U.S. Labor & Work.Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy

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U.S Labor and Work
For over a long time, historians have presented many arguments relating to the issue of racial slavery in the United States of America. They differ on whether this racial slavery began in the year 1619 or it was a product of colonization with no prior design. The historian Horn, agrees with the former argument, which has been used for a long time and is even included in the American history curriculum and taught to children. However, there are a number of incidences and evidences in history that indicate that this racial slavery did not begin in 1619 but that it happened and developed in a gradual manner. Taylor and Bailyn agree with this second argument. The 1619 arrival of Africans in Virginia was not a predetermined incident but rather the African slaves found themselves in Virginia after being sold to the governor while headed to Mexico. The continued competition for resources amongst the European powers led to the events that contributed to the racial slave. Based on this, the present paper agrees with Taylor and Bailyn on the fact that racial slavery was a product of colonization with no prior design and that it did not begin in 1619 but instead it developed gradually into slavery in America. Therefore, the assumption that racial slavery began in 1619 is actually misplaced and quite misguiding as far as understanding and retelling the true history of slavery is concerned.
There is no doubt that 1619 was the year in which the landing of Africans from Angola in particular, was documented officially for the first time. While this has led some people to assume that racial slavery began in this particular year, the real situation is very different. Documenting the arrival of the slaves in 1619 does not imply that other slaves did not arrive earlier before then. According to Isenberg (21), people of African descent and Indian descent were found in America long before 1619 and most of them were brought in to work as slaves. For instance, the author points out that in the year 1616, there were black people already providing their knowledge, expertise and labor in the cultivation of tobacco in Bermuda (Isenberg, 25). The author further notes that these slaves were sold to the highest bidder. The article also supports this argument for the presence of racial slaves in Jamestown before 1619 through pointing out that there were indentured servants in America at the time in 1616. These servants included black people, indentured white servants and black Indians that were mainly poor and were held captive until they were able to pay the debts owed to their owners. Bailyn (174) also acknowledges that “Negars, negors, and Africans otherwise identified by color had begun appearing in very small numbers well before 1619.” These black people were used as laborers to work on the American wasteland. This is also an affirmation that racial slavery began long before 1619 and developed gradually as other black people were brought in America randomly. From the mentioned cases, there is no doubt that racial slavery was in existence in America even before 1619. The fact that the accounts of these slaves were not documented explains why some historians still argue against the presence of the slaves before 1619.
English settlers took indigenous people as slaves before 1619 thereby confirming that racial slavery began before the stated year. Notably, Powhatan was the leader of the communities of the indigenous people in Chesapeake and they were the original occupants of Virginia long years before the arrival of the Europeans. The arrival of the English settlers in the now Virginia marked the beginning of slavery for the native people. The intermarriage between Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas and the English John Rolfe led to the equal treatment of the indigenous people and the English colonizers (Waxman, np). However, after the death of Pocahontas, the situation changed for them and they began to be treated as slaves. The settlers saw them as a source of cheap and available labor that was required to attend to the wasteland. The indigenous people were therefore required to work under inhumane conditions including being exposed to crude punishments and they worked mostly without any form of payment. They were labeled as being lazy and idle and therefore best suited to be exploited for the good of the land in terms of providing labor. These people were used to work on the tobacco plants that their colonizers owned and they were also expected to take part in the search for gold. The gold was at Chesapeake and demanded many laborers who could “work under harsh conditions,” (Taylor, 142). Unfortunately, most of them died in the early 1520’s due to these harsh conditions at Chesapeake. The events took place in the early years of the 16th century thereby indicating that racial slavery began a long time ago.
Following the death of the indigenous people in great numbers, slaves, and majorly of African descent, were brought in to take the part of the former group in searching for gold. Ideally, African slaves were viewed as precious commodity in Hispaniola, which was a Spanish colony because that is where they were needed in large numbers to provide labor (Horn, 107). The land was believed to be full of gold and the slaves were tasked with the responsibility of finding this gold even though it was a backbreaking task. In his work, Horn argues that racial slavery began in 1619 yet he mentions that in the early years African slaves were referred to as Negros or Negar. Compared to other slaves, the African ones were not called using their names but by these two Spanish terms. By pointing out th...