Forms Of Slavery In America

Our country has a rich history. This history includes many wonderful things but also some terrible things. Slavery was one of these horrible things that stains our country’s past. Slavery emerged the main form of labor and when conditions surrounding the slaves changed, the groups of people who were slaves changed as there was still a demand for labor. Throughout our history, we have had many forms of slavery: Native American slavery, indentured servants, and African slavery.
In America, Native Americans (a.k.a Indians) were the first slaves. When English immigrants came to America, the Native Americans were already here. The Native Americans were friendly with the immigrants and even taught them farming techniques and how to build canoes.The English benefited greatly from the Indians’ help; however, there was still tension between the two groups as the English were hostile to the natives as they thought they were superior to those “savages.” Consequently, the English took the Indian’s as their slaves; however, many of the natives died as they weren’t immune to European diseases.
After most of the Native American population died, the English searched for new laborers. These new laborers were indentured servants. Indentured servants, in my opinion, were the next slaves because even though they were released after a period of years, they were still “owned” by their masters and didn’t have as many rights as other English colonists. When the Headrights system began, it gave fifty acres of land to settlers for every person coming to America. This was an incentive to colonial settlers to bring more people over. For those who couldn’t afford passage to America, wealthy settlers paid their way in exchange for them working for them for a certain period of time (usually seven years). These poor immigrants who had their passage to America paid for them became known as indentured servants. Over time, these indentured servants expected more. The indentured servants desired their own land when they were released from servitude; they coveted more rights. When the indentured servants became unruly, colonial settlers that had “owned” indentured servants started to look for new laborers, African slaves. African slavery arose as the next form of slavery in America. The colonial settlers in need of new laborers didn’t have to look to hard to find them. The transatlantic trade was already happening and one of the “commodities” available were African slaves. The English colonies bought their slaves indirectly from the Caribbeans but when a direct route of slave trade formed, the amount of African slaves in the colonies grew exponentially. Many English settlers preferred African slaves over indentured servants and Native American slaves as the African slaves and their offspring could be kept indefinitely and weren’t expected to have any rights, unlike the indentured servants who were released after a specified time and were still given rights but not as many as other colonists; the African slaves were “better” than the Native American slaves as they were immune to local colonial disease and could endure the work conditions the best. For over a third of our nation's life, slavery was legal. Luckily, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment ensured the abolishment of slavery. Throughout our country's history, we have had many forms of slavery: Native American slavery, indentured servitude, and African slavery; these different forms happened as a result of many different events.
The “need” for slaves grew as the labor needed to make a profit grew. Native Americans materialized as the first ones to fill this “need.” This role shifted to indentured servants when the Native American population greatly decreased as they weren’t immune to the diseases the English brought with them. The role then shifted to African slaves as indentured servants had become unruly and desired their own land and more rights. While in the end we abolished slavery, we still enslaved people and took away their rights. We did many horrible things to slaves and hopefully we can learn from our country’s mistakes and ensure that slavery or other things similar to it doesn’t happen
again.