The source also shows how open the slave trade is during its use with it commonly being shown in newspapers with ‘Negroes’ treated in the same place as property, the use of a “Remarkable and healthy” is as already mentioned more likely to be used for an material item you can buy more than a human. Therefore, this source can be claimed in the short amount of data it has to show racial superiority in comparing ‘negroes’ to objects.
This is also a very valuable source due to it coming in the last few years in which slavery was legal in America with the law changing in 1808.
For further information, go to https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-transatlantic-slave-trade/sources/324.
Understanding view of the Indigenous Americans. Franklin, in this pamphlet, demonstrates a view that could be considered revolutionary for the seventeenth century in that he accepts the differences of the Indigenous Americans’ lifestyle to that of the settlers, removing the source of any feeling of white superiority; his emphasis on the colossal differences between the lifestyles of the settlers and the natives.
This source perfectly proves that both, what settlers feared and looked down upon and what the Indigenous Americans themselves sought to protect, was the Indigenous Americans’ way of life. The basic and wild way of life for these people is clearly what has motivated a lot of the fear and rumours of and about them. The quote below is key to showing the differences in ways of life between the settlers and Indigenous Americans.
Indigenous Relations c. 1600-1800
Initially, relations between Indigenous Americans and settlers were stable with a trade relationship between the Virginia colony and the Powhatan (Father of Pocahontas)
Confederacy of furs, food and other essentials for their surplus of utensils, better metals and even guns. A notable example of the early hospitality of the Natives was the Plymouth colony being saved from inevitable extinction by a provision of food and teaching of how to cultivate the land through their first winter of 1620, eventually to have the first Thanksgiving 3 years later in 1623.
As time progressed however, relations soured between the Virginia Colony and the Powhatans due to numerous raids ordered by the governor John Smith and the souring came to head with the Indian Massacre of 1622, where Chief Opechancanough led the Powhatan Confederacy in the killing of 347 English settlers, caring not if they were men, women or children, which at the time was a quarter of the settlements population. Though the Natives stuck hard, they still were unsuccessful in driving out the English and in 1644 in defeat of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War the Natives were forced to sign a treaty which consigned them to reservations west of Virginia, away from the settlements, at that time.
These hostilities continued throughout the 17th century and in 1675 King Phillip’s War broke out, which was one of the bloodiest wars in the colonisation of North America with losses on both sides amounting to around 4,000, 1,000 of which being colonists and 3,000 being Indians, but the damages to the colonists were very significant as 12 of the 90 towns (13.3%) in the Plymouth Settlement were destroyed by the Native Americans. These sorts of wars continued on for decades into the 18th century (King William’s War, French and Indian Wars, Father Rale’s War, Father Le Loutre’s War etc.)
Over the course of the 1700’s colonists expanded west at a fast pace, with the Five Nations (later the Six Nations) known as the Iroquois Confederacy being unable in reality to oppose such expansion they often sued for peace and by the end of the 18th century almost all of the land once owned by the Six Nations had been ceded to the then United States of America, either through gifts of land as the Iroquois did with their lands North and West of the Ohio River in 1701 under the Nanfan Treaty, or through purchases, or even through right of conquest as happened following the Beaver Wars of the late 17th century. As a result of the cessions, Native Indian populations either migrated elsewhere or were placed on reservations, with many of the Iroquoian migrating to Wisconsin, Ontario or Oklahoma whilst there are still active reservations today, for example reservations in King William County, Virginia are still inhabited by both the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes that were established in the 17th century.
For more information visit: http://find.galegroup.com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/mome/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T001&prodId=MOME&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R2&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28KE%2CNone%2C8%29Powhatan%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28MB%2CNone%2C20%29%22MOME-1%22+OR+%22MOME-2%22%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=livuni&inPS=true&contentSet=MOMEArticles&&docId=U3609109298&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=U3609109298&relevancePageBatch=U109109296&showLOI=Yes&contentSet=&callistoContentSet=ECLL&docPage=article&hilite=y
Or for further reading look into: ‘The Indian Massacre of 1622: Some correspondence Of the Reverend Joseph Mead’, pp. 408-410, (Virginia, Virginia Historical Society, 1963)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4246970.pdf
Franklin’s Treatise
As well as African slaves it is also the case indigenous Americans increasingly stood and suffered on the periphery of the European Atlantic world. Understanding view of the Indigenous Americans. Benjamin Franklin, in this pamphlet, demonstrates a view that could be considered revolutionary for the seventeenth century in that he accepts the differences of the Indigenous Americans’ lifestyle to that of the settlers, removing the source of any feeling of white superiority; his emphasis on the colossal differences between the lifestyles of the settlers and the natives.
