- 13 minutes ago
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00:07They came from different lands, all facing an uncertain future.
00:00:12English and Ashanti, Mendi and Portuguese, German and Igbo, Fanti and Spaniard, French and Angolan.
00:00:24Some seeking adventure or riches or religious freedom.
00:00:29Others were captives, bartered and sold like cattle.
00:00:34Together they would build a nation and struggle over the very meaning of freedom
00:00:40and create the America we have inherited today.
00:00:45I don't think you can understand race relations today without understanding slavery.
00:00:51Even though people will say, I didn't do it, my father didn't do it,
00:00:56even my grandparents, they didn't do it.
00:00:59One of the things that's essential is to know that slavery is not just a southern institution,
00:01:05it's an American institution.
00:01:13What evolves in North America is a belief system where to be black meant to be a slave,
00:01:20and to be a slave meant to be black.
00:01:28We hold these truths to be self-evident.
00:01:30Why is it self-evident?
00:01:32It came from God.
00:01:34They're inalienable.
00:01:36Government secures them.
00:01:38Remarkable document.
00:01:39It didn't apply to black folks.
00:01:41And the man who wrote those words, Thomas Jefferson, kept slaves.
00:01:46He also wrote sometime later to a friend,
00:01:50if there is a just God, we're going to pay for this.
00:01:57Slavery and freedom existed side by side in this country.
00:02:01I think the issue is, did it always have to be that way?
00:02:06And the early history of America indicates that it probably did not.
00:02:21You're a country, how came it yours?
00:02:28Before the pilgrims landed, we were here.
00:02:57In the year 1645, in the colony that was called Virginia, in the county of Northampton,
00:03:03after a season of disputes, a white man and a black man went into the field,
00:03:09and there divided their crop and their land.
00:03:14According to the testimony given in court, the man named Anthony the Negro said,
00:03:19Mr. Taylor and I have divided our corn, and I am very glad of it,
00:03:24for now I know mine own ground.
00:03:33In America, it seemed, all men would be equal.
00:03:38All men would be free.
00:04:04All men would be free.
00:04:06In April 1607, three vessels carrying 105 colonists landed at a place they named Jamestown,
00:04:15at the edge of the Virginia wilderness.
00:04:19They hoped to establish the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
00:04:25There, Englishmen would build a new promised land.
00:04:30The brave new world that their poet Shakespeare dreamed.
00:04:34A free land, built by free men.
00:04:42The dreams were utopian initially, colonies without coercion, without oppression,
00:04:51where each man would be regarded as free and equal.
00:04:56There was a lot of idealism, I think, in the early settlements in the New World.
00:05:02A lot of idealism, which I think didn't stand much to the test of experience.
00:05:15Englishmen believed that their god had ordained them to spread his word,
00:05:19and that they had the god-given right to drive out all unwilling to live according to English law.
00:05:29But in the first two years, the colonists learned that they were unprepared for life in the American wilderness.
00:05:41The fourth day of September died Thomas Jacob Sargent.
00:05:46The fifth day, there died Benjamin Beast.
00:05:50Our men were destroyed with cruel diseases,
00:05:54of swellings, flixes, burning fevers, and by wars.
00:05:59And some departed suddenly.
00:06:02But for the most part, they died of mere famine.
00:06:07There were never Englishmen left in a foreign country in such misery,
00:06:12as we were in this new discovered Virginia.
00:06:16George Percy.
00:06:24In 1609, 500 settlers lived in the Jamestown colony.
00:06:31By the spring of 1610, only 60 were left alive.
00:06:56About the latter end of August, a Dutch man-of-war arrived at Point Comfort.
00:07:02The commander's name, Captain Jope.
00:07:05He brought not anything but twenty and odd Negroes,
00:07:10which the governor bought in exchange for food.
00:07:14John Rolfe, Virginia colonist.
00:07:24In 1619, a year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock,
00:07:29a mystery ship appeared out of a violent storm off the Virginia coast.
00:07:34No one recorded the ship's name, but somewhere on the high seas,
00:07:38she had robbed a Spanish vessel of a cargo of Africans.
00:07:47In search of supplies, she traded the Africans for food.
00:07:53They had been baptized and given Christian names.
