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Slavery existed prior to the arrival of Europeans, as different American Indian groups often held other tribes captive. Some of these captives were even forced to undergo human sacrifice in certain Amerindian civilizations, such as the Aztecs. The Spanish continued this with the enslavement of local aborigines in the Caribbean.
As the native populations declined, forced exploitation, atrocities, they were often replaced by Africans imported through a large commercial slave trade. -
A strong believer in the notion of rule by divine right, Charles I, King of England and Scotland, persecuted religious dissenters. Waves of repression led to the migration of about 20,000 Puritans to New England between 1629 and 1642, where they founded multiple colonies.
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It took leaders, like John Smith, to convince the
colonists of Jamestown that searching for gold was not
taking care of their immediate needs for food and
shelter and the biblical principle that "he who will not
work shall not eat.“ The extreme mortality rate was quite distressing
and cause for despair among the colonists. Tobacco
would become a cash crop, with the work of John Rolfe
and others, for export and the sustaining economic
driver of VA and the neighboring colony of MD. -
Inspired by the success of Spanish riches from colonies founded upon the conquest of the Aztecs, Incas, and other large Native American populations in the 16th century, the first Englishmen to settle permanently in America hoped for some of the same rich discoveries when they established their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, VA in 1607. The main hopes for this colony was the discovery of gold.
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Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to
immigrate to the New World. Settlers in the colonies of Portugal and Spain (and later, France) were required to belong to that faith. Meanwhile, English and Dutch colonies, tended to be more religiously diverse. -
Servants were given food, clothing, housing and taught farming or household skills. American landowners were in need of laborers and were willing to pay for a laborer’s passage to America if they served them for several years. By selling passage for 5-7 years worth of work they could then start out on their own in America. Many of the migrants from. England died in the first few years
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From the beginning of VA's settlements in 1587 until the 1680s, the main source of labor and a large portion of the immigrants were indentured servants looking for new life in the overseas colonies. During the 17th century, servants constituted 75% of all European immigrants to the Chesapeake region.
Most of the servants were teenagers from England with poor economic prospects back home. -
In 1537, the papacy definitively recognized that Native Americans possessed souls, thus prohibiting their enslavement, without putting an end to the debate. Some claimed that a native who had rebelled and then been captured could be enslaved nonetheless. Later, the Valladolid debate between the Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas and another Dominican philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, each took opposing positions to justify enslavement and nothing was resolved.
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Captured Africans were sold to European slave traders on the West African coast.
“Middle Passage” – Millions of Africans were taken in ship, under inhuman conditions, for the voyage across the Atlantic to the New World.
Treatment – enslaved Africans were auctioned and forced to work under brutal condition -
The total slave trade to islands in the Caribbean, North & South America is estimated to have involved 12 million Africans.
The vast majority of these slaves went to sugar colonies in the Caribbean and to Brazil, where life expectancy was short and the numbers had to be continually replenished.
About 600,000 African slaves were imported into the U.S., or 5% of the 12 million slaves brought across from Africa.
Life expectancy was much higher in the U.S
