This year is the four hundredth anniversary of the first Africans arriving in the British settlement of Jamestown. In 1619, it was not in any way clear that African slavery would be the future of any of the English colonies in America, and English settlers tried a variety of forms of labor. These Africans did not arrive as enslaved people, as we understand the term to mean today. While they were not there by choice, and had been trafficked, no one claimed ownership over them for life, and their children were not born into the same state of servitude. Many of these people eventually became free, and some even owned land. By the end of the seventeenth century, this would all change. Slavery was firmly established in not just Virginia, but throughout the English colonies in America, and while Native Americans were also forced to labor and kept in a state of slavery at different times, the system we recognize as American slavery perpetual, hereditary, and race-based was reserved exclusively for Africans and their descendants.
Your task is to explain why this came to be. In other words, why did the English colonists choose to create, maintain, and grow the system of enslaving Africans and their children, particularly in the southern colonies in the century or so after 1619?
If you feel stuck, consider this hypothetically, they could have enslaved anyone fellow Englishmen; captured enemies, such as the Spanish; the Irish, whom they had been trying to conquer for centuries but they did not. They also could have increased their investment in indentured servitude, or even paid workers. They did none of these things, though, and developed and pursued this particular form of slavery.
You should plan to write a cohesive, formal essay, 1300 to 1600 words (this is about four to five pages), in which you develop an argument and advance it through making points and using evidence to back them up.
The formatting is the usual double-spaced, standard margins, normal sized font (11 or 12 point, depending on which you choose) and so on.
Do not use or consult outside sources for this assignment. You should only be referencing class materials the textbook, the Early labor set of documents on Canvas, and whatever we may cover in class. You do not need to use all the documents, but you should use some of them, along with the textbook. The best papers tend to blend together a variety of different types of sources, making for a stronger case. You will have all the information you need to write an outstanding essay.
