Impact Of Native American Slave Trade

Long before the African slave trade that spanned the Atlantic was established in North America, there had been a slave trade among the Indians had been occurring since long before the arrival of the Europeans (The Untold History of Native American Slavery). The Native Americans who participated in the slave trade used it as a tactic for survival. The Indian slave trade aided the substantial decrease in the Native American populations following the arrival of the Europeans along with devastating epidemics (The Untold History of Native American Slavery). This endured much into the eighteenth century and then was replaced with African slavery. The Native American slave trade’s legacy still resonates for the Indian populations residing in the east.
This change occurred almost instantaneously as the Native Americans found that Europeans, in the southern colonies specifically, purchased Indians to force into labor to cultivate rice and other crops such as tobacco and indigo. As a result, Native Americans began to sell or trade their war captives to the Europeans rather than adopt them into their own societies. As the demand for slaves increased, tribal relations among the Native Americans were transformed and devastated the population of the southeastern Indians. The defeated and captured Indians were traded for valuable items such as metal knives, axes, firearms and ammunition. Native Americans were highly encouraged to engage in wars in order to acquire new slaves to sell or trade (Seybert 1). “It is not known how many Indians were enslaved by the Europeans, but they certainly numbered in the tens of thousands. It is estimated that Carolina merchants operating out of Charles Town shipped an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Indian captives between 1670 and 1715 in a profitable slave trade with the Caribbean, Spanish Hispaniola, and northern colonies.” (Seybert
The customs they acquired included: ownership of private land, owning family farms, and even using slaves for labor. These Native Americans were considered by the whites to be “Civilized Tribes”. This process of absorbstion began as early as the 1600s. For example, missionaries attempted to convert the Indians to Christianity. Their efforts were largely in vain. Also, in the 1790s, the United States government, as part of its Indian policy, decided to establish programs to aid the tribes of the Southeast in transitioning to agriculture and a way of life more in tune with the white view of civilization (Seybert 3).
“Only a minority of southeastern Indians, however, embraced fully the material aspects of the Anglo-American definition of civilization. The majority of full-blood Indians, even those who took to farming and commerce, struggled valiantly to retain the beliefs and ways of life identified with their traditional, Indian view of civilization. This cultural struggle reflected not only Native American aversion to the materialism and market-oriented character of the emerging commercial capitalism of the white society; it also reflected the antagonism of whites towards all Indians.” (Seybert