How Did True Slavery Exist In The 18th Century

In the middle of the 20th century, a new generation of historians began to take another look at the beginnings of the American experience. They spent decades exploring all of the original documents relating to the establishment of colonies in America. Their research revealed that our 19th and 20th century ideas and beliefs about races did not in fact exist in the 17th century. Race originated as a folk idea and ideology about human differences; it was a social invention, not a product of science.
It is widely and popularly believed that the colonists brought Africans to the New World as slaves from the beginning and that Europeans were "naturally" prejudiced toward Africans because of their physical characteristics, specifically dark skin. Historians now hold that true slavery did not exist in the early decades of American colonies. Englishmen were unfamiliar with the institution. Consequently, the first Africans who arrived in Jamestown were not initially or uniformly perceived as slaves. They exercised the same rights as propertied Europeans. They participated in the assembly, the governing body of the colony, voted, served
They began to pass a series of laws separating out Africans and their descendants, restricting their rights and mobility, and imposing a condition of permanent slavery on them. Africans were now being brought directly from Africa. They were different from earlier Africans in that they were heathens, that is, not Christians, and were unfamiliar with European languages, customs, and traditions. Some colony leaders began to argue that Africans had no rights under British laws and therefore could be subject to forced labor with impunity. After 1672, British ships entered the slave trade and the numbers of people shipped directly across the Atlantic greatly