Takaki Chapter 3

1. The third chapter in Takaki’s book was that the slavery in the American colonies evolved over a longer period of time than most people think. A lot of people probably think that the American colonies were filled with slaves shortly after the English arrived. But the slave process took much longer than that to develop. At first the main workers on the plantations were white indentured servants, but over time African American’s were used more and more often as slaves.
2. The beginning of the chapter highlights how little English people thought of African Americans. The English referred to them as: deeply stained with dirt, foul, dark or deadly, malignant, sinister, wicked, a people of beastly living, without a God, law, and religion all on pages fifty-one and fifty-two. Shakespeare noted the importance of the slaves to the plantation owners when in his play the white man Prospero says this about his slave Caliban on page fifty-two, “We cannot miss him… He does make our fire, fetch our wood, and serves in offices that profit us.” Olaudah Equiano, a slave onboard a trading ship, recalled this when he was nervous about being eaten by the English, “They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work…” The chapter then explains how in the early days of the English colonies most of the workers were white indentured servants and similar to the African slaves they also came involuntarily. But both groups, white or black they shared the same class exploitation and abuse as unfree laborers. The Virginia legislature then had problems with whites and blacks running away together. As time went on, black slaves were separated from white servants and the blacks were given longer times to serve as slaves for running away. As time went on, the Africans were being made to serve for life and were viewed as their master’s property. Over time it was found that twenty black slaves could be kept cheaper than one white indentured servant. In 1667 Virginia passed a law that said a baptized slave had to remain a slave to their owner and a few years later a law was passed that no slave even if baptized and free could buy a white person. In 1705, a law was passed that said, “all servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country…shall be…slaves, and as such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards.” But even late into the 1600’s land owners still favored white servants over Africans. But as less white servants came, the number of Africans imported continued to rise. Part of this was because the lifespan was longer and the Africans were cheaper as they were slaves for their entire lives. The white servants continued to grow more disgusted with their bondage to their owners and wanted land of their own, so after some rebellions, the owners became more afraid of a huge rebellion of all the servants. The plantation owners saw that the Africans would be easier to control because they could be denied rights because of their skin color. As the Africans became increasingly prevalent states denied them the right to vote, hold office, and testify in court. Thomas Jefferson wanted to avoid the class conflict by letting all white men own a farm. A slave named Benjamin Banneker thought that since the British colonies were overthrown in the Revolutionary War, slavery should be abolished and all blacks should be free. But unfortunately this would not happen for a long time.
3. This was a very informative chapter as it explained the whole process that led up to slavery in the colonies. I think a crucial point is that slavery did not happen over night. Since it was a slow process, I think that was why it was harder for the whites to let it go after the Civil War. The fact that most white plantation owner depended on slavery so much and that it had become an accepted norm made it much harder for them to let it go and move on without slavery and why white privilege is still a problem today.
4. I guess I had always thought that slavery was in effect the minute that the English landed in the Americas rather than it actually taking about a hundred years to come into effect. I also never heard that Thomas Jefferson was a huge slave owner. He knew it was wrong, but just couldn’t let it go. This was a good read as Takaki organized his writing very well.