The second tract of the pamphlet demonstrates acknowledgement of a difference being no reason to prejudge: ‘Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility’. Franklin’s tone here appears mocking— ‘we think’ evokes the revolutionary view stated above, that no way of life is inferior to another because the European way is not the superior way. With this idea being common in the seventeen hundreds, particularly amongst the Christian missionaries that went over to the Americas in order to civilise the Indigenous Americans through conversion to Christianity.
This source perfectly proves that both, what settlers feared and looked down upon and what the Indigenous Americans themselves sought to protect, was the Indigenous Americans’ way of life. The basic and wild way of life for these people is clearly what has motivated a lot of the fear and rumours of and about them. The quote below is key to showing the differences in ways of life between the settlers and Indigenous Americans. Franklin was also, clearly, being pragmatic. In the first half of the treatise he was attempting to woo over skilled European labour and did not want them to be put off via horror stories concerning the exploits of the indigenous people. Second, a potential war with these people was the last thing a new cash-strapped country needed. Hence, he was trying to reassure his fellow Americans that the indigenous people were a noble race and needed to be respected.
For further information, visit http://www.wampumchronicles.com/benfranklin.html.
Earlier, British America had been a key destination for many of Britain’s unwanted. Maintaining order Protection of life, liberty and increasingly protecting property from criminal vactivitiesiolence was essential to social authority in eighteenth century Britain. Fin Western culture, therefore for many years, death, torture and other types of visibly violent punishmentharsh vengeance were popular solutions. However, in the eighteenth-century Britain sought to remove their criminals’ altogether, banishing them first to America and, later, Australia - to distant continents with the overriding purpose being neither rehabilitation nor deterrence. Rather, simply removing a diseased part of the country and moving it elsewhere.
Beginning as early as 1597 and, legally, incorporated in the criminal system in 1718 through the Transportation Act (see below). Subsequently, hundreds of felons were annually shipped to various North American colonies and sold as servants. Transportation has never gained as much attention as it should expected from scholars and, when it has, the focus has tended to be has tended to be Australiabeen more widely analysed in Australia rather than America. This is surprising as next to African slaves, those transported to America from Britain, constituted the largest body of immigrants ever compelled to go to America. As such they constitute yet another set of people on the Atlantic periphery that need a history.
The living conditions and status of convicts as servants were no different than slaves, and opportunities for achieving a settled social life were arguably worse. Fighting and heavy drinking became common antidotes to the drudgery of existence. Typical convicts were young, male and minimally skilled who inevitably fell victim to hard times. These persons owned few material goods and family ties were critical. As a result, such men were reluctant to leave Britain due to social bonds but were compelled to due to the criminal codesimultaneously Britain wanted them to leave.
For further information go to http://www.earlyamericancrime.com/convict-transportation/convict-voyages/prison-to-convict-ship. For secondary reading see, for example, Roger Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775 (Oxford: C, clarendon, 1990) and Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton, Banishment in the Early Atlantic World: Convicts, Rebels and Slaves (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
(Transportation Act 1718 which would allow convicts to be sentenced to 7 years of labour through transportation to foreign lands)
The terms of an indenture contract from 1766 between servant Patrick Larkin and master Thomas Blood, from the University of Texas website.
Unlike slaves who were stripped of all belongings when boarding the ship, European migrants could pack mementos. However, many would be unable to cover the expenses of their transportation by just selling their possessions. Consequently, the travellers and their children would sign contracts like these to compensate the shipping company, in this example Patrick Larkin sold his labour to Thomas Blood in return for food, clothes and accommodation.
The information in this contract is strikingly general which makes historians believe the master would maximise his profit by requiring too much work in return for too few resources. Indentured servants were given this name because of the style at the top of the paperwork used for legal and handling purposes.
http://www.utdallas.edu/~kdh140430/laborvoicesactivity_print.html
Peculiar Institution
When examining slavery in 1800s America, it is important to examine the opinions of the U.S. population towards its "peculiar institution". Written in 1852, the source is a pamphlet from the American and Foreign Anti-slavery society, led by Christian abolitionist Arthur Tappan.
