National Flag
of Ghana.
ROOTS IN AFRICA
My ancestors were brought to America as slaves from
Africa. They arrived in Virginia in 1735 from GHANA on the
west coast of Africa. Read about Ghana's history and Ghana
today.
HOME OF MY ANCESTORS
I have done alot of research into the times,
customs and history of Virginia in the 18th and 19th
centuries. I had to understand the geography of Virginia so
I could know which county records to search. My American
ancestors were born in Brunswick County. Named for the
duchy of Brunswick-Lineburg, one of the German possessions
of King George I. It was formed in 1720 from Prince George
but, because of the sparse population, county government
was not organized until 1732. In the latter year Brunswick
was enlarged by the addition of parts of Surry and Isle of
Wight. Its area is 579 square miles, and the county seat
is Lawrenceville.
SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA
VIRGINIA RECOGNIZES SLAVERY
The transformation from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) to racial slavery didn't happen overnight. There are no laws regarding slavery early in Virginia's history. By 1640, the Virginia courts had sentenced at least one black servant to slavery . . .
Three servants working for a farmer named Hugh Gwyn ran away to Maryland. Two were white; one was black. They were captured in Maryland and returned to Jamestown, where the court sentenced all three to thirty lashes -- a severe punishment even by the standards of 17th-century Virginia. The two white men were sentenced toan additional four years of servitude -- one more year for Gwyn followed by three more for the colony. But, in addition to the whipping, the black man, a man named John Punch, was ordered to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere." John Punch no longer had hope for freedom.
It wasn't until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law was directed at white servants -- at those who ran away with a black servant. The following year, the colony went one step further by stating that children born would be bonded or free according to the status of the mother.
The transformation had begun, but it wouldn't be until the Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of African Americans would be sealed.
"A slave is a person perverted into a thing," wrote
Coleridge as the movement to stop the African slave trade
was gaining momentum early in the nineteenth century.
"Slavery, therefore, is not so properly a deviation from
justice as an absolute subversion of all
morality."
SLAVE LAWS
One of the best resources for searching information about
slave laws is
BLACK FACTS ONLINE
COLONIES GIVE STATUTORY RECOGNITION
 December 1,
1641
Massachusetts became the first colony to
give statutory recognition to slavery. Other colonies
followed: Connecticut 1650; Virginia, 1661; Maryland, 1663;
New York and New Jersey, 1664; South Carolina, 1682; Rhode
Island and Pennsylvania, 1700; North Carolina. 1715;
Georgia, 1750.
1661
Following the dwindling supply of indentured servants, the
Virginia legislature legally recognizes the institution of
slavery in order to maintain needed labor on tobacco
plantations.
July 2, 1777
Vermont became the first American colony to abolish
slavery. By 1783 slavery was prohibited in Massachusetts
and New Hampshire. Pennsylvania passed a gradual
emancipation law in 1780. Connecticut and Rhode Island
barred slavery in 1784 and were followed by New York
(gradual emancipation) and New Jersey in 1799 and 1804,
respectively. Slavery died in the North as a direct result
of forces set in motion by the Rights of Man movement.
July 13, 1787
Continental Congress excluded slavery from Northwest
Territory.
August 19,
1791
Benjamin Banneker writes letter to then secretary of state
Thomas Jefferson. The letter showed the hypocrisy of
slavery. Banneker challenged the idea of freedom for whites
as the ascribed it to be the same freedom that should be
granted to Africans.
HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
In order to understand how one race of people could enslave another with such cruelty one should read some of the Historical Documents of the time. I found the documents below to be quite revealing.
 DISEASES AND PECULIARITIES OF THE NEGRO RACE Southern journals of the antebellum era were full of advice for slaveholders. De Bow's Review, for example, offered numerous articles detailing methods for dealing with slave discipline, nutrition, work strategies, and other topics. In this article, "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a highly respected and widely published doctor from the University of Louisiana, discusses two diseases which he claims are unique to African Americans. One is his newly-discovered "Drapetomania," a disease which causes slaves to run away; the other, "Dysaethesia Aethiopica," a disease causing "rascality" in black people free and enslaved.
- E.S. ABDY DESCRIPTION OF A WASHINGTON, D.C., SLAVE PEN
- THE CASE OF MRS. MARGARET DOUGLAS 1853In mid-century, at the same time that religious instruction was waning as the primary goal of education -- at least among reformers -- religious instruction of free and enslaved blacks in the South appeared to take on a renewed urgency. A number of slave rebellions, including one led by Nat Turner in 1831, which involved several free and literate blacks and which he claimed was divinely inspired, had underscored for whites the need to maintain tight control over the literacy of blacks and the tenor of their religious beliefs. Although every southern state had outlawed the teaching of reading and writing to enslaved blacks (and in some cases, free blacks as well), there is considerable evidence that some whites defied the law.
- THE WEEPING TIMEIn March of 1857, the largest sale of human beings in the history in the United States took place at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia. During the two days of the sale, raindrops fell unceasingly on the racetrack. It was almost as though the heavens were crying. So, too, fell teardrops from many of the 436 men, women, and children who were auctioned off during the two days. The sale would thereafter be known as "the weeping time."
