Economic Impact of Slavery in Early America

“Diversity in Early America?”
African Americans
Airton Fortes
Felisberto Oliveira
Dred Scott portrait by Louis Schultze

Economy
The economic engine of
the slave trade helped to
fuel America’s
prosperity. The profits
from the trade in
enslaved people flowed
to many places. Traders
were not the only ones to
profit from America’s
internal slave trade.

Economy: Slavery in South
Slave owners in the Upper
South profited because they
received cash for the people
they sold. Slave owners in
the Lower South profited
because the people they
purchased were forced to
labor in the immensely
productive cotton and sugar
fields.

Economy: Beneficiaries
The merchants who
supplied clothing and
food to the slave traders
profited, as did
steamboat, railroad and
ship owners who carried
enslaved people.

Economy: Slavery in North
Capitalists in the North
profited by investing in
banks that handled the
exchange of money for
people, or in insurance
companies that provided
insurance for the owners’
investments in enslaved
people.

Economy: Slavery in North
Capitalists in the North profited by investing in banks that
handled the exchange of money for people, or in insurance
companies that provided insurance for the owners’ investments
in enslaved people.
Free States in 1789
https://www.boundless.com/users/282574/textbooks/us-history-to-1877-9e5d3c56-f48a-487c-835b-
cea71fc7aa09/gender-religion-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-1800s-556/slavery-in-the-colonies-34/slavery-in-the-north-
199-8627/

Economy: Slavery and Empire
“Slave labor and the African slave trade formed the
backbone of the American colonial economy. ” www.boundless.com
Slavery formed a cornerstone of
the British Empire in the 18th
century. Every colony had slaves,
from the southern rice plantations
in Charles Town, South Carolina,
to the northern wharves of Boston.
Slavery was more than a labor
system; it also influenced every
aspect of colonial thought and
culture. www.boundless.com

Economy: Slavery and the Economics
of Empire
cea71fc7aa09/gender-religion-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-1800s-556/slavery-and-the-colonial-experience-23/early-
american-slavery-146-10376/
Slave colonies produced 95% of all British exports during
the period between the establishment of Virginia and the
American Revolution.
Until 1808, when the importation of African slaves was
outlawed, it was simply cheaper to work slaves to death and
buy new ones than it was to take care of current slaves.

Economy: The Transatlantic Slave Trade
The transatlantic slave trade operated from the late 16th to early 19th
centuries, carrying slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between
West Africa, Caribbean or American colonies, and the European colonial
powers.
Finished goods were transported from Europe to Africa; slaves were
transported from Africa to the Americas; and the slave-produced resources
were shipped back to Europe to be made into finished goods.

Economics: Dred Scott v. Sandford
In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred
Scott, born a slave in Virginia in 1795, had been one of the thousands forced to
relocate as a result of the massive internal slave trade and taken to the slave
state of Missouri.
cea71fc7aa09/gender-religion-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-1800s-556/race-and-opportunity-69/race-and-opportunity-
370-9028/

Rural Economy and Society
The local economy in the
Chesapeake was
overwhelmingly agrarian,
rural, and rooted in the
headright system, which
guaranteed numerous acres of
land to any immigrant who
paid their own passage to the
New World and settled in the
region.

American Identity
Free African American males enjoyed wider
employment opportunities than free African
American females, who were largely
confined to domestic occupations. While free
African American boys could become
apprentices to carpenters, coopers, barbers,
and blacksmiths, girls‘ whose options were
much more limited were confined to domestic
work such as being cooks, cleaning women,
seamstresses, and caregivers.

American Identity
Free African Americans, who were perceived as members of an inferior race.
Free African Americans could not enter many professional occupations, such as
medicine and law, because they were barred from the necessary education. This
was also true of occupations that required firearm possession, elective office, or a
liquor license. Many of these careers required large capital investments that most
free African Americans could not afford.

American Identity
Free African American
While virtually all African Americans in the
North were free by 1840, they were subject
to racial segregation and discrimination.

American Identity
Slavery in North America
Slavery formed a cornerstone of the British Empire in the 18th century. Every
colony had slaves, from the southern rice plantations in Charles Town, South
Carolina, to the northern wharves of Boston. Slavery was more than a labor
system; it also influenced every aspect of colonial thought and culture. The
uneven relationship it engendered gave white colonists an exaggerated sense of
their own status. English liberty gained greater meaning and coherence for
whites when they contrasted their status to that of the unfree class of black
slaves in British America. African slavery provided whites in the colonies with a
shared racial bond and identity.

American Identity
Southern colonies adopted into law the
principle of partus sequitur ventrem, by which
children of slave women took the status of their
mother regardless of the father's identity. This
was a departure from English common law,
which held that children took their father's
status. Some slave-owner fathers freed their
children, but many did not. The law relieved
men of the responsibility of supporting their
children and confined the "secret" of
miscegenation to the slave quarters. By 1860,
just over 10 percent of the slave population was
mulatto.
Black women were frequently forced to
nurse the children of their oppressors and
rapists, while neglecting their own
children.
Boundless. "Women and Slavery." Boundless U.S. History Boundless, 20 Nov. 2016. Retrieved 12 Jun. 2017 from
https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/slavery-in-the-antebellum-u-s-1820-1840-
16/slavery-in-the-u-s-122/women-and-slavery-657-9221/

