Latest / Missing Pages / Episode 16: Agency Amidst Oppression
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, welcome to Missing Pages.
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: This is episode 16, Agency Amidst Oppression.
- 0:12This episode will be covering this era's story of slavery
- 0:17between 1676 and 1763,
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: the growth of the institution within the colonial world,
- 0:24SPEAKER_00: and how this institution differs between all the different colonies.
- 0:30SPEAKER_00: As always,
- 0:32SPEAKER_00: and especially with this one,
- 0:34SPEAKER_00: if you have any comments,
- 0:35SPEAKER_00: concerns,
- 0:37SPEAKER_00: want to call me out on anything,
- 0:39please head on over to missingpages.substack.com and I'd love
- 0:44to hear from you.
- 0:46Also,
- 0:46if you like this show,
- 0:47please give it a rating on whatever podcasting platform you use.
- 0:52SPEAKER_00: Each one counts.
- 0:54SPEAKER_00: Now sit back and relax in your chair or couch or the seat of your car.
- 1:00for episode 16 agency amidst oppression where are these missing
- 1:11pages this map we
- 1:12must have these pages back this one's got pages missing why the
- 1:20page is missing
- 1:23SPEAKER_00: like a book with missing pages
- 1:38SPEAKER_00: Something I struggle with in this podcast,
- 1:40SPEAKER_00: especially around contentious topics of modern day,
- 1:46SPEAKER_00: modern America,
- 1:47SPEAKER_00: is how to cover them with grace and dignity,
- 1:52while also ensuring that I'm not kowtowing to modern
- 1:58affectations about certain issues.
- 2:01SPEAKER_00: To put it bluntly,
- 2:02I don't want the way we talk about certain issues in history
- 2:08today in their shallow,
- 2:13SPEAKER_00: reductive versions to make their way into this podcast.
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: I'm trying my best to ensure that doesn't happen.
- 2:23SPEAKER_00: Now, I probably do do that.
- 2:25SPEAKER_00: I probably am not a perfect person, probably.
- 2:30But there's no single issue that I struggle with more in this
- 2:35podcast than this one,
- 2:37SPEAKER_00: which by the title and description of this podcast,
- 2:40SPEAKER_00: you'll know,
- 2:42SPEAKER_00: is slavery.
- 2:44I stated something similar in the first era,
- 2:47that slavery is a contentious topic.
- 2:51Because of its ramifications downstream and throughout history
- 2:56and even into the
- 2:58SPEAKER_00: modern day to a certain extent.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: So I want to make sure that I cover it in a way that isn't offensive.
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: Not that giving offense is such a bad thing,
- 3:13SPEAKER_00: because by speaking at all,
- 3:16SPEAKER_00: I'm risking offending someone.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to use old data, basically.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: I don't want to use old ways of thinking about this issue.
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: Now,
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: this is an issue that's been pretty well litigated by this point,
- 3:31so it's not like I'm going to be starting a podcast here
- 3:36talking about the merits
- 3:37SPEAKER_00: of slavery.
- 3:39SPEAKER_00: But what is important is to understand,
- 3:41SPEAKER_00: at least from our modern view,
- 3:47SPEAKER_00: as best we can,
- 3:48SPEAKER_00: why this institution grew in the way that it did in early America,
- 3:54SPEAKER_00: in colonial America specifically.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to understand,
- 4:00because it does have ramifications during the Revolution and
- 4:04obviously during early America,
- 4:07and ultimately the Civil War,
- 4:09and the downstream effects for a century beyond that.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to shortchange this issue,
- 4:17and I actually struggle with that because I feel as if in the
- 4:20first episode,
- 4:20SPEAKER_00: despite the fact that I read two full books for this,
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: one of them being a little bit on the short end,
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: to be fair,
- 4:27SPEAKER_00: and one more that had a
- 4:29SPEAKER_00: not direct tie into this topic,
- 4:33SPEAKER_00: but did discuss the expansion of slavery in Virginia specifically,
- 4:38SPEAKER_00: and is considered one of the classics of historical literature,
- 4:43SPEAKER_00: I still felt as if I didn't give a good sense of what was going on.
- 4:49SPEAKER_00: And I think of what happened is I was trying to do two things at once.
- 4:54SPEAKER_00: I was trying to show the history of slavery pre-American colonization,
- 5:01SPEAKER_00: but also then limit it to,
- 5:03SPEAKER_00: as much as I can,
- 5:04SPEAKER_00: the English colonies specifically,
- 5:08SPEAKER_00: and the mainland more specifically than that.
- 5:12The trouble with the first era is that the mainland didn't
- 5:15really see much slavery
- 5:17SPEAKER_00: until the end.
- 5:20SPEAKER_00: And by much, I mean the numbers are in the few thousands by 1676.
- 5:27SPEAKER_00: By 1763, that's in the millions.
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: And in many of the colonies on the mainland,
- 5:34SPEAKER_00: black slaves outnumber whites,
- 5:38SPEAKER_00: not to the extent of the plantations in the West Indies,
- 5:40SPEAKER_00: but still 60% slave populations in Carolina,
- 5:46SPEAKER_00: for instance.
- 5:48So what I struggled with thinking about how to go through this
- 5:51is I learned a lot
- 5:53actually in researching for this episode specifically about
- 5:56some of the nuances of
- 5:59SPEAKER_00: slavery in America.
- 6:01Not the nuance in the idea that both sides have a fair view of
- 6:06what slavery is and is not.
- 6:09SPEAKER_00: It is still an evil institution no matter how you look at it.
- 6:13SPEAKER_00: But a nuanced view to show that
- 6:15Despite the fact that they were enslaved,
- 6:18there was still agency and a loose freedom.
- 6:26SPEAKER_00: Freedom is not the correct word here,
- 6:28SPEAKER_00: but the ability to act on their own and even make money on their own,
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: build their own houses,
- 6:37SPEAKER_00: build their own communities,
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: have families.
- 6:42And we'll see how this is different in different areas between
- 6:46the cities and the plantations.
- 6:50But I think the most important aspect of this is that we need
- 6:53to dispel the fiction
- 6:56SPEAKER_00: that black slaves did not have agency,
- 7:00were held down completely to the point where they had no
- 7:04ability to do anything on
- 7:05SPEAKER_00: their own.
- 7:06That's not to say that this was not attempted and these ideas
- 7:11of what black people
- 7:13SPEAKER_00: thought and how they were was not vile and
- 7:16SPEAKER_00: And completely wrong,
- 7:19SPEAKER_00: there was dehumanization,
- 7:20SPEAKER_00: there were beatings,
- 7:22SPEAKER_00: there was inhumane treatment of human beings in these plantations,
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: in the workshops,
- 7:31SPEAKER_00: on the docks.
- 7:33SPEAKER_00: But where they could, these slaves, just like everybody else...
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: pressed their advantage any way they possibly could.
- 7:41SPEAKER_00: It was much lower,
- 7:42SPEAKER_00: a much smaller advantage than the free whites or free blacks,
- 7:47SPEAKER_00: even,
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: in some cases.
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: But it did exist.
- 7:51SPEAKER_00: This advantage did exist in certain areas.
- 7:55SPEAKER_00: And I'll get through all of that.
- 7:57in this episode and get into more detail with all of these
- 8:01different aspects but I
- 8:03I hope I don't have to keep repeating this intro on these
- 8:09episodes because I don't
- 8:11want it to feel like I'm scared or pandering or or
- 8:16non-committal to the facts that
- 8:18SPEAKER_00: I'm going to portray here
- 8:20SPEAKER_00: That, hey, you know what?
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: I could be wrong.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: Yes, obviously I can be wrong.
- 8:24SPEAKER_00: And I accept that with every single one of these episodes.
- 8:27SPEAKER_00: But this one is so, there's so much scholarship in this field.
- 8:34SPEAKER_00: And not just in the Americas, but in worldwide slavery.
- 8:38SPEAKER_00: And beyond that, there's so much bluster.
- 8:41There's so much scholarship,
- 8:42but there's also so much nonsense surrounding this issue.
- 8:47With the New York Times publishing works like the 1619 Project
- 8:53that postulates that
- 8:54the revolution was actually fought to protect the rights of
- 9:00slave owners to keep
- 9:01SPEAKER_00: their slaves,
- 9:02SPEAKER_00: which has been debunked,
- 9:04SPEAKER_00: that's beyond the scope of this era,
- 9:06SPEAKER_00: but it is indicative of the problem.
- 9:09SPEAKER_00: When talking about slaves and slave owners,
- 9:13SPEAKER_00: they get reduced into oppressor,
- 9:16SPEAKER_00: oppressed archetypes.
- 9:19SPEAKER_00: They're not people anymore.
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: They're tropes.
- 9:22SPEAKER_00: They're characters.
- 9:24SPEAKER_00: And I say this because during this episode,
- 9:26there's going to be times where it feels like I'm not quite
- 9:29justifying it,
- 9:30SPEAKER_00: but downplaying the effects of slavery.
- 9:33SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try my best not to do that because it's still slavery.
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: It's still forced labor on human beings by other human beings.
- 9:43SPEAKER_00: It's still, again, an evil institution.
- 9:47SPEAKER_00: But as I said, agency matters.
- 9:51And the image that you get of a slave holding on to a post
- 9:57while he gets whipped did exist.
- 10:01SPEAKER_00: But I'd like you to paint this picture as well.
- 10:05SPEAKER_00: before we move on.
- 10:08SPEAKER_00: In Virginia,
- 10:09some slaves were able to sell their own time and in doing so
- 10:15afford to buy certain clothes.
- 10:20And in his book,
- 10:21Many Thousands Gone,
- 10:23The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America,
- 10:27SPEAKER_00: Ira Berlin describes this aspect of slavery in Virginia,
- 10:35SPEAKER_00: this ability to sell their labor,
- 10:37SPEAKER_00: like this,
- 10:38SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 10:40The proceeds of their independent production permitted slaves
- 10:43to enrich their
- 10:43SPEAKER_00: family's diet and expand their wardrobes.
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: They purchased clothes beyond the standard issue of shoes,
- 10:49SPEAKER_00: shirt and trousers or shift,
- 10:51SPEAKER_00: and waistcoat.
- 10:52SPEAKER_00: To prevent his slaves from,
- 10:53SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 10:54SPEAKER_00: buying liquor with their fowls,
- 10:56SPEAKER_00: end quote,
- 10:57SPEAKER_00: one Virginia planter,
- 10:58SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 10:59SPEAKER_00: obliged them to buy linen,
- 11:00SPEAKER_00: end quote,
- 11:01SPEAKER_00: to make their clothes.
- 11:03It was an ingenious scheme and yet another way to put the
- 11:06slaves' independent
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: production in the planter's service.
- 11:09SPEAKER_00: But,
- 11:10SPEAKER_00: much to their chagrin,
- 11:11SPEAKER_00: slaveholders were astounded to find their slaves dressing the gentlemen,
- 11:15SPEAKER_00: complete with watches in their pockets,
- 11:17SPEAKER_00: powdered wigs on their heads,
- 11:19SPEAKER_00: and silver buckles on their shoes.
- 11:21SPEAKER_00: End quote.
- 11:23SPEAKER_00: Slaves would be able to buy nice clothes,
- 11:26SPEAKER_00: nice food,
- 11:28SPEAKER_00: and even build communities with their own gardens,
- 11:32SPEAKER_00: their own livestock,
- 11:34SPEAKER_00: their own chickens.
- 11:36That's a very different picture than the one you probably have
- 11:39in your mind when
- 11:40SPEAKER_00: you think of slave.
- 11:41SPEAKER_00: And that's a very important thing to understand.
- 11:45Perhaps this picture that we have in our head of slaves comes
- 11:49from the 1800s.
- 11:49SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
- 11:51SPEAKER_00: I haven't read about it yet.
- 11:53SPEAKER_00: We'll get there.