- JAMES HENRY HAMMOND ADVOCATES SLAVERY 1858James Henry Hammond was a senator and wealthy plantation owner from South Carolina. This excerpt is from a speech he made to the Senate on March 4, 1858, in which he lays out his famous "mudsill theory" and states, "In all societies that must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life." This class, says Hammond, makes it possible for the higher class to move civilization forward.
- WHAT BECAME OF THE SLAVES ON A GEORGIA PLANTATIONShortly after the sale of 429 slaves in Savannah, Georgia -- an event known as "The Weeping Time" -- the first installment of Mortimer Thomson's "expose" was published by the New York Tribune and carried by other papers. Thomson, also known as "Doesticks" by his many fans, had travelled to Savannah and posed as one of the many buyers who had flocked to participate in the auction -- buyers he described as being "a rough breed, slangy, profane and bearish."
VIRGINIA LINKS
READ MORE....
- THE TRANSITION FROM THE SLAVE TRADE TO "LEGITIMATE
COMMERCEROBIN LAW- UNIVERSITY OF SCOTLAND
- BIBLIOGRAPHY: SLAVERY AND THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN
HISTORY
- STATUTES OF THE UNITED STATES CONCERNING SLAVERY:
CHRONOLOGICALThe Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
Statutes of the United States Concerning Slavery :
Chronological Avalon Home Major Collections pre 18 th
Century 18 th Century 19 th Century 20 th Century Statutes
of the United States Page 1794 -
- REMEMBERING
SLAVERY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE
- AMERICAN
HERITAGE GALLERIES-BLACK AMERICANA This site has:
savery prints/documents, relics, photos,autographs and be
sure to see the rare Female Anti-Slavery Coin- minted
c.1838
- PLANET PAPERSESSAYS ON SLAVERY
- FROM REVOLUTION
TO RECONSTRUCTIONThe main body of this hypertext comes
from a number of USIA-publications An Outline of American
History, An Outline of the American Economy, An Outline of
American Government, and An Outline of American Literature.
- SLAVERY~~UNITED STATES~~CONTROVERSIAL
LITERATURE~1850
- MAPSH
OW FREE AND SLAVE STATES BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
- LINCOLN ON
SLAVERY
- CONF
LICT OF ABOLITION AND SLAVERY
- SLAVERY:
LEGACYThe official record from Hansard of the debate
initiated by Lord Gifford QC in the House of Lords of the
British Parliament on 14th March 1996 concerning the
African reparations.
- AF
RICAN SLAVERY IN AMERICAThough Paine was not the first,
as some have said, to advocate the aboliton of slavery in
Amerca, he was certainly one of the earliest and most
influential. The essay was written in 1774 and publishes
March 8, 1775 when it appeared in the Pennsylvania Journal
and the Weekly Advertiser. Just a few weeks later on april
14, 1775 the first anti-slavery society in America was
formed in Philadelphia. Paine was a member).
- JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMANHis "Journal,"
published posthumously in 1774, sufficiently describes his
way of life and the spirit in which he did his work; but
his extreme humility prevents him from making clear the
importance of the part he played in the movement against
slaveholding among the Quakers.
- VIRGINIA STATUES ON SLAVES AND
SERVANTSWilliam Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large;
Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, from the
First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619, (New
York: R & W & G. Bartow, 1823). VOLUME I.
- AF
RICANS IN AMERICA RESOURCE BANK
- DRED
SCOTT v. SANFORD
- DR
ED SCOTT CASE (1857)From the Furman: Secession Era
Editorials Project A collection of 14 contemporary
newspaper editorials
-
USA SLAVERY (1840-1960)
- SEARCH
ACADEMIC INFO
- DOCUMENTING THE AMERICAN SOUTHLibrary of Southern
Literature
- DOCUMENTING
THE AMERICAN SOUTHINDEX
- THE FREEDOM TRAIN HISTORY WEBElementary &
Middle School students learn about the Underground Railroad
- "ON AN
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD"Lyrics by Kinny Landrum
- VIRGINIA'S RACIAL INTEGRITY LAW OF 1924
-
SLAVE SHIPS
- PLANTATION SYSTEM
- COTTON
INDUSTRY
- TOBACCO PLANTATIONS
- SLAVE MARKETS
- SLAVE BREEDING
-
USA SLAVERY
- JAMESTOWN VIRGINIA
- ACADEMIC
INFO U.S. HISTORY: EARLY AMERICA
- BLACK PIONEERS OF NOVA SCOTIA
- GVA-BLACK HISTORY-VIRGINIA PROFILES
- LAWS
DESIGNED TO DISARM SLAVES, FREEDMEN, AND AFRICAN
AMERCANS
- Slavery and
Religion in America::A Time Line 1440-1866
- INTERNET RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS OF AFRO-AMERICAN
HISTORYRUTGERS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
- DISEASES OF THE PAST
- CHILD NAMING
- GEOGRAPHY OF
VIRGINIA'S SLAVE MARKET
- VIRGINIA'S STATUES ON SLAVES & SERVANTS
- VIRTUAL VIRGINIA'S SLAVE LAWS
- INTRODUCTION TO VIRGINIA LAND HISTORY
- THE LIFE OF A SLAVE
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