00:07:57As Christians, they could not be enslaved for life under English law.
00:08:02Like most Europeans in the colony,
00:08:04they were purchased to work as servants for a limited number of years.
00:08:17The new arrival supplied much-needed labor for the tobacco crop that was making men rich.
00:08:24Settlers were planting tobacco in the streets of Jamestown,
00:08:28carving plantations out of the surrounding wilderness,
00:08:31and shipping some 60,000 pounds a year back to England.
00:08:38Once tobacco is established as a viable commodity,
00:08:43then the more land you control, the bigger profits you can make.
00:08:47And in order to make those profits, you need more labor,
00:08:50and you look for that labor wherever you can find it.
00:08:53Well, the colony builders initially intended to rely almost exclusively
00:08:58on white indentured servants as a labor force to cultivate the crops
00:09:03that were being grown in Virginia, principally tobacco.
00:09:06And in order to create these raw materials of goods, you often needed labor.
00:09:21The world the Africans entered was controlled by wealthy Englishmen
00:09:25and populated by the English poor, most under the age of 25.
00:09:32In return for passage to Virginia, they had traded four to seven years of their labor.
00:09:41They were bound to a master by an indenture form, a contract that defined length of service
00:09:48and the conditions of servitude.
00:09:55Most were promised freedom dues after their service,
00:09:58a bushel of corn, a new suit of clothes, and 100 acres of land.
00:10:03Under Virginia's head rights system, a planter was entitled to 50 acres of land
00:10:09for each servant brought into the colony.
00:10:13The issue always was how long that indenture would be
00:10:17and under what conditions you would be forced to work.
00:10:21At its best, it was a short, friendly apprenticeship.
00:10:25At its worst, it was a long and exploitative situation
00:10:30in which you might die before you ever obtained your freedom.
00:10:35By 1622, 3,000 new settlers drawn by the opportunities of the tobacco boom
00:10:42had arrived in Virginia.
00:10:44Two years later, the first Negro child was born in the colony.
00:10:49He was named William Tucker, after a Virginia planter.
00:11:10The prosperity that began in 1619 and the dream of a new Eden,
00:11:15of people peacefully coexisting under English law,
00:11:20was seriously frightened in March 1622.
00:11:25On Good Friday, some 30 nations of the Powhatan Confederacy,
00:11:30angered by English violation of land treaties,
00:11:33attacked without warning and attempted to drive the English back into the sea.
00:11:40Along the James River, the Indians killed 350 colonists.
00:11:46On the Bennett Plantation alone, 52 people died.
00:11:51Among the 12 who survived was a man named Antonio.
00:11:57Here's an individual that arrives as one of the first African Americans
00:12:02in the history of what became the United States.
00:12:04He does what almost no one in early Virginia managed to do,
00:12:08and that is live.
00:12:10Everyone that's dying of disease, of violence,
00:12:14and since he's lucky.
00:12:19He had been brought to the colony the year before
00:12:22to work tobacco along the James River.
00:12:25His name appeared in the 1625 Virginia census as Antonio, a Negro.
00:12:30He was listed as a servant.
00:12:34He comes to Virginia, finds a society that is just developing.
00:12:40He's getting in on the ground floor, as it were.
00:12:44I don't know if he was able to immediately envision
00:12:48that there would be opportunities for him here
00:12:50that weren't available elsewhere.
00:12:53I don't know that anyone could have foretold that.
00:12:59When Antonio arrived, the laws of Virginia did not as yet define racial slavery.
00:13:05They governed only the status of servants.
00:13:09At some point, Antonio changed his name to Anthony Johnson
00:13:13and married a Negro servant named Mary from a neighboring plantation.
00:13:18She bore him four children.
00:13:21By 1640, it is clear Anthony and Mary were no longer servants.
00:13:27They had acquired their own modest estate on Virginia's eastern shore.
00:13:33As Johnson prospered, as he obtained land and cattle,
00:13:36he also acquired dependent laborers.
00:13:39What made all of this society go was property.
00:13:44Your identity in this society was determined rather obviously
00:13:49by the amount of land, the amount of labor that you owned.
00:13:54Anthony Johnson was enjoying privileges belonging to a free Englishman.
00:13:59He claimed five workers as head rights
00:14:02and expanded his property to 250 acres along the Pongateague Creek.
