Slavery In The American Colonies

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since 1618. Tobacco was a profitable crop, but its profits did not come close to those of the sugarcane. Tobacco, like sugar required a large amount of labour. As a result, ample numbers of immigrants traveled to the Chesapeake eager to work. Plunging tobacco market from the mid-1680s to 1715 forced farmers to diversify their crops, shifting to grain, hemp and flax and raising greater numbers of domestic animals. Virginia, for example, experienced a drastic growth in slave population as enslaved Africans replaced indentured servants.

Whipping, branding and other inhumane treatment was not uncommon. One Virginian slave, named Emanuel, was convicted of trying to escape in July, 1640, and was condemned to thirty stripes, with the letter "R" for "runaway" branded on his cheek and "work in a shackle one year or more as his master shall see cause." This was an abject slave, subject to the court's definition of him as merchantable and movable property, and to his master's virtual whim. Indeed, the general assembly of Virginia in 1662 pa...