Slavery
Slavery developed into a full scale human trade machine from its inception in 1619 until the Civil War ended. It started as indentured servitude and slowly become slavery. A majority of Africans who were brought to America would never see freedom again. They were treated as second class citizens and were denied all basic human rights. In the early colonial days, Africans were not seen as lesser human beings. They were considered equals if they were Christians. They may have been indentured servants, working to pay a specific debt for their travel to the new colony. These indentured servants were never enslaved for their whole lives. The African indentured servants worked alongside the European indentured servants and were treated as human beings and not as animals or, even worse, machines. Things slowly began to change. In 1619, a Dutch ship stole Africans off of a Spanish vessel. The Africans were traded for food and this was the beginning of the slave trade as America would soon know it. It still took quite a while for a change in beliefs to take place. It was still the idea that the color of your skin had nothing to do with your servitude sentence. Servants were still paying back the debts that they owed and nothing more.
The onset of the Civil War and the creation of the Emancipation Proclamation also aided in the demise of the slavery institution. These major steps at obtaining freedom were only the beginning of a long journey of freedom. For six years beginning in 1680, the Royal African Company had transported 5,000 slaves. Blacks and whites were not seen as unequal at this time. Anthony was lucky enough to live in the colonies before laws on slavery were enacted. They owned two hundred and fifty acres of land by 1650. The mass demand of slave labor increased the amount of slaves being taken from their homeland to benefit the wealth of someone else. "In 1793, at least three slaves set fire to Albany, New York. In 1663, Virginia established a law which said that if an African slave had a child, the child would then also become a slave. The Virginia Company was only looking for a profit and they soon realized that their investment might be completely lost they became desperate. Rebellions occurred throughout the country. Even though slaves did not come on that first voyage sent by the Virginia Company, they would be destined to lose their freedoms. Slavery began and ended with a fight.
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