- 11:54SPEAKER_00: But as I read more about slaves in America,
- 12:00SPEAKER_00: despite the terrible conditions,
- 12:03SPEAKER_00: the inhumane treatment and the threat,
- 12:04SPEAKER_00: the constant threat of maiming and murder from the slave owners,
- 12:11SPEAKER_00: they're able to carve out these tiny moments to bring out their humanity.
- 12:17SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to make sure I focus on.
- 12:20We all know that slavery is bad,
- 12:23but it is in these dark moments that we can find some light.
- 12:29SPEAKER_00: Now with that,
- 12:30SPEAKER_00: let's get into the notes,
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: the AP notes with regard to slavery in the late colonial era.
- 12:39SPEAKER_00: So as I looked through these notes,
- 12:42SPEAKER_00: I became a little bit confused because I know I learned about slavery.
- 12:48The only thing that I could find about slavery in the notes
- 12:51that I did not talk
- 12:52SPEAKER_00: about last season,
- 12:53which I might as well cover here real quick because it does
- 12:56actually happen in this era,
- 13:00SPEAKER_00: though I talked about it previously,
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: is this.
- 13:03SPEAKER_00: In the 1690s,
- 13:05what became Carolina's major staple and why was the institution
- 13:09of slavery
- 13:09SPEAKER_00: especially useful for harvesting this crop?
- 13:13SPEAKER_00: I said, rice was the major crop.
- 13:16SPEAKER_00: And African slaves had experience with growing rice.
- 13:19SPEAKER_00: African slaves were also immune to malaria.
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: And later on we have this.
- 13:26This note I will be splitting into two as I will be covering
- 13:30the second half in the
- 13:31SPEAKER_00: next episode.
- 13:33SPEAKER_00: But it starts with this.
- 13:34SPEAKER_00: Slavery continued to grow as an institution in the 18th century.
- 13:38In South Carolina,
- 13:39slaves made up 60% of the population and had very demanding work.
- 13:44SPEAKER_00: I also have this from Virginia,
- 13:47SPEAKER_00: which also goes into this era,
- 13:49SPEAKER_00: but I talked about it in the last era.
- 13:52SPEAKER_00: My mistake.
- 13:54SPEAKER_00: In the last quarter of the 17th century,
- 13:57SPEAKER_00: 1675 to 1700,
- 13:57SPEAKER_00: slavery began to replace indentured servitude in the Chesapeake.
- 14:02SPEAKER_00: This was especially true in the 1690s.
- 14:05SPEAKER_00: What are two major reasons why this happened?
- 14:07Bacon's rebellion convinced planters that ex-indentured
- 14:10servants couldn't be
- 14:12SPEAKER_00: trusted and slavery was a better option.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: England's population had begun to decrease,
- 14:17SPEAKER_00: wages were rising,
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: and it was harder for people to get indentured servants.
- 14:21SPEAKER_00: And the monopoly of the Royal African Company,
- 14:24SPEAKER_00: selling slaves,
- 14:25SPEAKER_00: was broken,
- 14:26which meant more slaves could be sold to the Chesapeake instead
- 14:29of the West Indies.
- 14:31SPEAKER_00: And then this.
- 14:33What were the advantages for planters of tobacco in the
- 14:35Chesapeake to have slaves
- 14:36SPEAKER_00: versus having indentured servants,
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: even though slaves were more expensive?
- 14:41SPEAKER_00: Slaves were slaves for life instead of four to seven years.
- 14:44SPEAKER_00: Slaves were more experienced with agriculture.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: And they were easier to control.
- 14:49SPEAKER_00: They didn't speak the same language.
- 14:51SPEAKER_00: And that's all I have in the notes.
- 14:54Now this is the first time I'm going to give some commentary on
- 14:56this because this
- 14:57SPEAKER_00: was interesting to me.
- 14:59SPEAKER_00: Because I felt like I remembered more slavery talk during this class.
- 15:06SPEAKER_00: I could have been mistaken.
- 15:07I did take another history class in college,
- 15:11so perhaps I learned it there.
- 15:13But then I found something else in my closet of all these
- 15:18binders of old school
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: stuff that I have for some reason.
- 15:22SPEAKER_00: And it was a study guide that we were given for the test.
- 15:27Now I'm not going to go through all of them specifically
- 15:30because there's just a lot more.
- 15:33But what it did make me realize is that the notes that I have
- 15:38just written down and
- 15:39SPEAKER_00: these outlines that were given to us is not everything we learned.
- 15:46SPEAKER_00: Nor did I really expect it to, but these study guides...
- 15:50did give me further insight into what we learned outside of
- 15:54just what we wrote down.
- 15:56SPEAKER_00: Because I figured that we did not learn just what we wrote down in this,
- 16:01SPEAKER_00: and that he did lecture to us and we were just supposed to listen,
- 16:04SPEAKER_00: and we also had a textbook to read.
- 16:07For instance,
- 16:08in this first unit of the class,
- 16:10we had three different study guides.
- 16:12SPEAKER_00: And actually,
- 16:12this helped me get some context into exactly how long it took
- 16:17us to get through these.
- 16:19SPEAKER_00: This first unit, the final study guide, was due on September 20th.
- 16:27Now in America,
- 16:29school starts right around Labor Day,
- 16:31which is the first Monday of September.
- 16:36SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to go through and find exactly when this was,
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: but suffice it to say,
- 16:39SPEAKER_00: this was only about three weeks of content.
- 16:42SPEAKER_00: Three weeks of content being about 10 to 15 hours of actual lecture time,
- 16:46SPEAKER_00: given the fact that we did games and whatnot.
- 16:49SPEAKER_00: But back to the study guide,
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: there's this,
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: for instance,
- 16:51what are two examples of the rules made for slaves in the 1600s
- 16:54known as the slave codes?
- 16:56SPEAKER_00: And there's a smattering of other slave-related topics.
- 17:01SPEAKER_00: But then we have this one,
- 17:03SPEAKER_00: which is supplemental reading number one,
- 17:05SPEAKER_00: called Black People in a White People's Country by Gary B.
- 17:10SPEAKER_00: Nash.
- 17:11SPEAKER_00: And underneath it, we have 18 questions.
- 17:15SPEAKER_00: Like, how specifically did Portuguese slave traders obtain their slaves?
- 17:20SPEAKER_00: Or how did sugar change or transform the African slave trade?
- 17:25Now I'm not going to include these study guides in these AP
- 17:29notes sections of the podcast,
- 17:32SPEAKER_00: but I did want to give this context,
- 17:35and perhaps I'll use them in the retrospectives as a sort of
- 17:40supplemental piece of
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: the notes,
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: because I did write all of these.
- 17:44SPEAKER_00: I did go through these and write down
- 17:47all of these notes in the study guides,
- 17:51just as I did in the class notes.
- 17:54SPEAKER_00: Now, there's obviously overlap in these.
- 17:56SPEAKER_00: It's not one is completely separated from the other.
- 17:59But what it did show me is that there was more to these classes
- 18:02than just these notes.
- 18:04SPEAKER_00: So I think that's something to keep in mind.
- 18:05And I will only really use them and discuss them in the
- 18:11retrospectives where I
- 18:12SPEAKER_00: actually give a grade,
- 18:14SPEAKER_00: if you will,
- 18:15SPEAKER_00: to the class,
- 18:16SPEAKER_00: to the teacher.
- 18:18SPEAKER_00: And it's just to show whether or not we actually had enough context.
- 18:24I'll read those along with the notes more carefully in the
- 18:27retrospectives because
- 18:28it does show that we did learn about slavery more than what's
- 18:31in the notes.
- 18:32So there might be topics that were covered a little bit better
- 18:34than what I might
- 18:35SPEAKER_00: suspect from the notes alone.
- 18:36I don't want to belabor this because this is a little bit too
- 18:40much inside baseball.
- 18:43SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, let's fill in those missing pages.
- 18:57SPEAKER_00: I left the last edition of the slavery story in America stating that the
- 19:06SPEAKER_00: institution of slavery by 1676,
- 19:09SPEAKER_00: by those two conflicts that marked the end of that era,
- 19:13SPEAKER_00: that it was fully entrenched in America.
- 19:17SPEAKER_00: And that is true.
- 19:20SPEAKER_00: But during this next century of time,
- 19:24SPEAKER_00: from 1676 to 1763 and then obviously onwards to 1776,
- 19:33SPEAKER_00: this entrenchment only grows further.
- 19:37And what happens,
- 19:39as Ira Berlin describes in his book Many Thousands Gone,
- 19:43is that
- 19:45SPEAKER_00: These societies,
- 19:46SPEAKER_00: these different colonies,
- 19:49SPEAKER_00: they transform from societies with slaves,
- 19:55SPEAKER_00: that is,
- 19:56SPEAKER_00: societies that have slavery as an institution,
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: but it is not the undergirding institution.
- 20:05SPEAKER_00: It's not to say that it is not important, but it's not vital.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: to slave societies,
- 20:12societies in which slavery is the foundation of the economy and
- 20:19of the culture.
- 20:22SPEAKER_00: This isn't a one-to-one thing.
- 20:25SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen everywhere at the same time.
- 20:29SPEAKER_00: It also doesn't happen everywhere at all, technically.
- 20:33SPEAKER_00: Some societies with slaves stay that way.
- 20:37SPEAKER_00: Some societies with slaves turn into slave societies and then revert.
- 20:43SPEAKER_00: And in one instance in North America that we will discuss,
- 20:47SPEAKER_00: a slave society actually reverts to a society with slaves.
- 20:52SPEAKER_00: At the same time that this transition happens in societies,
- 20:56There's also a generational shift that occurs over the 17th and
- 21:0118th centuries.
- 21:03SPEAKER_00: Despite the fact that slaves lost most of their bodily autonomy,
- 21:09SPEAKER_00: that did not mean,
- 21:10as I've stated and will continue to state as this is an
- 21:13important facet of this story,
- 21:17SPEAKER_00: they did not lose their agency.
- 21:19SPEAKER_00: Each generation that we'll talk about,
- 21:21SPEAKER_00: starting with charter slaves,
- 21:22SPEAKER_00: which actually starts in the previous era.
- 21:25SPEAKER_00: I won't belabor that one because I did talk about it,
- 21:28SPEAKER_00: but I want to discuss their personality traits,
- 21:33SPEAKER_00: if you will.
- 21:35SPEAKER_00: to plantation slaves,
- 21:37SPEAKER_00: which will be the bulk of this episode,
- 21:41SPEAKER_00: to revolutionary slaves,
- 21:43SPEAKER_00: which I will be talking about in the next era,
- 21:47SPEAKER_00: all had their own experience of slavery.
- 21:50SPEAKER_00: It was not a purely progressive story, a purely progressive history,
- 21:55SPEAKER_00: And each different generation had different battles to fight.
- 21:58It wasn't either going down the road to hell or going down the
- 22:03road to redemption in America.
- 22:05SPEAKER_00: It was very unique for each of them.
- 22:08SPEAKER_00: The charter slaves were the first to come to the Americas.
- 22:13SPEAKER_00: These first slaves were Atlantic Creoles,
- 22:16which first emerged in the coast of Africa in those European
- 22:22trade centers that
- 22:23started arriving in the 15th century and continued all the way
- 22:28through the 17th century.
- 22:31This population emerged as Europeans took African wives and
- 22:35mistresses and had
- 22:36SPEAKER_00: children with them,
- 22:37SPEAKER_00: sometimes by force,
- 22:39SPEAKER_00: other times by true affection.
- 22:42SPEAKER_00: These children,
- 22:43SPEAKER_00: though,
- 22:43SPEAKER_00: were not accepted by either African nor European cohorts,
- 22:48SPEAKER_00: as they were stuck between two cultures,
- 22:50and adopting either of them wholly would make them pariahs
- 22:54among the others.
- 22:56SPEAKER_00: Now these Creoles spoke a lot of languages,
- 23:00SPEAKER_00: mainly Portuguese,
- 23:02and were able to develop a combination language that was unique
- 23:06to them that
- 23:07SPEAKER_00: actually spread as the lingua franca in Atlantic trade.
