David Brion Davis - Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World

INHUMAN
BONDAGE

Also by David Brion Davis

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The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 17701823

The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style

The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture

Homicide in American Fiction, 17891859:
A Study in Social Values

The RISE and FALL of SLAVERY
in the NEW WORLD

DAVID BRION DAVIS

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Copyright 2006 by David Brion Davis

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, David Brion.
Inhuman bondage: the rise and fall of slavery in the New World /
by David Brion Davis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514073-6
ISBN-10: 0-19-514073-7
1. SlaveryUnited StatesHistory.
2. SlaveryAmericaHistory.
3. Antislavery movementsUnited StatesHistory.
4. Antislavery movementsAmericaHistory.
I. Title.
E441.D2495 2006 306.362097dc22 2005031850

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

TO STEVEN MINTZ,
Co-author, fellow teacher,
the best friend one could ever have

10 Slavery in the Nineteenth-Century South, II:
From Slaveholder Treatment and the Nature of Labor to
Slave Culture, Sex and Religion, and Free Blacks

7173 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era): Tens of thousands of Roman slaves revolt, led by Thracian gladiator Spartacus. Thousands then crucified along Appian Way.

869883 C.E.: Massive revolt of Zanj, black African slaves, in Basra region of present-day Iraq.

1444: Gomes Eannes de Zurara observes sale of 235 captured Africans, some of them black, near Lagos in southern Portugal; during following decades, Portugal continues to import black slaves.

1495: Columbus transports some five hundred enslaved Native Americans eastward across the Atlantic to Seville.

1501: Enslaved black Africans brought to New World; some perhaps even earlier.

1518: Bartolom de Las Casas, an ardent defender of Indian rights, calls for large importations of African slaves in order to help save Native Americans.

1542: Spain outlaws enslavement of Native Americans.

1619: Twenty blacks brought by Dutch ship to Virginia; some blacks had arrived even earlier.

1627: British begin settling Barbados; by 1643 producing sugar.

1630: Dutch seize Salvador as part of conquest of Portuguese Brazil; expelled in 1654 by Portuguese; Dutch influential in extending sugar cultivation to the Caribbean.

1688: Four Quakers sign antislavery petition in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

1712: Slave uprising in New York City.

1739: Stono Rebellion of slaves in South Carolina.

1741: Slave conspiracy uncovered in New York City. Many hanged and burned at the stake.

1750: British government sanctions slavery in Georgia (prohibited in 1735).

1772: The Somerset decision is popularly interpreted as outlawing slavery in England.

177379: New England slaves petition legislatures for freedom. Increasing numbers of antislavery tracts are published in America.

1775: Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, promises freedom to any slaves who desert rebellious masters and serve in the kings forces, an offer taken up by some eight hundred blacks.

1777: Vermonts constitution outlaws slavery.

1779: As the War of Independence shifts to the Deep South, John Laurens of South Carolina proposes arming three thousand slaves with promise of freedom. The Continental Congress approves, but the South Carolina legislature rejects the proposal.

1780: Pennsylvania adopts a gradual emancipation law.

1783: In Massachusetts, the case of Commonwealth v. Jennison is interpreted as removing any judicial sanctions for slavery.

1784: Connecticut and Rhode Island enact gradual emancipation laws. Congress narrowly rejects Jeffersons proposal to exclude slavery from all Western territories after the year 1800. The New York Manumission Society is organized.

1784: The Pennsylvania Abolition Society is formed.

1787: In Britain, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade is formed; Thomas Clarkson travels to collect evidence for the society.
In the United States, the Constitutional Convention agrees to count three-fifths of a states slave population in apportioning representation; to forbid Congress from ending the slave trade until 1808; and to require that fugitive slaves who cross state lines be surrendered to their owners. The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, prohibiting slavery in the territories north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi rivers.

1788: In France, the Socit des Amis des Noirs is formed and enters into correspondence with London, Philadelphia, and New York abolition societies.
In Britain, abolitionists organize a large national petition campaign against the slave trade.

1789: With the onset of the French Revolution, the Amis des Noirs agitate for ending the slave trade and urge the Estates General to follow the example of some Northern American states and free slaves in the colonies. But representatives of white colonists and merchants prevent debate on the slave trade.

1790: Vincent Og leads a mulatto uprising in Saint-Domingue, but it is crushed and he is executed.
The French Constituent Assembly agrees not to interfere with the slave trade and promises not to interfere with the status of persons in the colonies.
In the United States, both Quakers and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society petition Congress to use its fullest constitutional powers to discourage slavery and slave trade; the petitions evoke angry debate and attacks on petitioners by congressmen from the Deep South.