Slavery and Racism

I. Slavery and Racism


A. The Market in Labor--the demand for labor was so great in the Americas that a variety of ways were attempted to fill it.


1. Slavery



2. Indentured servitude



3. Waged labor--the smallest portion of the labor force in the Americas. Workers at this time--even the portion who were not slaves or indentured servants--were not often paid weekly wages; the barter system, payments in kind were the usual form of payment. Cash money was often in short supply.



B. The Invention of Race


1. Indentured servants and slaves--the distinction without difference, because plantation owners made no distinctions in their treatment of the two kinds of workers.


a) Intermarriage--between slaves and indentured servants was not an unheard of phenomenon (as well as those familial relationships not sanctified by church or state)


2. Racial distinctions--Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonists tended to be largely male, and often took slave women and native women to cohabitate with; offspring from these relationships made up the largest portion of the “creole” population of the Americas. These “new Americans” were themselves often slave owners, or at least free members of society, inhabiting a place in the social hierarchy just below the Europeans.




a) Mestizo (Metis,in French)--of European and native descent.

b) Mulatto--of European and African descent.

c) Other racial distinctions were also made by ancestry (or “blood”).


3. Indentured servant/slave uprisings


a) Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)--although led by the cousin of the colonial governor, Nathaniel Bacon, most of the participants were indentured servants, slaves, and former members of both groups who had received their freedom and were now small property owners--all of whom now wanted access to the land held be the remaining native peoples in Virginia, which the colonial government had promised the natives they would be able to keep.


4. Aftermath


a) Distinctions began to be made in the treatment of servants and slaves--and the employment of indentured servants became less favored where slavery played on important role in the economy.


(1) Prohibition against any “negro or other slave” to resist any white person; i.e., to not follow their direction or to engage in any kind of physical confrontation, including self-defense (1680).

(2) In 1696 it was made lawful to kill “such negroes, mulattoes, and other slaves” who unlawfully absented themselves from the service of their master/mistress (runaways).

(3) This same law made it illegal for blacks, mulattoes, Indians, and whites to marry--a law that remained on the books in Virginia until 1967, when the US Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loving v. Virginia.



C. Justifications for racism--all of these justifications were meant to make Africans (and, by extension, people of African descent) somehow inferior, and therefore it their condition of perpetual servitude a result of this inferiority.




1. Sons of Ham--Ham was allegedly a son of Noah who observed his father in an indelicate position while Noah was sleeping off a drunk, and for this Ham and his descendents had their skin blackened and were forever fated to be servants.

2. “Scientific” justifications--in the Age of Enlightenment, scientific methods were used to “prove” the racial inferiority of Africans; eventually, slavery would “improve” the Africans merely by exposure to European culture.




a) Native Americans by contrast were the “noble savages” because they were allegedly resistant to being enslaved (their mortality rate and diminishing numbers made them less attractive as slaves as the number of imports from Africa increased).

b) Because Africans were readily replenished by slave traders, and the role of the slave was subservient to the slave master, it became easy to believe that there was a link to this subservient role because of some “racial” difference.


II. Capitalism and the Enlightenment


A. Market relations--were a reflection that society was undergoing change. Market relations promoted new ideas about society--that in the marketplace, money was the only distinction that mattered, and the distinctions based on the old ideas of dominance and deference had less meaning.

B. Whither deference?--not really, because members of the “better sort” in society were also able to command more wealth, so their status really was not undermined so much as the status of the nouveau riche (the new rich) was legitimized


III. Free Labor v. Unfree Labor


A. Creating the “Wealth of Nations”


1. Wealth in land--the long-held traditional view of the font of wealth

2. Mercantilism--the accumulation of gold and silver, either through direct acquisition (mining) or by trading for it.

3. Capitalism and the Labor Theory of Value


a) Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations--Smith wrote that “The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with the necessities and conveniences of life. Labor is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.” Smith argued that labor could be used in two ways: Productively, and unproductively.


(1) Productive labor--that labor used to make commodities to be consumed those engaged in other labor or as “capital” to be used in producing more goods. Labor’s output helps to produce more output.

(2) Unproductive labor--labor that was immediately consumed without helping to create a new commodity; among the unproductive labor is the labor of servants, as well as what Smith termed the “frivolous” professions--churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of letters (like Smith?) players, buffoons, musicians, and gentlemen. As well as those who made a living collecting rent on land without making any improvements.

(3) “Just” wages--if workers’ labor created most of the wealth, why didn’t workers receive most of the wealth they created?