- 23:12SPEAKER_00: They specialized in this trade mostly of slaves themselves.
- 23:18SPEAKER_00: and acted as the middlemen.
- 23:20They usually were able to use their advantage as a middle
- 23:25between the African and
- 23:26SPEAKER_00: European cultures to increase their political and social standing.
- 23:32SPEAKER_00: They also were treated more like servants than slaves themselves.
- 23:37SPEAKER_00: They were not denigrated continuously and treated as some human.
- 23:41SPEAKER_00: Ira Berlin describes this in Many Thousands Gone.
- 23:45SPEAKER_00: Quote,
- 23:46SPEAKER_00: Unlike those who would follow them into slavery in the plantation era,
- 23:51these first arrivals were not denigrated by diminutives labeled
- 23:55with names more
- 23:55appropriate to barnyard animals or derided with the
- 23:58appellations of ancient notables.
- 24:02SPEAKER_00: Instead,
- 24:03their names provided concrete evidence that they carried their
- 24:06dignity and a good
- 24:07SPEAKER_00: deal more with them to the new world.
- 24:09SPEAKER_00: End quote.
- 24:11Now these first slaves were enslaved due to crime or debt or
- 24:15social violations and
- 24:16SPEAKER_00: were often sent to the colonies on the margins as a form of exile.
- 24:22SPEAKER_00: But once they were enslaved,
- 24:23they adopted much of the cultural and religious institutions
- 24:26that were in those places,
- 24:28SPEAKER_00: depending on where they were,
- 24:30SPEAKER_00: in the West Indies or in the Chesapeake,
- 24:33to ensure that they were not excluded for their heathenistic
- 24:36beliefs and customs.
- 24:38Now,
- 24:38in short,
- 24:39the Creoles were self-confident and willing to adapt to their situation.
- 24:44They took any advantage that they possibly could and used their
- 24:49knowledge of trade
- 24:53SPEAKER_00: and their language to try their best to become as equal as possible,
- 24:57SPEAKER_00: which was always an uphill battle,
- 25:00SPEAKER_00: a stronger ability to do so than some of the future generations.
- 25:05SPEAKER_00: Now, those are the first slaves that came over.
- 25:07SPEAKER_00: Those were the ones that we talked about in the previous episode.
- 25:10SPEAKER_00: But by the 18th century, by 1700,
- 25:14more and more slaves began to originate directly from West
- 25:18Africa and had far fewer
- 25:21SPEAKER_00: connections to any part of the Atlantic world,
- 25:24SPEAKER_00: trade,
- 25:25SPEAKER_00: language,
- 25:25SPEAKER_00: or anything like that,
- 25:27SPEAKER_00: than the Creoles.
- 25:28SPEAKER_00: When they arrived in the New World,
- 25:30SPEAKER_00: they were given names to show their status as lesser than their masters,
- 25:34and the lives of these new slaves was far worse than any of the
- 25:38charter generation
- 25:39SPEAKER_00: due to the extremely fast expansion of the plantations in the New World.
- 25:47SPEAKER_00: After the population of Indians collapsed by the 1700s,
- 25:53SPEAKER_00: plantation slavery became synonymous with African slavery.
- 25:58SPEAKER_00: On these plantations,
- 26:00SPEAKER_00: Berlin notes that they had a,
- 26:01SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 26:02SPEAKER_00: peculiar social order,
- 26:04which conceded nearly everything to the slave owner and nothing
- 26:07to the slave.
- 26:09SPEAKER_00: In theory, the planter's rule was complete.
- 26:11SPEAKER_00: The great house,
- 26:12SPEAKER_00: nestled among manufactories,
- 26:15SPEAKER_00: shops,
- 26:15SPEAKER_00: barns,
- 26:16SPEAKER_00: sheds,
- 26:17SPEAKER_00: and various other outbuildings which were called,
- 26:19SPEAKER_00: with a nice sense of the plantation's social hierarchy,
- 26:21SPEAKER_00: dependencies.
- 26:23dominated the landscape and physical and architectural
- 26:26embodiment of the planter's hegemony,
- 26:28SPEAKER_00: end quote.
- 26:30This plantation economy brought a relentless violence and
- 26:35hierarchy to slavery.
- 26:38SPEAKER_00: much more so than previously.
- 26:41SPEAKER_00: It was never in doubt whether a slave should listen to their master.
- 26:46SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened.
- 26:49But over time,
- 26:50it became less of a master-apprentice type of work in these plantations.
- 26:57The plantation owner rather became a steward or father figure
- 27:03of his estate,
- 27:05which eventually morphed into a racial hierarchy that developed
- 27:10to rationalize and
- 27:11naturalize something that was happening all across the world
- 27:16during the Enlightenment.
- 27:18SPEAKER_00: This relationship between master and slave, along the
- 27:21SPEAKER_00: racial lines.
- 27:23These slaves were not part of the trade world and simply
- 27:28shipped off for transgressions.
- 27:31SPEAKER_00: No,
- 27:31these slaves were brought to the plantations after being caught
- 27:35by other African
- 27:36SPEAKER_00: nations that sought massive profits from trade,
- 27:39SPEAKER_00: like the Asante,
- 27:41SPEAKER_00: Dahomey,
- 27:42SPEAKER_00: and Oyo.
- 27:44SPEAKER_00: along what became known as the slave coast, the western coast of Africa.
- 27:52Specially commissioned armies and gangs would make their way
- 27:55into the interior and
- 27:57SPEAKER_00: kidnap or kill anyone that they came across.
- 28:01And often,
- 28:02these slave catchers would eventually become slaves themselves.
- 28:08SPEAKER_00: Once caught,
- 28:10SPEAKER_00: these slaves would be bound,
- 28:12SPEAKER_00: chained up together,
- 28:14SPEAKER_00: and taken to the coast where they would be put on a ship.
- 28:19About 25% of these captured died before they were even put on
- 28:24the ships from disease,
- 28:26SPEAKER_00: hunger,
- 28:27SPEAKER_00: or suicide.
- 28:29SPEAKER_00: The shortest trip from Africa to America was about three weeks long,
- 28:34SPEAKER_00: but often they would last for as much as twice as long.
- 28:39SPEAKER_00: The slaves and sailors were exposed to disease,
- 28:42SPEAKER_00: smallpox and measles were spread to Africans,
- 28:46SPEAKER_00: malaria,
- 28:47SPEAKER_00: and yellow fever were spread to the English.
- 28:50SPEAKER_00: Berlin describes the journey after they were placed on the ship here,
- 28:54SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 28:55Slavers bound for the plantations of the New World stuffed
- 28:58their human cargoes
- 28:59tight between the creaking boards of vessels specially designed
- 29:03to maximize the
- 29:04SPEAKER_00: speed of transfer.
- 29:06Slaves were forced to wallow in their own excrement and were
- 29:09placed at the pleasure
- 29:10SPEAKER_00: of the crew.
- 29:11SPEAKER_00: Although conditions improved on slave ships over time,
- 29:15SPEAKER_00: death stalked these vessels,
- 29:17and more than one in ten Africans who boarded them did not
- 29:20reach the Americas.
- 29:23To prevent uprisings,
- 29:25slaves' ships chained the slaves' ankles to wrists below decks.
- 29:30SPEAKER_00: Despite this, there were uprisings...
- 29:33SPEAKER_00: often with violent ends, though some led to the massacre of the slavers.
- 29:38SPEAKER_00: And these slavers were then forced to balance a series of goals.
- 29:43They wanted to get as many slaves across the ocean as they
- 29:45possibly could,
- 29:46SPEAKER_00: ensure the fewest deaths possible,
- 29:50SPEAKER_00: and survive themselves.
- 29:53The most common flag flown on the ships that were brought these
- 29:55slaves over was the Union Jack.
- 29:59SPEAKER_00: the British brought slaves not only to their own colonies,
- 30:02SPEAKER_00: but half of them were actually split between the French and the Spanish.
- 30:06The West Indies absorbed nearly all of them,
- 30:09but that rate began to shrink.
- 30:13SPEAKER_00: In the 17th century,
- 30:15SPEAKER_00: the West Indies absorbed 96% of the slaves,
- 30:19SPEAKER_00: but as Carolina and the Chesapeake expanded their slave population,
- 30:23SPEAKER_00: that dropped to about 80%.
- 30:26SPEAKER_00: After arriving,
- 30:27the slavers would often make the slaves look like they hadn't
- 30:30been on a torturous journey.
- 30:32SPEAKER_00: In his book,
- 30:33SPEAKER_00: American Colonies,
- 30:35SPEAKER_00: Alan Taylor describes what this looked like at these marketplaces.
- 30:43After weeks and even months at sea,
- 30:45the ships reached their colonial destination.
- 30:47The captains conducted the sails either by inviting buyers on
- 30:50board ship or by
- 30:52SPEAKER_00: landing the slaves for auction by land.
- 30:55To enhance the slaves' appearance and price,
- 30:57they cleaned,
- 30:58shaved,
- 30:58and greased with palm oil.
- 31:00SPEAKER_00: To hide the signs of bleeding dysentery,
- 31:02some cunning captains had their surgeons stop the anus of each
- 31:05slave with oakum.
- 31:06The younger and healthier slaves,
- 31:08especially men,
- 31:09sold first and at the best prices.
- 31:12Older,
- 31:12weaker,
- 31:13and sicker slaves,
- 31:14especially females,
- 31:16were harder and slower to sell.
- 31:17As a rule,
- 31:18neither sellers nor purchasers made an effort to keep slave
- 31:21families together.
- 31:23SPEAKER_00: Indeed,
- 31:24buyers preferred to break up families and ethnic groups to
- 31:27discourage the trust and
- 31:28SPEAKER_00: communication that would facilitate plots to run away or rebel."
- 31:35SPEAKER_00: This slave-catching operation was
- 31:39would account for the bulk of what would become 1.5 million
- 31:45slaves being brought
- 31:48SPEAKER_00: into the colonies during the 18th century.
- 31:52SPEAKER_00: Now,
- 31:52SPEAKER_00: not all of these came during this exact era,
- 31:56SPEAKER_00: but the number is important because during the same period of time,
- 32:02SPEAKER_00: the number of slaves that arrive is triple.
- 32:05SPEAKER_00: the free immigrants.
- 32:07SPEAKER_00: By the revolution,
- 32:09SPEAKER_00: only about 1% of these slaves had been freed,
- 32:14SPEAKER_00: and the mass enslavement in Africa,
- 32:17SPEAKER_00: in West Africa,
- 32:19SPEAKER_00: decimated the population,
- 32:21SPEAKER_00: dropping it by about 20% over the century.
- 32:25Now the West Indies,
- 32:26where most of these slaves went,
- 32:29was the worst location for them to go.
- 32:33The rise of sugar as a staple in the English diet and a
- 32:38necessity on ships in the
- 32:39form of rum had a pronounced impact on the slave trade in the
- 32:45West Indies.
- 32:46SPEAKER_00: Before 1710,
- 32:49SPEAKER_00: Barbados was the largest supplier of sugar,
- 32:53SPEAKER_00: but by 1720 that began to be taken over by the Leeward Islands,
- 32:57SPEAKER_00: St.
- 32:57SPEAKER_00: Kitts and Nevis, Antigua,
- 33:02SPEAKER_00: The slave codes were especially draconian.
- 33:05SPEAKER_00: Led by drivers,
- 33:06gangs of slaves would be driven through sugarcane fields and
- 33:10whipped if they laid behind.
- 33:12SPEAKER_00: Intense violence was required to enforce this gruesome schedule,
- 33:16SPEAKER_00: and masters would punish their slaves harshly,
- 33:19SPEAKER_00: often to death,
- 33:21SPEAKER_00: and not face any punishment.
- 33:22Some masters did realize that pure brutality did not get their
- 33:26desired outcome,
- 33:28SPEAKER_00: so they would give some concessions and responsibilities to slaves.