The pamphlet states: "Christian morals have been deeply wounded by the various models adopted by politicians and divines to consolidate the slaveholding interest." The group claims the Bible was corrupted to justify slavery, even though this directly goes against the ‘love thy neighbour’ rhetoric of the New Testament solely focusing on the white European. For example, sympathy towards escaped slaves was deemed a “prejudice to be conquered”, and catching slaves seen as a "duty" which has the potential of making them seen 'Sub-human'. This was also entrenched in the U.S. judicial system, stating there is an "arbitrary requirement of every citizen to assist in a slave-hunt", and refusal in doing so was met with convictions such as treason, which could warrant the penalty of deportation. This demand was regarded as a "test of Christian obedience", even though in reality this went against Christian principles in how we see them today.
The source highlights the divisions in American society only nine years previous to the U.S. civil war and the emancipation proclamation. It cites the Mexican-American war as a "war waged for the acquisition of slave territory", despite this, after protests from 14 Northern states, the territory was "secured to freedom", with a compromise that New Mexico and Utah, (South West), would be given to slaveholders. The pamphlet declares there is a "mighty conspiracy" to quash the abolitionist argument, while the society describes its aim as to "rescue the federal government from the unholy and unconstitutional alliance with slavery". If nothing else, the source shows divisions along the line of the question of slavery caused in the U.S., and gives us a sense of Verstehen into why the 'Barbarism' of slavery was allowed to continue for a longer period than in nations such as Great Britain. This is through religious and judicial corruption stemming from the slaveholders wanting profit.
For further information, go to:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/60221951?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=native&searchText=american&searchText=slavery&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fed%3D1950%26amp%3Bsd%3D1700%26amp%3BQuery%3Dnative%2Bamerican%2Bslavery%26amp%3BsearchType%3DfacetSearch&ab_segments=0%2Fl2b-basic-1%2Frelevance_config_with_tbsub&seq=18#metadata_info_tab_contents.
‘An Essay Concerning Slavery, and the Danger Jamaica is expos'd to from the Too great Number of Slaves, and the Too little Care that is taken to manage Them. And a Proposal to prevent the further Importation of Negroes into that Island.’
Written in 1746 by Edward Trelawney, this source expresses anti-slavery sentiments, however they stem from a different thought, Trelawney claims the number of slaves outnumbered owners 10:1 with too little care being taken regarding control, therefore the white slave-owners were in danger. Trelawney wrote: 'I cou’d wish with all my Heart, that Slavery was abolished completely'; however it must be acknowledged that this desire was a selfish one, focussing more on the wellbeing of the slave-owners as opposed to that of the slaves themselves. In continuing the theme of examining unconventional views in history, it is important to acknowledge that those who fought against slavery often did so with ulterior motives.
http://find.galegroup.com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/mome/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=MOME&userGroupName=livuni&tabID=T001&docId=U100856247&type=multipage&contentSet=MOMEArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE
Trelawny, Edward. An Essay concerning slavery, and the danger Jamaica is expos'd to from the too great number of slaves ... and a proposal to prevent the further importation of negroes into that island. London, [1746]. The Making Of The Modern World.
Thoughts On Emigration
Written in 1792 by Harry Toulmin, idealistic views of America are provided; Toulmin writes of how the 'land is more plentiful, more fertile and cheaper in America', and one can assume that these views were shared by a vast number of people. However, Toulmin appears to have a clouded vision of America, he claims 'in America you are at liberty to maintain any religion; as God and your confidence dictate' and whilst this may have been true for those coming from Europe, thousands of Native Americans were forced to convert from their own spiritual beliefs to Christianity, contradicting Toulmin’s claims. Here the reader is shown the divide in the treatment of the Europeans and the Native Americans. This piece demonstrates the difference between the American ideal and the American reality and show the reader how historical sources such as these are often inaccurate or affected by the views of the writer.
http://find.galegroup.com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/mome/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=MOME&userGroupName=livuni&tabID=T001&docId=U104893666&type=multipage&contentSet=MOMEArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE
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Toulmin, Harry. Thoughts on emigration. [[s.l.]]], 1792. The Making Of The Modern World
