Introduction
In the seventeenth century, many Africans were enslaved and transported to America as farm workers. During this period, planters from Virginia and some parts of South Carolina relied on African slaves to help in farm activities such as clearing the farmland to harvest and storing of the products.
Since this labor force was cheap, the farmers shifted their attention and started using the imported African slaves to carry out the farm duties on massive plantations. Notably, the indentured servants of African origin, in Virginia were brought via a Dutch ship where they were exchanged for food. As the numbers of slaves increased, others were taken to South Carolina to serve in the large agricultural plantations in the region.
From Indentured Servitude to African-American Slavery in Virginia
Available literature indicates that in Virginia, the indentured servants constituted the initial population of black people in the region. Despite their racial differences, the blacks were not treated as slaves in Virginia because it was believed that they earned similar status as their white indentured colleagues in the farms at this time.
Until 1656 in Virginia, the term “slave” did not exist in the available records. Indeed, in some areas such as South Carolina, the term ‘servant’ was used for a long time even as others began using ‘slave’ to refer to African immigrants. This was the case up to the 1660s, when the white farmers began to redefine the status of such black workers.
The word ‘slave’ was technically coined in trade, politics and law to depict Black Americans who were imported by the slave traders. The trade rapidly and widely spread to other parts of America such as South Carolina where large scale farmers needed the services of the slaves.
Origin
The shift from the term “indentured servants” to African–American Slavery was due to various factors. First, the arrival of more Africans in Virginia particularly in 1619 increased the number of immigrants, who were later called Slaves in the white farms.
The increasing number of the slaves in the region shortly changed the white farmers’ perception and treatment of the African workers. Though at the time, there were no significance differences among the workers, the merchant planters began to subject the African indentured workers to harsh treatment compared to the white workers.
Second, the Native Americans became unsuitable to work in the farms since it was increasingly becoming labor intensive as the farms grew larger. The agricultural practices also became intensive that the Native Americans could not cope because they were vulnerable to the outbreak of European diseases.
In this regard, the rising outbreak of dysentery, malaria and typhoid raved the health status of the farm worker, with the whites mostly affected. This led to a number of deaths of the African-American and the Native American workers. In reality, the diseases affected the preference of white works on the farms and were thereafter replaced by the growing numbers of Africans in America.
Third, the Native Americans were able to escape from slavery due to their closeness to such avenues. The accessibility of the avenues made it possible for the white servants to escape to their home country, leaving the African migrants behind as servants.
Since the African workers could not escape to their countries of origin, they became the right choice as farm workers. In fact, this made slave trade to be lucrative business, thereby institutionalizing slavery in America. Indeed, Virginian and South Carolina benefitted from the trade. As the population of African slaves increased, maintaining them became cheap; forcing the farmers started relocating the Native American workers.
Literally, the mentioned factors and others were the causes of transition from indentured servitude to African-American slavery in Virginia that later spread to other areas including South Carolina.
Consequences
The shift from indentured servitude to the perpetuated African-American slavery had a lot of impacts on the colonial society, some of which had adverse repercussions. For example, the change created a number of impacts in the colonial society including the following.
First, the productivity increased because the African-Americans had some levels of resistance to the European diseases. Therefore, they were able to meet the demands of agricultural practices.
This increased the farms’ productivity. Secondly, the colonial society had to reduce the rising cases of disease outbreak, meaning it had to increase research and curative measures.
Third, the colonial society also had to deal with the rising opposition to slavery. Mostly, slavery received opposition due to poor and unreasonable working conditions, which the slaves were subjected to, such as low wages, low working hours, hard labor and others. The slaves were also opposed to the physical abuse such as corporal punishment that was executed publicly.
The things, which changed
Actually, a number of things changed during the transition. For example, there was increasing number of African-American slaves working in the large farms in Virginia.
This led to the reduction of Native American workers on the farms. After sometimes, the perception about African-American slaves changed as they started agitating for their freedom. At last, the slaves were accorded freedom that changed the working and living conditions in the country.
The use of African-American labor helped in building the infrastructure in Virginia. This changed the development trend in the area through exploitation of the available skills. These were the initial phases, which helped in recognizing the African-American slaves for having exceptional bricklaying, tanning and carpentry skills.
The other thing that changed was the economic disparity between the poor and the rich. Here, the merchant planters accumulated massive wealth, political power and prestige as the slaves languished in deep poverty and helplessness. In addition, even the landless whites who were indentured servants.
Affects of Increasing Reliance on Slavery
The increasing dependence on slavery affected free and enslaved Virginians in various ways. For example, footloose accumulation impoverished the free Virginians, and towards the end of seventeenth century, slavery put pressure on prime land and ruined the hopes of young single men of ever acquiring adequate potential farmland.
This problem mostly affected the free Virginians who accused the established planters of disregarding the country’s plight. As a result, the wretched young men resorted to disrupting elections in protest of increasing landlessness.
The discontent resulted to civil unrest in Virginia in 1676, when the freemen and the slaves joined the conflict. They pilfered and plundered the farmers of valuables during the rampage.
Conclusion
In Virginia and other parts of America particularly South Carolina, the advent of Africa-American servitude was due to the shift from indentured servants who were working on plantations.
The indentured servants were drawn from whites and blacks, and they worked with limited discrimination till the whites were replaced with the enslaved blacks. Though there were numerous challenges and discontent among the enslaved black workers, they could not escape easily as the white servants due to limited avenues.