- 33:32The most able and strongest were often given better food and
- 33:34clothing and acted as foremen.
- 33:37SPEAKER_00: To most masters, this was seen as necessary for stability.
- 33:42However,
- 33:42rebellion still occurred,
- 33:44and we'll talk about more of this later in the next episode.
- 33:48SPEAKER_00: The West Indies at this point were,
- 33:51SPEAKER_00: and had been for probably a century,
- 33:55SPEAKER_00: distinctly slave societies.
- 33:58SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to put some numbers...
- 34:01SPEAKER_00: to this phenomenon.
- 34:03SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be focusing on the French here,
- 34:05but this was not unique to them as the English and Spanish were
- 34:10just as brutal.
- 34:12SPEAKER_00: W.J.
- 34:12SPEAKER_00: Eccles in the French in North America states some of these numbers.
- 34:17SPEAKER_00: Quote,
- 34:18SPEAKER_00: by 1687,
- 34:19SPEAKER_00: when an official census was taken,
- 34:21SPEAKER_00: the population of the French islands was 47,312.
- 34:26SPEAKER_00: Of that number,
- 34:26SPEAKER_00: 18,888 were whites,
- 34:30SPEAKER_00: approximately 27,000 slaves,
- 34:32SPEAKER_00: and 1,484 freed blacks or mulattoes.
- 34:36SPEAKER_00: Fifty years later,
- 34:37SPEAKER_00: the population was 20,000 whites,
- 34:39SPEAKER_00: a few more than 20,000 freed blacks and mulattoes,
- 34:42SPEAKER_00: and a quarter million slaves.
- 34:44SPEAKER_00: The white population remained stable, but the slaves increased tenfold.
- 34:49During those intervening years,
- 34:5025,000 to 30,000 slaves a year were brought to the islands.
- 34:54SPEAKER_00: more than one and a quarter million all told, end quote.
- 34:58SPEAKER_00: In total, the Caribbean really just acted as a massive African graveyard.
- 35:06In an attempt to prevent slave revolts,
- 35:08the French government,
- 35:09namely King Louis XIV,
- 35:12SPEAKER_00: created the Code Noir.
- 35:14These codes prevented family breakups before the children
- 35:16reached puberty and
- 35:18SPEAKER_00: detailed the working conditions that must be kept,
- 35:20SPEAKER_00: enforced conversion of the slaves to Christianity,
- 35:23SPEAKER_00: and proclaimed that slaves could not be killed without a trial.
- 35:27SPEAKER_00: This did more to protect the masters than the slaves in the end,
- 35:30SPEAKER_00: but compared to other slave codes that we'll see,
- 35:33SPEAKER_00: they are very humane.
- 35:35Children of slaves and their masters named mulattoes were free
- 35:38under these codes
- 35:39SPEAKER_00: and were able to work for themselves as artisans,
- 35:42SPEAKER_00: shop owners,
- 35:43SPEAKER_00: and even plantation overseers.
- 35:45SPEAKER_00: And that's where we see that increase in population in the islands.
- 35:49SPEAKER_00: Many even began to adopt the same cultural values,
- 35:52SPEAKER_00: like contempt for slaves,
- 35:54SPEAKER_00: as their white counterparts.
- 35:56SPEAKER_00: The social hierarchy on the islands was rigid.
- 35:59SPEAKER_00: The government employees were at the top.
- 36:01SPEAKER_00: Then came the large planters, then the smaller planters.
- 36:04These divisions came from the number of slaves owned and the
- 36:08ability to outlast a bad crop.
- 36:11SPEAKER_00: It was mostly a class distinction,
- 36:13SPEAKER_00: though poorer whites used their race to ensure a feeling of superiority,
- 36:18SPEAKER_00: despite the dire economic position.
- 36:21SPEAKER_00: But in the mainland,
- 36:23SPEAKER_00: as we go north,
- 36:24SPEAKER_00: as we start our way north,
- 36:26SPEAKER_00: we'll start to see that transition over time.
- 36:29SPEAKER_00: It's faster in some places, slower in others.
- 36:33SPEAKER_00: But it's important to remember that not all of these places,
- 36:36SPEAKER_00: not all of these colonies,
- 36:37SPEAKER_00: looked like the West Indies.
- 36:39SPEAKER_00: They were not all pure plantation colonies to start with.
- 36:43And there's some nuance to how slaves were treated in these
- 36:48different places and
- 36:50SPEAKER_00: what responsibilities they were given and what freedoms,
- 36:55SPEAKER_00: as small as they may have been,
- 36:56SPEAKER_00: that they were given as well.
- 37:00SPEAKER_00: All of the mainland colonies,
- 37:03SPEAKER_00: whether they were English,
- 37:04SPEAKER_00: French,
- 37:05SPEAKER_00: or Spanish,
- 37:06SPEAKER_00: were not slave societies necessarily to begin with,
- 37:10SPEAKER_00: and they were also more dynamic.
- 37:12They had that change between slave societies and society with
- 37:16slaves either one way
- 37:17SPEAKER_00: or the other.
- 37:18SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to start in the south and move north,
- 37:21SPEAKER_00: and we're actually going to start in a non-English colony,
- 37:26SPEAKER_00: the colony of Louisiana.
- 37:29This ramshackle colony in the southern part of the North
- 37:33American continent had its
- 37:36SPEAKER_00: first slaves arrive just as the 17th century drew to a close.
- 37:44SPEAKER_00: These were of the Creole generation.
- 37:47SPEAKER_00: These slaves in Louisiana understood the laws,
- 37:50SPEAKER_00: the languages,
- 37:51SPEAKER_00: and the customs of the Atlantic world,
- 37:53so they asserted their will to ensure their rights were not
- 37:56infringed upon.
- 37:58SPEAKER_00: To be sure,
- 37:59the Code Noir was a blow to this as it prevented slaves from
- 38:02selling their own time
- 38:04SPEAKER_00: and gave far more deference to the owners.
- 38:07SPEAKER_00: More slaves arrived in the early 1700s,
- 38:09SPEAKER_00: with 450 arriving in 1719 to the new location of Louisiana.
- 38:10SPEAKER_00: By 1730, between 6,000 and 8,000 slaves were brought to the colony.
- 38:13SPEAKER_00: This number differs between sorcerers.
- 38:14SPEAKER_00: However, by 1739, only 4,000 blacks lived there.
- 38:31SPEAKER_00: This new labor supply,
- 38:32SPEAKER_00: along with the yearly shipment of food to the colony,
- 38:36SPEAKER_00: allowed the colonists to export goods,
- 38:38SPEAKER_00: though never enough to recoup the costs to the company.
- 38:43SPEAKER_00: These new imports replaced nearly all the free labor in Louisiana,
- 38:47SPEAKER_00: and in 1728,
- 38:48SPEAKER_00: with the cessation of Indian slavery,
- 38:51SPEAKER_00: black slaves became an overwhelming source of labor.
- 38:55SPEAKER_00: This rapid influx also led to a black majority by 1731.
- 39:01SPEAKER_00: Compared to other colonies,
- 39:02SPEAKER_00: the economy in Louisiana was fairly diverse,
- 39:06but it began its transition to a more agricultural focus
- 39:12starting in 1720.
- 39:14SPEAKER_00: These plantations were harsh places,
- 39:17so slaves often escaped into the swamps and forests and created
- 39:21maroon villages.
- 39:22SPEAKER_00: They traded stolen goods with the plantation slaves and nearby Indians.
- 39:27The ever-increasing need for more land led to conflicts with
- 39:30the nearby natives
- 39:31SPEAKER_00: like the Natchez,
- 39:33SPEAKER_00: which led to a revolt in 1729.
- 39:36SPEAKER_00: Berlin lays out this entire event,
- 39:38SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 39:39SPEAKER_00: In the fall of 1729,
- 39:40SPEAKER_00: the fuming discontent broke its boundaries in deadly revolution.
- 39:46SPEAKER_00: In November,
- 39:47SPEAKER_00: Natchez Indians,
- 39:48pushed to the brink by the expanding plantation economy and
- 39:51fearful for their own enslavement,
- 39:53SPEAKER_00: joined with newly arrived slaves to massacre over 200 French settlers,
- 39:58SPEAKER_00: more than 10% of the European population of Louisiana.
- 40:03SPEAKER_00: The governor of Louisiana would eventually turn around and attack back
- 40:10SPEAKER_00: though not to the level of success that he would hope.
- 40:13SPEAKER_00: By 1731 there was peace,
- 40:15SPEAKER_00: though,
- 40:16and all of the former slaves that escaped to help the Natchez
- 40:20Indians were returned.
- 40:22The fate that befell these slaves that were returned was far
- 40:26worse than if they had
- 40:28SPEAKER_00: not revolted at all.
- 40:31SPEAKER_00: Quoting Berlin again,
- 40:32eager to inspire a quote-unquote new horror of the savages
- 40:37among the slaves,
- 40:39French officials turned many of these returned Black slaves
- 40:42over to the Choctaws,
- 40:44SPEAKER_00: who promptly burned them at the stake with an appropriate,
- 40:46SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 40:47SPEAKER_00: degree of cruelty,
- 40:49SPEAKER_00: end quote.
- 40:51SPEAKER_00: After 1731 and the end of the Natchez Revolt,
- 40:55SPEAKER_00: no more slaves directly from Africa arrived in Louisiana,
- 40:59SPEAKER_00: barring a single slave ship,
- 41:02SPEAKER_00: until it was taken over by the Spanish in 1763.
- 41:07SPEAKER_00: The end of imports led to a creolization of the slave population,
- 41:11SPEAKER_00: the moderation of treatment of slaves,
- 41:15SPEAKER_00: and allowance of families.
- 41:16SPEAKER_00: A new governor proposed slave owners provide more sufficient food,
- 41:21SPEAKER_00: clothing, and less harsh treatment.
- 41:24SPEAKER_00: The black population,
- 41:25SPEAKER_00: mostly enslaved,
- 41:27outnumbered the whites by about 1.5 to 1 and would stay the
- 41:31same until the Spanish takeover.
- 41:34This colony remained much more urban than many of the other
- 41:38colonies that we will
- 41:39SPEAKER_00: get to to the north,
- 41:41SPEAKER_00: though this urban environment was much like what we will see later.
- 41:45SPEAKER_00: Slaves were given far more freedom generally,
- 41:47SPEAKER_00: though,
- 41:48SPEAKER_00: and lumbermen carried axes,
- 41:50SPEAKER_00: herdsmen carried guns,
- 41:52SPEAKER_00: and many were allowed horses.
- 41:54The general lack of a staple crop allowed the slaves to become
- 41:58far more skilled in
- 41:59SPEAKER_00: a variety of trades,
- 42:01SPEAKER_00: and once again were able to sell their time and wares.
- 42:04Some went so far as to lay claim on small portions of land at
- 42:09the edge of their owners' estates.
- 42:11In the end,
- 42:12there existed a small but very vibrant independent slave economy.
- 42:17There were still laws in the books that were meant to curtail
- 42:20these freedoms,
- 42:21SPEAKER_00: but they were often ignored,
- 42:22SPEAKER_00: and custom often overrode the laws.
- 42:26SPEAKER_00: And in Louisiana,
- 42:29SPEAKER_00: what we see is not what we will see in much of the English colonies,
- 42:35SPEAKER_00: which is a society with slaves turning into a slave society.
- 42:40SPEAKER_00: Rather, this is the opposite.
- 42:42SPEAKER_00: A slave society begins to turn into a society with slaves.
- 42:49SPEAKER_00: Now,
- 42:49SPEAKER_00: by the end of this era,
- 42:51SPEAKER_00: near 1763,
- 42:51SPEAKER_00: there was an attempt to create a new staple crop,
- 42:56SPEAKER_00: an indigo,
- 42:58SPEAKER_00: though the war that we will get to at the end of this season,
- 43:01SPEAKER_00: the French and Indian War,
- 43:04SPEAKER_00: stopped this from actually taking hold.
