Although we have progressed from this topic in our class discussions, I thought it would be beneficial to continue the conversation regarding the question of which came first: Slavery or Race? The documents presented within Chapter 3 of Problems provide us with considerable information pertaining to the rights of early blacks in America and how loosely defined such rights were. Spanning a timeline of roughly 85 years (the first document dating from 1619 and the later 1705), these early writings counter the common misconception that Africans were immediately stripped of all their rights as humans once they stepped off the ships and onto the shores of the New World. However, what becomes apparent after reading these documents is a sense (and later, a reality) of the steady deprivation of rights amongst blacks. A clear example of this is the 1664 Maryland document defining the duration of enslavement for life to those both imported to and born in America:
“…all Negroes or other slaues already within the Prouince And all negroes and other slaues to bee herafter imported into the Prouince shall serue Durante Vita And all Children born of any Negro or other slaue shall be Slaues as their ffathers were for the terme of their liues…”(Holt and Brown, 89).
In examining this document and the ones that were written before it, what becomes clear of the earlier years of the American slave institution is their devoid from the institution itself. Winthrop D. Jordan points this out in his article, “The Mutual Causation” of Racism and Slavery, stating the following:
“The complete deprivation of civil and personal rights, the legal conversion of the Negro into a chattel, in short slavery as Americans came to know it, was not accomplished overnight”(Jordan, 95).
The steady yet eventual stripping of various rights from blacks came at the cost of very little, if nothing, to Europeans. As Edmund S. Morgan bluntly states in his article, The Paradox of Slavery and Freedom, Africans were never given a conception of privilege: “No one had told them that they had rights”(Morgan, 106). This statement leaves me confused, in that it brings about yet another investigative question: Did the Africans have rights, and if so, why weren’t those rights brought to their attention? I’m left with the collective response that they both did and did not. I believe their rights, early on, were heavily predicated by the inexistence of laws that would have clearly defined and restricted their rights. Laws defining the rights of Africans did not exist when they arrived in 1619; however, that doesn’t provide grounds to assume that Africans were granted rights upon their arrival either. The Europeans didn’t have a slave manual to reference in the early days of its existence. Yet, there remains something to be said about the discrimination that steadily develops as new laws begin to define the rights of blacks as mandated by their restriction of such. This discrimination was not necessarily racial, however we can clearly determine it was hierarchical. In describing the socio-economic effects of England’s growing population between 1500 and1650, Morgan states the following, “… there was nothing gentle about the government’s treatment of the poor…” (101). If there wasn’t an existent prejudice against Africans for their skin color, there certainly was one, assumedly, for their lack of social status, a difference nonetheless. Distinctions amongst class doubtlessly suggest an awareness of superior and inferior groups. I believe a similar sense of superiority and inferiority of race existed as well.
Jordan ends his article by touching on the molding of slavery’s debasement of Africans as it further became worked into an institutional construct. He makes a note, however, to tell the viewer to keep in mind the following: “…slavery was at bottom a social arrangement, a way of society’s ordering its members in its own mind” (98). This statement suggests that there was a direct correlation between slavery and societal structuring, an awareness of superior and inferior social groups, and (arguably) the presence of discrimination and racism towards Africans.
I think that Jonathan does a great job of pointing out many of the elements that play a part in the debate of which came first: Slavery or Race? I thought that it was particularly interesting to bring in the role of social status and societal structuring. I think that African were not given the opportunity to “make something of themselves” when they were initially brought to the New World in such a hostile manner. Therefore this inability, in some form or fashion, automatically put them at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of social status and seemingly replaced the role of the indentured servant. Ultimately, I find the role of social status to be one of the largest factors in the debate asking if slavery or race came first. I am swayed to side with slavery because of the established role of indentured servants being European like others in the New World. Therefore in my opinion when the Africans were brought into the New World as free laborers, it was clearly a form of slavery for the Europeans to replace labor with free labor rather not a matter of race.-Kyle Capstick
ReplyDeleteI ultimately conclude that slavery came before race. I did not get the impression that race was the factor upon which slavery was first predicated upon. The phenotypic characteristics of Africans were not what spurred the Atlantic Slave Trade into existence. I do believe that the phenotypic and cultural differences between Europeans and Africans were part of the reason Europeans were able to so easily justify the enslavement of Africans, but the origins of African-American enslavement in the Americas was based mainly on economic opportunity. I concur with Kyle's comments regarding indentured servitude. But even beyond that slavery in various forms, including within the continent of Africa, already existed prior to the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Biologically speaking, races do not exist in the sense of how we conceive them. The institution of race as we know it is a social construction based upon phenotypic and cultural differences. My point is that Europeans did not systematically enslave Africans simply because they looked different. The economic, religious, and cultural differences between Europe and African tribes are what caused the Atlantic Slave Trade. Eventually it absolutely did evolve to be based purely on skin color, in other words - race as we conceive of it. As time progressed, however, I think it's pretty obvious that many of the economic, religious, and cultural differences between slaves and the white population disappeared as the institution of slavery developed. We have clearly learned American slave culture had distinct differences than American white culture, but with many slaves converting to Christianity that wasn't the basis. Slavery was an economic institution that was part of white America. Slaves existed within the same economic system as whites. Because of these points it's apparent that slavery did eventually become based on race. But phenotypic/racial differences were not the primary catalyst for enslavement.
ReplyDelete