American Negro Slavery

American Negro Slavery - A
Survey of the Supply,
Employment and Control of
Negro Labor as Determined by
the Plantation Regime

Project Gutenberg's American Negro Slavery, by Ulrich Bonnell
Phillips This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: American Negro Slavery A Survey of the Supply, Employment
and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime
Author: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
Release Date: March 7, 2004 [EBook #11490]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Leonard D Johnson and PG Distributed
Proofreaders

ULRICH BONNELL PHILLIPS
AMERICAN
NEGRO SLAVERY
A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control Of Negro Labor As
Determined by the Plantation Regime
TO
MY WIFE

CONTENTS


CHAPTER I
. THE EARLY EXPLOITATION OF GUINEA II. THE MARITIME
SLAVE TRADE III. THE SUGAR ISLANDS IV. THE TOBACCO
COLONIES V. THE RICE COAST VI. THE NORTHERN
COLONIES VII. REVOLUTION AND REACTION VIII. THE
CLOSING OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE IX. THE
INTRODUCTION OF COTTON AND SUGAR X. THE
WESTWARD MOVEMENT XI. THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE
XII. THE COTTON RÉGIME XIII. TYPES OF LARGE
PLANTATIONS XIV. PLANTATION MANAGEMENT XV.
PLANTATION LABOR XVI. PLANTATION LIFE XVII.
PLANTATION TENDENCIES XVIII. ECONOMIC VIEWS OF
SLAVERY: A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE XIX. BUSINESS
ASPECTS OF SLAVERY XX. TOWN SLAVES XXI. FREE
NEGROES XXII. SLAVE CRIME XXIII. THE FORCE OF THE
LAW INDEX

AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY

CHAPTER I
THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION OF GUINEA
The Portuguese began exploring the west coast of Africa shortly before

Christopher Columbus was born; and no sooner did they encounter
negroes than they began to seize and carry them in captivity to Lisbon.
The court chronicler Azurara set himself in 1452, at the command of
Prince Henry, to record the valiant exploits of the negro-catchers.
Reflecting the spirit of the time, he praised them as crusaders bringing
savage heathen for conversion to civilization and christianity. He gently
lamented the massacre and sufferings involved, but thought them
infinitely outweighed by the salvation of souls. This cheerful spirit of
solace was destined long to prevail among white peoples when
contemplating the hardships of the colored races. But Azurara was
more than a moralizing annalist. He acutely observed of the first cargo
of captives brought from southward of the Sahara, less than a decade
before his writing, that after coming to Portugal "they never more tried
to fly, but rather in time forgot all about their own country," that "they
were very loyal and obedient servants, without malice"; and that "after
they began to use clothing they were for the most part very fond of
display, so that they took great delight in robes of showy colors, and
such was their love of finery that they picked up the rags that fell from
the coats of other people of the country and sewed them on their own
garments, taking great pleasure in these, as though it were matter of
some greater perfection."[1] These few broad strokes would portray
with equally happy precision a myriad other black servants born
centuries after the writer's death and dwelling in a continent of whose
existence he never dreamed. Azurara wrote further that while some of
the captives were not able to endure the change and died happily as
Christians, the others, dispersed among Portuguese households, so
ingratiated themselves that many were set free and some were married
to men and women of the land and acquired comfortable estates. This
may have been an earnest of future conditions in Brazil and the Spanish
Indies; but in the British settlements it fell out far otherwise.
[Footnote 1: Gomez Eannes de Azurara _Chronicle of the Discovery
and Conquest of Guinea_, translated by C.R. Beazley and E.P. Prestage,
in the Hakluyt Society _Publications_, XCV, 85.]
As the fifteenth century wore on and fleets explored more of the
African coast with the double purpose of finding a passage to India and

exploiting any incidental opportunities for gain, more and more human
cargoes were brought from Guinea to Portugal and Spain. But as the
novelty of the blacks wore off they were held in smaller esteem and
treated with less liberality. Gangs of them were set to work in fields
from which the Moorish occupants had recently been expelled. The
labor demand was not great, however, and when early in the sixteenth
century West Indian settlers wanted negroes for their sugar fields,
Spain willingly parted with some of hers. Thus did Europe begin the
coercion of African assistance in the conquest of the American
wilderness.
Guinea comprises