- 43:07SPEAKER_00: And after the Spanish took over,
- 43:09SPEAKER_00: the French planters and Spanish government fought endlessly,
- 43:16SPEAKER_00: so the slave population largely was overlooked.
- 43:21SPEAKER_00: Now we haven't touched the Spanish yet,
- 43:24though the Spanish by this point are on the downturn of their
- 43:28imperial might.
- 43:30SPEAKER_00: And most of their empire lays south of the Rio Grande,
- 43:36SPEAKER_00: so it has been mostly ignored thus far,
- 43:40SPEAKER_00: except for the very first episode on colonization,
- 43:43SPEAKER_00: where I did touch on the slave relations.
- 43:47SPEAKER_00: But on the mainland,
- 43:50SPEAKER_00: East of Louisiana,
- 43:52SPEAKER_00: we have the colony of La Florida,
- 43:55SPEAKER_00: which is a similarly ramshackle colony compared to the English,
- 44:01SPEAKER_00: for sure,
- 44:02SPEAKER_00: with a singular city that makes up most of the population in St.
- 44:08SPEAKER_00: Augustine.
- 44:10SPEAKER_00: Fort Moes, a fort built near St.
- 44:13SPEAKER_00: Augustine,
- 44:13SPEAKER_00: became a haven for escaped slaves,
- 44:17SPEAKER_00: mostly from the Carolinas and eventually Georgia,
- 44:21SPEAKER_00: and a base of operations for any attack to the north.
- 44:25It was relentlessly attacked in every single colonial war by
- 44:29the English as a way
- 44:30SPEAKER_00: to drive the Spanish completely off of the eastern seaboard.
- 44:35SPEAKER_00: And it held through most until the end of the French and Indian War.
- 44:41SPEAKER_00: In this colony,
- 44:41SPEAKER_00: free blacks,
- 44:42SPEAKER_00: not slaves,
- 44:44SPEAKER_00: had a very large stake in the economy and acted as laborers,
- 44:48SPEAKER_00: artisans,
- 44:49SPEAKER_00: sailors,
- 44:50SPEAKER_00: soldiers,
- 44:50SPEAKER_00: and servants.
- 44:51They owned property and would sometimes work to get others out
- 44:56of bondage.
- 44:58SPEAKER_00: They were part of the church, got married, and baptized their children.
- 45:02In short,
- 45:03they were not much different than the Europeans that lived there.
- 45:07By 1746,
- 45:09about a quarter of the population,
- 45:11about 350 people,
- 45:12were free blacks.
- 45:15SPEAKER_00: Fort Moes will become extremely vital later on,
- 45:20SPEAKER_00: and especially in the next episode,
- 45:22SPEAKER_00: Florida will become vital for a key slave revolt.
- 45:27SPEAKER_00: But in the end,
- 45:28SPEAKER_00: it was a small colony that didn't have a lot of cultural,
- 45:31SPEAKER_00: political,
- 45:31SPEAKER_00: or military influence in the end.
- 45:35SPEAKER_00: Now moving into the English colonies,
- 45:37SPEAKER_00: we get into the southern colonies of Georgia,
- 45:41SPEAKER_00: South,
- 45:42SPEAKER_00: and North Carolina.
- 45:43SPEAKER_00: When we start this era,
- 45:44SPEAKER_00: North and South Carolina are combined,
- 45:46SPEAKER_00: so we will just keep this as a singular entity,
- 45:52SPEAKER_00: because even after North and South Carolina separate,
- 45:57SPEAKER_00: South Carolina is a lot more dynamic than North Carolina.
- 46:00SPEAKER_00: In the early stages of colonization in Carolina,
- 46:04Creoles were actually able to use their polyglotism and
- 46:08understanding of their
- 46:08power relationships with the whites to prevent the harshest
- 46:12treatment that came
- 46:13SPEAKER_00: with the racial domination of chattel slavery from impacting them.
- 46:18SPEAKER_00: Between first settling and the Yamasee War,
- 46:22SPEAKER_00: between roughly 1670 and 1715,
- 46:27SPEAKER_00: black slaves were able to win their freedom through military service.
- 46:31SPEAKER_00: This put a strain on
- 46:33SPEAKER_00: On slave owners,
- 46:34SPEAKER_00: though,
- 46:34as they were worried continuously about open revolt and even
- 46:38training those slaves
- 46:40SPEAKER_00: who would be able to revolt.
- 46:42SPEAKER_00: But slaves were most often not actually wanting open revolt.
- 46:45They were more happy to escape at all and just leave into the
- 46:50swampy backcountry
- 46:51SPEAKER_00: where they would create maroon colonies,
- 46:54SPEAKER_00: colonies of slaves and even laborers and Indians.
- 46:58where they remained free from the prying eyes of the
- 47:01plantations so long as they
- 47:03SPEAKER_00: kept to themselves with trade and their labor.
- 47:07SPEAKER_00: Over 40% of the slaves that were brought to North America,
- 47:11SPEAKER_00: the mainland colonies,
- 47:13SPEAKER_00: passed through South Carolina,
- 47:14SPEAKER_00: namely Charlestown.
- 47:16SPEAKER_00: As profits rose from staple crops like rice and indigo,
- 47:21SPEAKER_00: the amount of slaves purchased in Charlestown skyrocketed,
- 47:24SPEAKER_00: from just several at a time to dozens at a time.
- 47:29By 1720,
- 47:31rice made up nearly half of the export profits in South Carolina.
- 47:37SPEAKER_00: This impacted the labor needs in the fields,
- 47:39SPEAKER_00: but also in the creation of earthworks,
- 47:42as miles of canals cut through the low country to provide the
- 47:46water necessary to
- 47:48SPEAKER_00: flood the rice fields.
- 47:50SPEAKER_00: These combined factors only drove the slave population even higher.
- 47:55And by 1760,
- 47:56nearly every parish in South Carolina was at least 60% black.
- 48:03SPEAKER_00: In Georgia,
- 48:04SPEAKER_00: after the initial slavery ban ended in the 1750s,
- 48:09SPEAKER_00: they quickly began to match the numbers of South Carolina.
- 48:12SPEAKER_00: This wouldn't actually fully happen until the beginning of the 1800s,
- 48:17SPEAKER_00: But within 20 years, there were 15,000 slaves in Georgia.
- 48:22SPEAKER_00: As I said,
- 48:23SPEAKER_00: Charlestown acted as the staging area for the slave trade,
- 48:29SPEAKER_00: where planters would purchase these men,
- 48:30SPEAKER_00: women,
- 48:31SPEAKER_00: and children like cattle.
- 48:34And like cattle,
- 48:36the buyers of slaves would often have preferences about who
- 48:40they wanted.
- 48:42SPEAKER_00: I stated earlier that adult and teenage males were sought after.
- 48:47SPEAKER_00: But Berlin goes further, quote...
- 48:50Both buyers and sellers dwelled upon the regional and national
- 48:53origins of their
- 48:54SPEAKER_00: human merchandise,
- 48:55SPEAKER_00: disparaging slaves from the bite of Biafra or the so-called Calabars.
- 49:00Some planters based their choices on long experience and a
- 49:04considered understanding
- 49:05SPEAKER_00: of the physical and social character of various African nations.
- 49:10Knowing that some West Africans cultivated rice,
- 49:13slave owners naturally specified them.
- 49:15SPEAKER_00: Others based their preference on shallow ethnic stereotypes.
- 49:19SPEAKER_00: Sometimes planters preferred just those slaves they did not get,
- 49:22perhaps because all Africans made unsatisfactory slaves and the
- 49:26unobtainable ones
- 49:27SPEAKER_00: looked better at a distance.
- 49:31SPEAKER_00: Despite the desecration of the slaves and the separation upon arrival,
- 49:37SPEAKER_00: African culture was actually able to live on in South Carolina.
- 49:42The sheer numbers of slaves in the colony likely allowed tribe
- 49:46members to work
- 49:47SPEAKER_00: alongside each other on plantations,
- 49:50SPEAKER_00: and they rarely encountered their masters.
- 49:52This allowed the slaves to portray a limited amount of power by
- 49:56coordinating
- 49:57SPEAKER_00: disruptions in production.
- 49:59Slaves were allowed to leave the fields in the early afternoon
- 50:02to tend their own gardens,
- 50:04and overseers were often unwilling to press the slaves too hard
- 50:08for risk of mutiny
- 50:09SPEAKER_00: or further protest.
- 50:11SPEAKER_00: Often, the planters took a hands-off approach to avoid such conflict.
- 50:16SPEAKER_00: They would use drivers,
- 50:17SPEAKER_00: slaves chosen to leave the pack to dole out work,
- 50:21SPEAKER_00: overseers were used to manage the drivers,
- 50:24SPEAKER_00: and stewards were used to manage the ports.
- 50:27SPEAKER_00: Slaves had very well-defined tasks to do each day,
- 50:30SPEAKER_00: so many rows sowed or canals cleared,
- 50:33SPEAKER_00: which allowed them that extra time,
- 50:35SPEAKER_00: often at the end of the day.
- 50:37The drivers acted as middlemen between slaves and masters and
- 50:41actually cultivated a
- 50:42SPEAKER_00: hierarchy which they would then introduce to new slaves.
- 50:46SPEAKER_00: And as a result,
- 50:47this hierarchy and this separation allowed for a new
- 50:52Afro-American culture to begin
- 50:54SPEAKER_00: to emerge.
- 50:55There arose a language and new cultural practices that were
- 51:01brought in from Africa
- 51:03SPEAKER_00: like witchcraft,
- 51:05SPEAKER_00: not the witchcraft of Salem.
- 51:08SPEAKER_00: but similar types of black and white magic.
- 51:13The continuous influx of Africans into the low country only
- 51:16drove this cultural
- 51:17SPEAKER_00: creation even further.
- 51:19SPEAKER_00: There were many attempts to Christianize slaves,
- 51:22though this new culture with its religious rites and rituals
- 51:27and their relative
- 51:28freedom in the fields made it very difficult for preachers to
- 51:33convert any slaves.
- 51:35SPEAKER_00: But it was these Christians that actually started
- 51:39SPEAKER_00: the very small, by the end of this era, very small abolition movement.
- 51:44But this abolition movement within the Christians blocked them
- 51:48from actually
- 51:49SPEAKER_00: reaching slaves,
- 51:50SPEAKER_00: as planters did not want those ideas to reach their slaves.
- 51:55SPEAKER_00: The slaves in the cities had a very different experience.
- 52:00Urban slaves did not enjoy the same level of separation as
- 52:04their rural counterparts.
- 52:06SPEAKER_00: Most were women who worked in the house cooking and cleaning.
- 52:10SPEAKER_00: Outside of the house, they worked as seamstresses or weavers.
- 52:15They also did the shopping and even sold their own products
- 52:18that they made.
- 52:19The men worked as skilled craftsmen,
- 52:22cartmen,
- 52:23or worked at the ports alongside the free whites.
- 52:27SPEAKER_00: Some were even able to become skilled artisans,
- 52:29SPEAKER_00: most often in the port trades like shipwrights and rope makers.
- 52:35SPEAKER_00: And among these artisans,
- 52:36SPEAKER_00: the free artisans,
- 52:37there was no different scene in the ability between black and
- 52:41white artisans.
- 52:42The master craftsman and the apprentices and the slaves would
- 52:45all work together.
- 52:47SPEAKER_00: Despite the proximity,
- 52:48SPEAKER_00: though,
- 52:48the ability to sell their own time and goods allowed these
- 52:51slaves to become even
- 52:52SPEAKER_00: more wealthy than those in the Chesapeake,
- 52:55SPEAKER_00: as we'll see.
- 52:57SPEAKER_00: And they were even able to enjoy near freedom altogether.
- 53:02But the stark difference between the rural and urban slaves was
- 53:05most clear in their dress.
- 53:07And in the end,
- 53:08urban slaves wanted nothing to do with low country plantation slaves.
