Beginning with the first sale of black slaves to the Colony of Virginia in 1619, after a period of development, black slaves gradually eliminated Indian slaves and white slaves and became the best choice for slave owners in north American colonies. In order to enslave and control black slaves for greater profit, the system of treating black slaves in the North American colonies gradually changed from a contract system to a lifelong system, and even a more cruel bloodline system.
Beginning in Virginia in 1661, the slave statutes for blacks in the colonies were promulgated one after another, the most severe of which was the statute issued in Maryland in 1683, stipulating that all blacks of black descent were slaves, including black mixed-race children born to white mothers (of course, this is rare, white women rarely have children with black women, whether they have children in wedlock or illegitimate children), free black mothers' children, etc.; and it is forbidden for blacks to move around and associate with whites. Maryland's extremely harsh law did not change until 1681 to conform to slave laws in other states, declaring the children of free blacks and the children of white women born of black and white women to be free men.
Black slaves and children working in cotton fields
But unlike the southern colonies, most of the northern colonies had a much better attitude toward black slaves. Most of the black slaves in the northern states were not brutally exploited and mistreated like their compatriots in the South, and they were able to receive better living conditions and a certain degree of respect under the care of their masters.
But as we said earlier, the colonists did not treat black slaves well for no reason, and in the early days their attitude toward black slaves was not much different from that of the South, of which New York State controlled black slaves no less than the southern colonies, and also stipulated such rules as "black slaves are not allowed to go to the streets at night" and "fugitive slaves are caught and executed". The reason why the attitude of the North toward black slaves changed later was mainly due to the problem of interests, of course, there were also religious factors:
Black slave family
First, the economy of the north is different from the south, the south is mainly based on the large plantation economy, which requires a large amount of labor to work, and because of the limitations of the climate, the exploitation of land in the subtropical swamps in the south and the cultivation of the laborers are very damaging to the body of the laborers, so the black slaves who are physically strong and can endure the hot environment are very important; while the economy of the north is mainly based on small workshop industry and handicrafts, and the physical requirements for workers are not so important, but require the main skill and skill. Therefore, the master could not treat the slaves with forced labor as in the South, but the masters worked and lived together with the slaves, and gave more preferential treatment, so that the slaves could willingly make more efforts.
For these reasons, the majority of slaves in the North were slaves, coachmen, gardeners, shopkeepers, skilled workers, etc., and a small number of plantation workers could also enjoy higher living conditions and were therefore more efficient in labor; in the South, they were forced to perform heavy physical labor under sticks and whips, and the labor efficiency was also low.
Black slaves in the north who worked as coachmen
Most of the northern colonies were founded by the earlier Puritan settlers, who were originally oppressed immigrants, and therefore treated black slaves much better than the slaves in the South. For example, Pennsylvania is mainly because of the existence of the "Quakers", who are opposed to slavery, so the development of slavery is limited, and the attitude towards slavery is much better.
Fourth, there is another important reason, that is, after Britain broke the monopoly of the slave trade between Spain and Portugal, most of the merchants involved in the slave trade in the colonies lived in the north, and in order to obtain more benefits, they often adopted the method of reducing the number of slaves entering the slaves to control the price, so the number of black slaves in the northern colonies increased slowly, especially the black population in New Hampshire was almost negligible, and the high price also made the slave owners pay more attention to the health of the black slaves, and it was impossible to beat and destroy them arbitrarily like in the South.
Black slaves on the farm
In view of the above reasons, the black slaves in the north are not actually slaves in the traditional sense, but similar to the existence of domestic servants, and some slaves are even in the position of guides or managers for some reasons, such as having superb handicraft skills or certain management capabilities, and enjoy living conditions no less than their masters.
Of course, this is not my excuse here for the enslavement of black slaves by the colonists, but in fact the attitude of the slave owners of the northern colonies towards the black slaves has exceeded the attitude of most of the rulers of the world to their own people at that time, not to mention the Aditke Empire, which was destroyed by the Spanish colonists, nor the slave countries of West Africa that could slaughter prisoners of war slaves at will; even in Europe itself, the living conditions of most free people were not necessarily much better than those of these black slaves who lived and worked with their masters In the eastern part of the Old World at the same time, the people under the rule of the Qing Empire were struggling to live under the heavy heavy taxes, labor, and spiritual control of the literal prison, and even the bureaucratic class in the upper middle class of society could only be proud of calling itself a "slave" in the face of the supreme emperor. And these, in the history of later generations, were actually called "Kangqian's prosperous world", and were hyped up in film and television dramas more than two hundred years later.
Hungry "Kangqian Prosperous World"
Therefore, in view of the differences in political systems, economic development and religious factors, the differences in slavery in the north and south of the colonies gradually became larger, and slavery in the north gradually declined, while the south developed more and more.
In 1760, the number of black slaves throughout the North American colonies reached 400,000, most of them concentrated in the southern colonies. Virginia is the largest, reaching 250,000, accounting for about 50% of virginia's total population; while the northern colonies (New England + New York State) have only a few thousand or a few hundred people except for New York State, which has more than 10,000 people.
By 1790, the number of black slaves in the southern states was about 650,000, accounting for 94.2% of the total number of black slaves in the United States at that time, of which Virginia was the largest, about 300,000 people, accounting for about 39% of the total population of Virginia; followed by Maryland, with more than 100,000 black slaves, accounting for 32% of the total population of the state. But in the Northern states, black slaves accounted for less than 6 percent of the total, and with the exception of New York and New Jersey, which numbered more than 10,000, there were only a few thousand at most, and there were no black slaves at all in Massachusetts and Maine, the birthplace of the American Revolutionary War (originally Massachusetts, separated after the End of the Revolutionary War, and became a state in 1820).
Distribution of the population in the early days of the United States (1790)
Although the emergence and development of slavery in North America was determined by the specific geographical and historical environment of North America, when the colonists landed in North America, Britain had already begun a bourgeois revolution, and the social system gradually changed from feudal serfdom to a capitalist system; moreover, most of the immigrants who first landed in North America were oppressed in the homeland, and they pursued the freedom and equal rights of everyone, against religious persecution and oppression by feudal aristocrats. In this situation, then, the use of slaves, a backward system of social development, has to be said to have to be caused by the greed and supremacy of the bourgeoisie in North America.
(Long series, to be continued)