Slavery

Betty Wood’s The Origins of American Slavery begins by discussing the concepts of bondage in 16th and 17th centuries and the process (and cultural associations) attached to the practice of indentured servants. She points out that while There had been a small but (fairly) steady flow of indentured servants willing to come to the Americas, there were still too few people to work the plantations being started. Tobacco, cotton, and especially sugar cane take larger amounts of manpower to grow, harvest, and process these raw goods. The economic need was great, but there was also another factor: the ideology of the English that the Native Americans and other such groups (thought to be ‘uncivilized’) were thought of as ‘the others’, outsiders from English society. These outsiders did not have rights in the English system, and as such could be owned by others. It was a combination of these two factors, states Wood, that created slavery as we know it.