- 53:12Berlin lays out what this distinction between urban and rural
- 53:16slaves looked like.
- 53:19SPEAKER_00: Perhaps no aspect of their behavior was as obvious,
- 53:22SPEAKER_00: and hence as galling,
- 53:23SPEAKER_00: to city-bound planters as the slaves' elaborate dress.
- 53:27While plantation slaves' men and women were stripped to the
- 53:29waist wearing no more
- 53:30SPEAKER_00: than loincloths,
- 53:31SPEAKER_00: thereby confirming the white man's image of savagery,
- 53:35urban slaves appropriated their owners' tastes for fine clothes
- 53:39and often the
- 53:39SPEAKER_00: garments themselves.
- 53:41SPEAKER_00: Tooling around Charlestown in their finery,
- 53:43SPEAKER_00: displaying pocket watches,
- 53:45SPEAKER_00: sporting powdered wigs,
- 53:46there roused the ire of countless self-proclaimed ladies and
- 53:50gentlemen who viewed
- 53:51the slaves' fine dress as a challenge to their exclusive claim
- 53:55to the symbols of civilization.
- 53:57SPEAKER_00: End quote.
- 53:59SPEAKER_00: Urban slaves were often housed in spare rooms or lofts of homes,
- 54:04but the plantations had a vast network of streets and squares
- 54:08that were all in
- 54:08SPEAKER_00: clear view of the main house.
- 54:11These often looked like separate villages from the plantation
- 54:13rather than a piece of it.
- 54:15SPEAKER_00: In these villages,
- 54:16SPEAKER_00: slaves were able to cobble together a semblance of a family life,
- 54:20and planters even began to understand this necessity and would
- 54:25purchase family
- 54:26SPEAKER_00: units rather than separating them.
- 54:29Slaves often had their own gardens and fowl and were even able
- 54:33to cultivate rice of
- 54:34SPEAKER_00: their own and sell at markets for themselves.
- 54:38Some planters even went so far as to protect the property that
- 54:41slaves owned,
- 54:43and they would either buy it from the slave or transfer it with
- 54:46them if they sold
- 54:47SPEAKER_00: that slave to another planter.
- 54:50Now I don't want this to paint over the picture that you have
- 54:53in your mind of
- 54:54SPEAKER_00: slavery because slavery was still gruesome.
- 54:58SPEAKER_00: They were dressed and ate terribly,
- 55:01SPEAKER_00: were wracked with disease,
- 55:02though they were often treated by the planters to protect their investment.
- 55:07SPEAKER_00: and they worked very dangerous jobs.
- 55:10New slaves were often beat harshly for any small mistakes made
- 55:14in the cultivation
- 55:15SPEAKER_00: and production process they were unfamiliar with.
- 55:18SPEAKER_00: Death caused by these punishments were not seen as murder.
- 55:23The conditions also did not allow for a natural increase in the
- 55:29slave population to occur.
- 55:31There was low birth rates because those families were few and
- 55:33far between,
- 55:34SPEAKER_00: and the death rate was so high that the birth rate could not keep up.
- 55:40SPEAKER_00: Despite this,
- 55:40because Charlestown was the center of the slave trade in the
- 55:44North American colonies,
- 55:46SPEAKER_00: the slave population rose.
- 55:49SPEAKER_00: And by the revolution,
- 55:51SPEAKER_00: by the end of this era,
- 55:53SPEAKER_00: there were about 100,000 slaves in the Lowcountry.
- 55:58Now we move north to a place where there was actually three
- 56:03times as many by this point.
- 56:06But we'll see that it's a little bit different in Virginia and
- 56:09the rest of the Chesapeake.
- 56:10Immediately after Bacon's Rebellion in 1676,
- 56:16with the inclusion of slaves in the rebel army,
- 56:22alongside Bacon and a lot of the other servants that came along
- 56:26with that,
- 56:28new slave codes were introduced to ensure African slavery was
- 56:32codified and slavery
- 56:35SPEAKER_00: became a hereditary status in Virginia.
- 56:40SPEAKER_00: Slavery boomed as planters moved west and white servants were replaced.
- 56:45SPEAKER_00: And over the next century,
- 56:47SPEAKER_00: during this era,
- 56:47the slave population grew as a proportion of the total until it
- 56:52was nearly half of
- 56:53SPEAKER_00: the total population.
- 56:55SPEAKER_00: And like in Carolina,
- 56:57the first slaves were the Creole slaves that were unwilling to
- 57:01accept their
- 57:02SPEAKER_00: subservient role that they were given in society.
- 57:05SPEAKER_00: and were quick to find any leverage to escape it.
- 57:08SPEAKER_00: They would often exchange their time for money,
- 57:13SPEAKER_00: and like what would happen on the plantations in Carolina,
- 57:15SPEAKER_00: often had their own gardens,
- 57:17SPEAKER_00: their own animals,
- 57:18SPEAKER_00: hunted and fished on their own,
- 57:20SPEAKER_00: and even had small manufactories of their own.
- 57:23SPEAKER_00: But over time, the slave population would change.
- 57:26SPEAKER_00: It would change from the Creoles to coming from Africa directly.
- 57:31SPEAKER_00: By 1700, this was about 90% of the slave population.
- 57:36SPEAKER_00: Like in Carolina,
- 57:37slaves were deprived of any common human decency as soon as
- 57:40they got off the ships.
- 57:42SPEAKER_00: They were renamed to remove any ties to Africa.
- 57:45SPEAKER_00: Conditions were terrible on the plantations and very little
- 57:48SPEAKER_00: was done to remedy that.
- 57:51New laws in 1705 and 1723 in Virginia denied slaves the right
- 57:57to free travel
- 57:58without permission and were banned from meeting in groups of
- 58:01more than four.
- 58:02SPEAKER_00: These codes further enshrined the master's total control of the slaves,
- 58:07SPEAKER_00: even to the point of murder,
- 58:08SPEAKER_00: and in the end,
- 58:10SPEAKER_00: planters were treated and saw themselves as lords of a small empire,
- 58:15SPEAKER_00: of which these slaves were their peasants.
- 58:19SPEAKER_00: As the estates grew,
- 58:20SPEAKER_00: the planters would eventually stop interacting with the slaves,
- 58:23SPEAKER_00: just like in Carolina,
- 58:25SPEAKER_00: and would hire overseers,
- 58:26SPEAKER_00: usually slaves,
- 58:28SPEAKER_00: to manage the labor force.
- 58:30SPEAKER_00: Last episode,
- 58:31SPEAKER_00: I stated that by Bacon's rebellion,
- 58:34the plight of servants and the plight of slaves wasn't seen as
- 58:38so different to not
- 58:40SPEAKER_00: allow them to commiserate with each other.
- 58:43SPEAKER_00: But over time,
- 58:45SPEAKER_00: like the interracial marriage ban in the Virginia Assembly,
- 58:48SPEAKER_00: that would drive a wedge between whites and blacks,
- 58:53SPEAKER_00: white servants and black slaves most often.
- 58:57And this law also took away a source of power from black people
- 59:02that would give
- 59:03SPEAKER_00: them any power over some structure of their own,
- 59:08SPEAKER_00: namely family and descent.
- 59:11SPEAKER_00: Because of this wedge,
- 59:12black slaves began to create a new separate culture and made
- 59:19sure to distinguish
- 59:21SPEAKER_00: themselves from Europeans altogether.
- 59:25SPEAKER_00: This,
- 59:25SPEAKER_00: along with the natural language barrier,
- 59:27SPEAKER_00: drove whites and blacks,
- 59:29SPEAKER_00: regardless of social status,
- 59:30SPEAKER_00: further apart.
- 59:32These racial differences thus bred further stereotypes of
- 59:35individual African nationalities.
- 59:38SPEAKER_00: And these nationalities,
- 59:39SPEAKER_00: in order to prevent easy communication from the slaves,
- 59:42SPEAKER_00: were often scattered throughout the region.
- 59:46SPEAKER_00: To most whites,
- 59:48SPEAKER_00: Black people,
- 59:48SPEAKER_00: regardless of whether they were free or enslaved,
- 59:50SPEAKER_00: were actually even seen as the same.
- 59:54SPEAKER_00: And the law book was filled with distinctions of race, but not of status.
- 1:00:01This even led to a push for the removal of all three blacks
- 1:00:04from Virginia.
- 1:00:06SPEAKER_00: And some families took it upon themselves to do just that.
- 1:00:10SPEAKER_00: Despite their efforts, these different ethnicities in Africa...
- 1:00:16SPEAKER_00: We're not completely separated altogether.
- 1:00:19SPEAKER_00: Daniel K.
- 1:00:20Richter in Before the Revolution lays out the different groups
- 1:00:23that went where and
- 1:00:24SPEAKER_00: what that meant in America.
- 1:00:27Quote,
- 1:00:27The majority of people imported to South Carolina,
- 1:00:30for instance,
- 1:00:30were Angolans.
- 1:00:32SPEAKER_00: Roughly half of those who went to Tidewater,
- 1:00:34SPEAKER_00: Virginia,
- 1:00:35SPEAKER_00: were Igbos who sailed from the Bight of Biafra.
- 1:00:38SPEAKER_00: And another quarter were Bantu-speaking people from West Central Africa.
- 1:00:41SPEAKER_00: End quote.
- 1:00:42These African cultural fragments made their way onto the
- 1:00:43plantations from the
- 1:00:44SPEAKER_00: interior of Africa.
- 1:01:06SPEAKER_00: Not Africa as a whole,
- 1:01:08SPEAKER_00: but as their individual nation or tribe,
- 1:01:11SPEAKER_00: at least where these different groups were clustered.
- 1:01:14SPEAKER_00: However,
- 1:01:15SPEAKER_00: as these disparate families,
- 1:01:17SPEAKER_00: tribes,
- 1:01:17SPEAKER_00: and nations were forced to labor alongside one another,
- 1:01:21these lines slowly disintegrated until a singular quote-unquote
- 1:01:24African identity
- 1:01:26SPEAKER_00: began to form.
- 1:01:28Rather than integrate as the previous Creole generation of
- 1:01:32slaves attempted to do
- 1:01:34SPEAKER_00: via shared language and civic knowledge,
- 1:01:36this new generation turned inward and recreated African life on
- 1:01:40the plantation.
- 1:01:42SPEAKER_00: This gave rise to new African Americans,
- 1:01:44SPEAKER_00: born in America,
- 1:01:46SPEAKER_00: who would completely supersede African-born slaves by 1740.
- 1:01:50SPEAKER_00: This new generation, according to Berlin,
- 1:01:53SPEAKER_00: lived longer and healthier,
- 1:01:55and were much more familiar with the landscapes of the colony
- 1:01:59and the economies of
- 1:01:59SPEAKER_00: the region.
- 1:02:01SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, English was their native tongue.
- 1:02:04This distinct African-American culture began to spread beyond
- 1:02:08just the slaves and
- 1:02:10SPEAKER_00: even influenced white children that they would often raise in the house.
- 1:02:16This new culture mixed both English and African grammar and
- 1:02:21Christianity with mysticism.
- 1:02:24SPEAKER_00: Traditional rituals were incorporated with new customs.
- 1:02:28But these differences in culture only further exacerbated the
- 1:02:32racial divide.
- 1:02:34And by the end of this era,
- 1:02:36many white people saw no reconciliation as possible.
- 1:02:41And some of the way that people talked about blacks started to
- 1:02:46sound like the
- 1:02:46SPEAKER_00: eugenics movement that would come over a century later.
- 1:02:51SPEAKER_00: Now,
- 1:02:51SPEAKER_00: in Virginia and the rest of the Chesapeake,
- 1:02:55slave treatment rested between the extremes of the West Indies
- 1:02:58and the southern
- 1:03:00SPEAKER_00: colonies and what occurred in the northern colonies.
- 1:03:03SPEAKER_00: Punishment was still harsh,
- 1:03:05and new ways to humiliate and demoralize slaves were constantly introduced.
