History of Slavery

At least in some portions of Africa there was no racial basis of slavery. The Egyptians enslaved whatever peoples they captured. At times they were Semitic, at times Mediterranean, and at other times blacks from Nubia.

Historians have offered differing perspectives on the reason why slavery developed in the Americas and what differences may be found between slavery in Africa and slavery in America.

In the American context, most slavery did have a racial component though one that developed over time. Basil Davidson traces the development of attitudes on the part of European settlers not only toward black slaves but toward the Indians encountered on the frontier. The slave trade developed at the same time as Europe began exploring new realms and encountering new peoples, and it was necessary for the white European to develop some philosophical attitude which placed himself and the "noble savage" he encountered in the wild on some sort of scale. The idea of the noble savage would give way to the view that the savage was simply inferior, but in

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sted in the exploitation of the natural resources of the New World, and to this end cheap labor was needed. As noted, Indians were used first because they were available, but the Indians were also susceptible to diseases brought by Europeans and were also not ready for the kind of work required under the plantation economy: Nowhere was Indian slavery profitable. Even if it had been, it would have been insufficient for the robust agricultural life that the Europeans colonies were fostering in the seventeenth century. Other sources of labor supply would have to be tapped if agricultural development in the New World wa snot to be retarded by an insufficiency of workers. Africans were employed at that time, but the colonists did not yet see them as a solution to the problem, and instead resorted to poor whites from Europe, often indentured servants who signed over their lives for a period of time. However, Franklin and Moss note that England came to see that white servants were unsatisfactory and might become more interested in industry than agriculture. The supply was also insufficient in any case. Many white servants ran away. African servants were easier to control and could be caught because they were of a different co
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Approximate Word count = 1857
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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