The amount of white indentured servants declined so the demand for black slaves became necessary in the mid-1660s. The number of white indentured servants that Virginia had up until the mid 1660s, was enough to meet white peoples labor needs.

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

The slaveholders stated that slavery should not be abolished because it is described in the Bible

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558 Words | 3 Pages

This again helps to establish a timeline of when laws were passed that affected race and freedoms. If in 1630 a law of this magnitude was spoken without question as to its meaning then does it not stand to reason that an undocumented law was already in place? It has been written that the Virginia colonies were not as proficient in record keeping when it came to African slaves. The evidence presented here presents an overwhelming argument that race did exist before the seventeenth century.

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705 Words | 3 Pages

On September 17, 1787, fifty-five delegates approved the Constitution. At that time all of them pass some provisions of slavery and no one against, some of them were the founding father of America. In my essay, I will exhibit the ways that the Constitution did and did not address slavery and why founding fathers did not against. First, I will introduce the value of slavery, which can expound why founding fathers outlaw slavery outright in the Constitution.

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918 Words | 4 Pages

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution created a pro-slavery

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