- 1:03:10The work was less brutal than in the low country rice and
- 1:03:13island cane fields,
- 1:03:15SPEAKER_00: but still harder than the servants had faced in the previous century.
- 1:03:19SPEAKER_00: They worked more and longer days with fewer breaks and holidays.
- 1:03:24But like in Carolina,
- 1:03:26they were able to garner relationships and bear children.
- 1:03:29SPEAKER_00: And unlike in Carolina,
- 1:03:31this occurred at such a high rate that slave importation began
- 1:03:34to slow after 1750,
- 1:03:37SPEAKER_00: where the natural increase in slave population overtook it.
- 1:03:42Native-born slaves,
- 1:03:43as I said earlier,
- 1:03:44lived far better than the African-born slaves.
- 1:03:47SPEAKER_00: In one major aspect was where they lived altogether.
- 1:03:51SPEAKER_00: Berlin was
- 1:03:53SPEAKER_00: lays this out,
- 1:04:12although they generally took a neater,
- 1:04:14more permanent form in the great plantation towns.
- 1:04:18SPEAKER_00: But even when ramshackle and dilapidated,
- 1:04:20the separate slave quarter marked the acceptance of the slave's
- 1:04:23demand for an
- 1:04:24independent family life and a grudging concession to the
- 1:04:27slave's right to privacy,
- 1:04:28SPEAKER_00: a notion that was antithetical to the very idea of chattel bondage.
- 1:04:36SPEAKER_00: All these new developments of family,
- 1:04:37SPEAKER_00: culture,
- 1:04:38SPEAKER_00: and home life began to unsettle the previously drawn labor requirements,
- 1:04:42and slaves worked to return to the relative freedom afforded to
- 1:04:46the charter generation.
- 1:04:48SPEAKER_00: The economic winds began to shift by the middle of the 18th century,
- 1:04:51SPEAKER_00: allowing this to begin to take shape.
- 1:04:54SPEAKER_00: New grain crops allowed for far more free time,
- 1:04:57SPEAKER_00: as they were far less labor-intensive than tobacco.
- 1:05:00SPEAKER_00: This forced planters to use them in more skilled labor than fieldwork,
- 1:05:03SPEAKER_00: though that was still the predominant form of labor.
- 1:05:07SPEAKER_00: The demand for urban labor allowed slaves,
- 1:05:10SPEAKER_00: like before,
- 1:05:10SPEAKER_00: to sell their time and often worked without supervision.
- 1:05:15These greater freedoms brought with it a greater sense for what
- 1:05:18they were entitled to,
- 1:05:20SPEAKER_00: for food and clothing from the planters,
- 1:05:22SPEAKER_00: and even gardens and flocks for their own use.
- 1:05:25SPEAKER_00: And over time,
- 1:05:25they even began to find ways to level out the relationship
- 1:05:29between themselves and
- 1:05:30SPEAKER_00: the planters.
- 1:05:31These small changes in the economy and how they lived awakened
- 1:05:36a new call among the
- 1:05:38SPEAKER_00: slaves for true freedom.
- 1:05:41SPEAKER_00: It was in the North
- 1:05:43SPEAKER_00: where these would become most pertinent,
- 1:05:46SPEAKER_00: as this was where the revolution began brewing in the next era.
- 1:05:52SPEAKER_00: In the Middle Colonies and North and New England,
- 1:05:56SPEAKER_00: the slave trade didn't really start in earnest until the 18th century.
- 1:06:01I did talk about the interweaving relationships between New
- 1:06:05England and the West Indies,
- 1:06:07SPEAKER_00: so it wasn't an unknown business.
- 1:06:10SPEAKER_00: but only a few slave voyages were made before the turn of the century.
- 1:06:15Between the fall of New Amsterdam in 1664 and the beginning of
- 1:06:19the 18th century,
- 1:06:20SPEAKER_00: the African slave population in New York City,
- 1:06:23SPEAKER_00: for instance,
- 1:06:24SPEAKER_00: from 300 to about 600,
- 1:06:27SPEAKER_00: but shrank proportionally to about an eighth of the total population.
- 1:06:32SPEAKER_00: However,
- 1:06:33after the end of Queen Anne's War and the beginning of the
- 1:06:36trade boom starting in
- 1:06:38SPEAKER_00: the 1720s,
- 1:06:40SPEAKER_00: this rapidly shifted.
- 1:06:42Slaves became a much more integral part of the city and grew to
- 1:06:45represent over 20%
- 1:06:47SPEAKER_00: of the population by 1746,
- 1:06:50SPEAKER_00: which numbered over 2,400 slaves.
- 1:06:54They were purchased by merchants to crew ships and by artisans
- 1:06:58to train in the craft.
- 1:07:00SPEAKER_00: The highest concentration,
- 1:07:01SPEAKER_00: though,
- 1:07:02SPEAKER_00: were in the estates outside of the cities,
- 1:07:04SPEAKER_00: where they still worked alongside indentured servants and tenants,
- 1:07:08SPEAKER_00: though were not very different from slaves in the Chesapeake.
- 1:07:11SPEAKER_00: Slaves in the north were also still treated terribly.
- 1:07:15SPEAKER_00: They were unable to marry,
- 1:07:17SPEAKER_00: families were purposefully torn apart,
- 1:07:20SPEAKER_00: and they were generally treated as chattel.
- 1:07:23SPEAKER_00: Most of these slaves did come from the West Indies still.
- 1:07:26SPEAKER_00: They did not directly come from Africa.
- 1:07:29Most that arrived in New York,
- 1:07:32for instance,
- 1:07:34were West Indian slaves to begin with.
- 1:07:37SPEAKER_00: In total,
- 1:07:37SPEAKER_00: though,
- 1:07:37SPEAKER_00: the North had far fewer slaves than in the South,
- 1:07:42as the owners of the estates were far more likely to take a
- 1:07:46European servant than
- 1:07:48SPEAKER_00: an African slave,
- 1:07:49SPEAKER_00: despite the fact that there were not many of them.
- 1:07:52SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean that they were against slavery at all.
- 1:07:55It was likely more of an economic preference or something like
- 1:07:57that than a moral one.
- 1:08:01With the arrival of many new planters from Barbados and other
- 1:08:05West Indian islands,
- 1:08:08SPEAKER_00: after failure to make any profits there,
- 1:08:11a contrast grew between the small farmers with one or two
- 1:08:14slaves that worked
- 1:08:15alongside them and the large plantations with dozens of slaves
- 1:08:20who were rarely
- 1:08:21SPEAKER_00: interacted with.
- 1:08:23Because of the smaller black slave population,
- 1:08:26there was some interracial fraternization.
- 1:08:30Berlin states that the respectable class in the northern
- 1:08:34colonies widely shared the
- 1:08:35SPEAKER_00: perception that the social cleavage ran between free and unfree,
- 1:08:40SPEAKER_00: not white and black.
- 1:08:42SPEAKER_00: Members of the lower orders found their fraternization profitable.
- 1:08:46SPEAKER_00: Interracial gangs of thieves operated in every northern city,
- 1:08:50SPEAKER_00: often out of clandestine dram shops,
- 1:08:52SPEAKER_00: groceries,
- 1:08:53SPEAKER_00: gambling dens,
- 1:08:54SPEAKER_00: and brothels.
- 1:08:57SPEAKER_00: Despite these relationships,
- 1:08:59many slaves preferred spending time with those that shared
- 1:09:02their lineage and status
- 1:09:04SPEAKER_00: as slaves.
- 1:09:05These increasingly frequent meetings between racial partners
- 1:09:10rather than class partners were
- 1:09:13eventually led to anxiety among the white population and laws
- 1:09:17disallowing public
- 1:09:18SPEAKER_00: congregations of black people began to emerge throughout the colony.
- 1:09:23SPEAKER_00: at the beginning of the 18th century.
- 1:09:25SPEAKER_00: There was still a racial component to slavery.
- 1:09:28SPEAKER_00: In 1702,
- 1:09:29SPEAKER_00: New York passed their first comprehensive slave code,
- 1:09:33SPEAKER_00: which,
- 1:09:33SPEAKER_00: quoting Edwin Burroughs in his book Gotham,
- 1:09:37SPEAKER_00: states that this new code,
- 1:09:39SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 1:09:39underscored the association of slavery with black skin by
- 1:09:43banning the enslavement
- 1:09:44of Indians and defining indentured servitude as a condition for
- 1:09:47whites only.
- 1:09:48SPEAKER_00: It granted masters nearly unlimited powers of correction,
- 1:09:51SPEAKER_00: set up special tribunals to try slaves accused of crimes,
- 1:09:55SPEAKER_00: and authorized a common whipper for the city.
- 1:09:57Subsequent enactments by either the legislature or common
- 1:10:00council confirmed that
- 1:10:02SPEAKER_00: slavery was heritable through the female line,
- 1:10:04SPEAKER_00: prohibited more than three slaves gathering together at a time,
- 1:10:07SPEAKER_00: twelve for funerals,
- 1:10:09SPEAKER_00: restricted the movement of slaves after nightfall,
- 1:10:12SPEAKER_00: banned slaves from selling food or other goods in the streets,
- 1:10:16SPEAKER_00: a practice known as huckstering,
- 1:10:18SPEAKER_00: and eliminated conversion to Christianity as grounds for manumission.
- 1:10:23SPEAKER_00: But these rules were hard to enforce,
- 1:10:25SPEAKER_00: and slaves would travel about the city as they worked,
- 1:10:28SPEAKER_00: even at night.
- 1:10:30SPEAKER_00: With this,
- 1:10:30SPEAKER_00: there was a high level of anxiety,
- 1:10:32SPEAKER_00: like every other colony with slaves,
- 1:10:35SPEAKER_00: about revolts.
- 1:10:36And traders knew from stories coming from the West Indies that
- 1:10:40slavery routes were
- 1:10:41SPEAKER_00: not rare and were often deadly.
- 1:10:44SPEAKER_00: But that's the topic for next episode.
- 1:10:47SPEAKER_00: Over time,
- 1:10:47the middle colonies became more and more reliant on slave labor
- 1:10:51in their fields and
- 1:10:52SPEAKER_00: in their ports.
- 1:10:54SPEAKER_00: However,
- 1:10:54SPEAKER_00: unlike the southern colonies where slavery was adopted wholesale,
- 1:10:58many tradesmen still reverted to white servants whenever they
- 1:11:01became available.
- 1:11:02SPEAKER_00: This was not the case in the breadbasket of the Hudson Valley,
- 1:11:06SPEAKER_00: Pennsylvania,
- 1:11:06SPEAKER_00: and Long Island,
- 1:11:08SPEAKER_00: where white servants were quickly replaced with slaves whenever possible.
- 1:11:12SPEAKER_00: And unlike the southern plantations,
- 1:11:15these rural slaves still remained jack-of-all-trades and often
- 1:11:19worked alongside
- 1:11:20SPEAKER_00: white servants and wage workers.
- 1:11:23SPEAKER_00: Unlike the southern colonies in the Chesapeake,
- 1:11:27northern slaveholders never actually tried to keep family units
- 1:11:32intact ever.
- 1:11:34SPEAKER_00: And because of this,
- 1:11:35SPEAKER_00: slave birth rates were incredibly low,
- 1:11:38and the black population never actually rose quickly like it
- 1:11:43did in the South,
- 1:11:44SPEAKER_00: and even fell as a proportion of the whole.
- 1:11:48SPEAKER_00: Slaves only had one name,
- 1:11:50SPEAKER_00: were not able to register their marriages,
- 1:11:53SPEAKER_00: baptize their children,
- 1:11:55SPEAKER_00: or hold property.
- 1:11:57The influx of slaves from Africa eventually did foster a new
- 1:12:02African-American
- 1:12:02culture just like in the South that was distinct from the white
- 1:12:06culture that existed.
- 1:12:09SPEAKER_00: A white culture that was extremely multi-ethnic.