Slave Identity, Rooted in African Culture.
Slaves strove to adapt to their new lives by forming new communities among
themselves, often adhering to traditional African customs and healing techniques.
Slave culture stressed the primacy of family and cooperation; indeed, the
development of families and communities formed the most important response to the
trauma of being enslaved.
American Identity
Boundless. "Slave Culture." Boundless U.S. History Boundless, 23 Sep. 2016. Retrieved 12 Jun. 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/u-s-
history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/expansion-of-the-colonies-1650-1750-4/slave-culture-and-rebellion-56/slave-culture-342-2474/

American Identity
As Christian missionaries and slave owners attempted to erase African religious
and spiritual beliefs, Blassingame argues that "in the United States, many African
religious rites were fused into voodoo." Voodoo priests and conjurers promised
slaves that they could make masters kind, harm enemies, ensure love, and heal
sickness. Other religious survivals noted by Blassingame include funeral rites,
grave decorating, and ritualistic dancing and singing.
Actively developed a
cultural identity, and
performed meaningful
activities in their free
time and space.

Combines elements of tribal African
culture with Christian worship and
stresses the importance of family
and cooperation. It enabled a
significant amount of resistance to
the plantation economy and created
a cohesive and homogenous slave
identity that remarkably shaped
Southern life and relationships
between slaves and whites.
American Identity
Slave memorial statue in Stone Town, Zanzibar
| ©miss.hudson, via flickr

Despite brutal circumstances and limited
freedom, African slaves formed strong
communities that often served as methods
of resistance.
American Identity

Politics: Antebellum Slavery: 1801-1900
 The Ohio Constitution outlaws slavery. It also
prohibits free blacks from voting. 1802
 Lemuel Haynes is the first African American to
receive an honorary degree in U.S. history when
Middlebury College awards him a Master's Degree at
its second commencement. 11804
 The United States government abolishes the
importation of enslaved Africans when it enacts the
Slave Importation Ban. The ban, however, is widely
ignored. Between 1808 and 1860, approximately
250,000 blacks are illegally imported into the United
States. Slave trading within the states (the domestic
trade) continues until the end of the Civil War.
http://www.blackpast.org/timelines/african-american-history-
timeline-1800-1900#sthash.NFD1QPhy.dpuf

Politics: Emancipation
New York recognizes marriage within
the African American community.
Census of 1810, U.S. Population:
7,239,881, Black Population:
1,377,808 (19 percent) including
186,446 free African Americans
By 1810, 75 percent of the African
Americans in Delaware are free. This
is the largest percentage of free blacks
in a slave state.
http://www.blackpast.org/timelines/african-
american-history-timeline-1800-

Politics: Black Politics
 New York maintains property
qualifications for African American
male voters while abolishing the same
for white male voters. Missouri
disfranchises free black male voters.
1921
 Thomas Jennings of New York City
became the first African American to
receive a patent from the United States
government. His patent came because
he developed a process for dry cleaning
clothes. 1921
 Rhode Island disfranchises black voters.
1922
1900#sthash.CcqZd9vw.dpuf

Freedom's Journal begins publication
on March 16 in New York City as the
first African American owned
newspaper in the United States. The
editors are John Rossum and Samuel
Cornish. 1827
Slavery is officially abolished in New
York. 1827
Theodore Sedgewick Wright is the
first black graduate of the Princeton
Theological Seminary. 1828
1900#sthash.CcqZd9vw.dpuf
Politics: Black education

 Previously independent African American
schools become part of the Boston public
school system. 1812
 Two African American regiments are formed
in New York to fight in the War of 1812.
 Six hundred African American troops are
among the U.S. Army of 3,000 led by
General Andrew Jackson which defeats
British forces at the Battle of New Orleans.
The black troops were led by Major Joseph
Savary, the highest ranking black officer in
the history of the U.S. Army.
1900#sthash.XBPMRv8c.dpuf
Politics: African Americans and the Military

Politics
These wealthy slave-owning
planters came to dominate the
top of the social and political
hierarchy in the Chesapeake, placing pedigree and wealth as significant social
identifiers. However, small farmers composed the largest social class in the
Chesapeake. These agriculturalists owned small amounts of property and a limited
(if any) enslaved labor force. The class division between wealthy planters and small
farmers continued well into the 19th century, until the Civil War united these factions
against the Northern states.

Politics
African Americans attempted to combat discrimination and strengthen their
communities by forming organizations such as the American Society of Free People
of Color. Other active abolitionist bodies advocating reforms in the North were the
Pennsylvania Abolition Society, formed in 1775, and the New York Manumission
Society, formed in 1785. These organizations provided social aid to African
Americans in poverty and organized responses to political issues. The African
American community also established schools for African American children, who
were often barred from entering public schools.
American Society of Free People of Color

Black history shaped, and continues to shape the African
American experience in the United States. For most of United
States’ history, African American experience and culture developed
outside of mainstream American culture. Black history, its
contributions, and impact on the African American experience
resulted from the many influences of slavery and ongoing racial
discrimination throughout the United States.
Black history, in the forms of African culture, slavery, and the
civil rights movements shaped, and continues to shape, the African
American experience through religious practices, familial and
community systems, political position, and economic behaviors.
http://www.tnj.com/uncategorized-articles/how-black-history-has-shaped-african-
american-experience
Conclusion:
African American contributions to the
American identity

Economic Impact of Slavery in Early America

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Economic Impact of Slavery in Early America