- 1:12:13SPEAKER_00: Berlin states that,
- 1:12:14SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 1:12:14the propensity of white northerners to lump black people
- 1:12:17together mitigated
- 1:12:18SPEAKER_00: interracial differences.
- 1:12:20SPEAKER_00: Indeed,
- 1:12:20SPEAKER_00: compared with the melange of English,
- 1:12:23SPEAKER_00: Scots,
- 1:12:23SPEAKER_00: Irish,
- 1:12:23SPEAKER_00: Germans,
- 1:12:24SPEAKER_00: Dutch,
- 1:12:25SPEAKER_00: Swedes,
- 1:12:25SPEAKER_00: French Huguenots,
- 1:12:26SPEAKER_00: and Sephardic Jews who constituted the North's European populace,
- 1:12:30SPEAKER_00: men and women of African descent had much in common.
- 1:12:33SPEAKER_00: Rather than permanently dividing black people,
- 1:12:36the entry of Africans into northern society gave new direction
- 1:12:39to African American culture.
- 1:12:41SPEAKER_00: End quote.
- 1:12:43SPEAKER_00: And white culture, as it was at this point, wasn't a singular thing.
- 1:12:48SPEAKER_00: As Berlin states,
- 1:12:50SPEAKER_00: it was a multitude of different cultures all in the same area,
- 1:12:56SPEAKER_00: especially in the port cities of New York and Philadelphia and Boston.
- 1:13:02These black communities were so separated from the white
- 1:13:05communities that they had
- 1:13:07their own governors and black kings not in reality but in their
- 1:13:12own communities.
- 1:13:13They held no sway in actual politics but they were extremely
- 1:13:17influential in the black community.
- 1:13:20SPEAKER_00: By the time of the revolution,
- 1:13:21SPEAKER_00: these political instincts grew sharper,
- 1:13:24and some leaders that were not in politics began to write
- 1:13:29abolition petitions using
- 1:13:30the increasing talks of liberty in the middle colonies in New
- 1:13:35England to show the
- 1:13:35SPEAKER_00: hypocrisy of the revolution.
- 1:13:39In New England,
- 1:13:40the slave population was even more of a small minority,
- 1:13:43nearly 2%.
- 1:13:44The highest proportion of the population in New England was
- 1:13:49about 10% in Rhode Island.
- 1:13:51SPEAKER_00: Slaves were more likely to be located in cities than in the south,
- 1:13:55SPEAKER_00: but they were still mostly used on farms.
- 1:13:57But these were mostly small farms where masters lived and
- 1:14:00worked alongside their slaves.
- 1:14:03SPEAKER_00: And even with this proximity, the African roots of these slaves...
- 1:14:07were combined with the white culture to create again their own
- 1:14:11distinct culture.
- 1:14:13This was even cultivated by whites themselves to quell any rebelliousness.
- 1:14:19SPEAKER_00: Alan Taylor in American Colonies states that,
- 1:14:23SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 1:14:24SPEAKER_00: In an effort to sustain their own cultural space,
- 1:14:27northern blacks developed an annual ritual festival known as
- 1:14:30Negro Election Day,
- 1:14:31SPEAKER_00: when they gathered to drink,
- 1:14:33SPEAKER_00: feast,
- 1:14:33SPEAKER_00: play,
- 1:14:33SPEAKER_00: and dance.
- 1:14:34The festivities culminated with a raucous election of local kings,
- 1:14:38governors,
- 1:14:38and judges.
- 1:14:39who acted throughout the next year as arbitrators of disputes
- 1:14:42within the black community.
- 1:14:44In this manner,
- 1:14:44blacks honored their own notables and enjoyed a day as free people.
- 1:14:49Masters cooperated by lending clothes and horses to their
- 1:14:51slaves for the day.
- 1:14:53SPEAKER_00: By tolerating such a brief outlet,
- 1:14:55SPEAKER_00: a temporary inversion of authority,
- 1:14:57northern whites expressed their self-assurance and helped to
- 1:15:00maintain slavery as
- 1:15:01SPEAKER_00: the norm on the other 364 days of the year."
- 1:15:07SPEAKER_00: This was still slavery, though.
- 1:15:09SPEAKER_00: So slaves were still worse off than the whites due to harsh punishments,
- 1:15:13SPEAKER_00: lack of rights,
- 1:15:14SPEAKER_00: and higher rates of disease.
- 1:15:17SPEAKER_00: Again,
- 1:15:17it was in these colonies that slaves were the most vocal about
- 1:15:23wanting their
- 1:15:23SPEAKER_00: freedom and most pointed about the hypocrisy.
- 1:15:28SPEAKER_00: And Berlin lays this out clearly,
- 1:15:29SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 1:15:30Playing off the hypocrisy of slaveholding by the great
- 1:15:33advocates of liberty,
- 1:15:35SPEAKER_00: black memorialists enumerated the effects of slavery,
- 1:15:38SPEAKER_00: the destruction of family ties,
- 1:15:40SPEAKER_00: the denial of religious freedom,
- 1:15:42SPEAKER_00: and the limitation on economic advancement.
- 1:15:45SPEAKER_00: From that perspective,
- 1:15:46SPEAKER_00: Massachusetts slaves demanded not only immediate emancipation,
- 1:15:50SPEAKER_00: but also,
- 1:15:50SPEAKER_00: quote,
- 1:15:51SPEAKER_00: this is quoting one of those slaves,
- 1:15:53some part of the unimproved land belonging to the province for
- 1:15:56a settlement,
- 1:15:57SPEAKER_00: that each just may there sit down quietly under his own fig tree,
- 1:16:02SPEAKER_00: end quote.
- 1:16:04SPEAKER_00: Now, unfortunately, these dreams would have to wait.
- 1:16:08in the north it is true that slavery slowly diminished in
- 1:16:12stature and by 1800 was
- 1:16:15basically completely gone as an institution but during the
- 1:16:19revolution the planters
- 1:16:22SPEAKER_00: and the english and europeans in general
- 1:16:25became much more enamored in their own fight for their
- 1:16:29quote-unquote freedom from
- 1:16:31slavery than any fight that the slaves that they held under
- 1:16:36bondage sought after.
- 1:16:39SPEAKER_00: And on top of that,
- 1:16:40SPEAKER_00: in the southern colonies,
- 1:16:42SPEAKER_00: these planter-slave relationships only grew more and more divided.
- 1:16:50SPEAKER_00: Black slaves in the south became more and more viewed as
- 1:16:55as a strict commodity for labor and the dehumanization only
- 1:17:01ramped up as time went on.
- 1:17:06SPEAKER_00: But like always,
- 1:17:08they were still human and they still had agency and they still
- 1:17:13cared about their
- 1:17:14SPEAKER_00: own position in the world.
- 1:17:17SPEAKER_00: And as revolutionary ideologies began to spur up throughout the world,
- 1:17:22SPEAKER_00: beginning most specifically on the eastern seaboard of North America,
- 1:17:28SPEAKER_00: it became possible to map this ideology onto their own plights.
- 1:17:34SPEAKER_00: And over time,
- 1:17:35SPEAKER_00: this revolutionary spirit,
- 1:17:38SPEAKER_00: the spirit of resistance,
- 1:17:41SPEAKER_00: cropped up in unexpected places.
- 1:17:45SPEAKER_00: Now it was not successful for these first revolutionaries.
- 1:17:51Often the punishment far outweighed any crime that may or may
- 1:17:55not have ever been
- 1:17:56SPEAKER_00: committed at all.
- 1:17:59SPEAKER_00: There was no due process and barely ever a trial.
- 1:18:04SPEAKER_00: But that did not mean that they did not try.
- 1:18:10SPEAKER_01: Break down my walls.
- 1:18:14SPEAKER_01: But I will rise again.
- 1:18:18SPEAKER_01: Cause I stand tall in my environment.
- 1:18:27SPEAKER_01: How could I ever close my eyes and stay silent since?
- 1:18:36SPEAKER_01: They try to take me down with their violence.
- 1:18:45SPEAKER_01: So when I see my people fight off the evil, just know this ain't new.
- 1:18:49SPEAKER_01: A picture can be framed, but every eye will see a different view.
- 1:18:52SPEAKER_01: So when I hear the chants,
- 1:18:53SPEAKER_01: when I hear the screams,
- 1:18:54SPEAKER_01: when I see the horrible scenes,
- 1:18:56SPEAKER_01: when I see the horrid things coming from human beings,
- 1:18:59SPEAKER_01: I pray one day a new wave will take over.
- 1:19:03SPEAKER_01: What it's like to breathe life in a coma.
- 1:19:06SPEAKER_01: We're so blind to the pain of the other.
- 1:19:10SPEAKER_01: We must see beyond me in this struggle.
- 1:19:13SPEAKER_01: Break down my walls, but I will rise again.
- 1:19:16SPEAKER_01: Cause I stand tall in my environment.
- 1:19:20How could I ever close my eyes and stay silent since they try
- 1:19:24to take me down with
- 1:19:25SPEAKER_01: their violence?
- 1:19:29SPEAKER_01: Compassion.
- 1:19:30SPEAKER_01: Empathy.
- 1:19:31SPEAKER_01: Open heart.
- 1:19:32SPEAKER_01: I know it's art.
- 1:19:33SPEAKER_01: Some march on the boulevard.
- 1:19:35SPEAKER_01: Some build.
- 1:19:35SPEAKER_01: Some pull apart.
- 1:19:36SPEAKER_01: Some blame.
- 1:19:37SPEAKER_01: Some do their part.
- 1:19:38SPEAKER_01: Bring light when we're in the dark.
- 1:19:40SPEAKER_01: Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
- 1:19:41SPEAKER_01: Scarred face.
- 1:19:42SPEAKER_01: Burnt arms.
- 1:19:42SPEAKER_01: Alarm in hell.
- 1:19:43SPEAKER_01: Can't hold space.
- 1:19:44SPEAKER_01: Multiple truths.
- 1:19:45SPEAKER_01: Multiple cues.
- 1:19:46SPEAKER_01: Talk about vacuums.
- 1:19:47SPEAKER_01: Sucked into the social chat rooms.
- 1:19:49SPEAKER_01: Discuss and discuss but ain't taking no action.
- 1:19:51SPEAKER_01: Thinking that you know but it's only a fraction.
- 1:19:53SPEAKER_01: Now you get the answers without asking.
- 1:19:56SPEAKER_01: The math ain't math.
- 1:19:57SPEAKER_01: Break down my walls, but I won't rise again.
- 1:20:00SPEAKER_01: Cause I stand tall in my environment.
- 1:20:04SPEAKER_01: How could I ever close my eyes as they silence sins?
- 1:20:07SPEAKER_01: They try to take me down with their violence.
- 1:20:11SPEAKER_01: So many persons hurting, but they still put the work in.
- 1:20:14And you can't try and chase things that are more uncertain than
- 1:20:17they've ever been.
- 1:20:18SPEAKER_01: Submersion to open seas.
- 1:20:19SPEAKER_01: Look at all these vets with PTSD.
- 1:20:21SPEAKER_01: Zero discernment.
- 1:20:22SPEAKER_01: They decipher the codes thinking you know.
- 1:20:24SPEAKER_01: Easy to eat the apple from the serpent.
- 1:20:26SPEAKER_01: Media servant.
- 1:20:27SPEAKER_01: We're going to take these words for what purpose?
- 1:20:30SPEAKER_01: Are you adding more fuel to the flames?
- 1:20:33SPEAKER_01: Will this bring change?
- 1:20:34SPEAKER_01: Will this sustain?
- 1:20:35SPEAKER_01: Or will this be another stain that adds to the pain?
- 1:20:49Break down my walls but I won't rise again Cause I stand tall
- 1:20:54in my environment How
- 1:20:56could I ever close my eyes as they silence sins They try to
- 1:21:00take me down with their
- 1:21:02SPEAKER_01: violence
- 1:21:18SPEAKER_01: But I will rise Again