00:14:07At least some of his workers were white.
00:14:11By 1650, Anthony was one of 400 black people in Virginia
00:14:16out of a population of almost 19,000 settlers.
00:14:19In Northampton County where Johnson lived,
00:14:23nearly 20 African men and women were free
00:14:26and 13 owned their own homes.
00:14:30As Anthony Johnson is accumulating property,
00:14:33it seems as though his situation is secure.
00:14:37You get a sense of this individual, this black man,
00:14:41being treated like any white planter
00:14:43and his wife and daughters being treated like the wife of a planter.
00:14:49At an early moment when men and women were sorting themselves out,
00:14:52when the rules, the etiquette of race, labor were not so clear.
00:14:59At this moment in one county in Virginia,
00:15:04it was not foreordained that race relations
00:15:07would become what they did become.
00:15:28In 1640, the year Anthony Johnson purchased his first piece of land,
00:15:33three servants had run away from a Virginia plantation
00:15:37and headed for Maryland, captured and returned to their owner.
00:15:42They were tried for breaking their contract.
00:15:46The said three servants shall receive the punishment of whipping
00:15:50and to have 30 stripes apiece.
00:15:52One called Victor, a Dutchman,
00:15:54the other a Scotchman, called James Gregory,
00:15:57shall first serve out their times according to their indentures
00:16:00and one whole year apiece after,
00:16:03and after that to serve the colony for three whole years apiece.
00:16:08The third being a Negro named John Punch,
00:16:11shall serve his said master or his assigns
00:16:14for the time of his natural life.
00:16:16Jamestown court recorder.
00:16:21The time of his natural life.
00:16:24According to all the legal records that survive,
00:16:27no white servant in America ever receives such a sentence.
00:16:32So what begins to happen in the 1640s
00:16:35is that those who are controlling the Virginia colony
00:16:39say to themselves,
00:16:40the fluidity that we've seen in the past,
00:16:43the fluidity that has allowed an Anthony Johnson
00:16:46to serve less than a life term,
00:16:49to acquire his own piece of ground,
00:16:52to develop a free status,
00:16:57is not something that we want to project as going further in the future.
00:17:01We want to close down that opportunity.
00:17:04We want to begin to show some distinctions.
00:17:08The English definition of who could be enslaved
00:17:12began to shift from non-Christian to non-white.
00:17:16For Anthony and other Africans in America,
00:17:19the idea of an equal chance in the colonies was now under attack.
00:17:25In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony on the British American mainland
00:17:31to recognize slavery as a legal institution.
00:17:35Connecticut followed in 1650.
00:17:37Maryland in 1663.
00:17:41New York and New Jersey in 1664.
00:17:46Virginia legally recognized slavery in 1661.
00:17:51And a year later, a Virginia court decided
00:17:54that all children born in the colony would be free or slave
00:17:58according to the condition of the mother.
00:18:02In Virginia, slavery would be defined by race
00:18:06and perpetuated through heredity.
00:18:12Perhaps in the middle of the 17th century,
00:18:15if you were one of several thousand Africans living in Virginia,
00:18:19you certainly knew that your children would be free.
00:18:24You might have that expectation.
00:18:26And to suddenly find themselves involved in lifelong servitude
00:18:31and then to realize that in fact their children
00:18:35might inherit the same status,
00:18:38that was a terrible blow.
00:18:40That was a terrible transformation.
00:18:55For the first 50 years of the colony,
00:18:57most of the unfree labor force had been European,
00:19:01but that was about to change.
00:19:05Word of the heart life in Virginia had gotten back to England,
00:19:09and the colonial government faced a growing shortage
00:19:12of servant labor.
00:19:15Also troubling the colony were the thousands of free men,
00:19:19most former indentured servants,
00:19:22who were unemployed and roaming the countryside.
00:19:31The problem they face is not only a decreasing supply
00:19:34of indentured servants,
00:19:36but they face this increasing problem
00:19:38of what to do with all these indentured servants
00:19:40once they live out their term,
00:19:41and a lot of them were surviving.
00:19:43They had to be given land,
00:19:44they had to be given their freedom dues,
00:19:46and one of those dues included even guns,
00:19:48and there was a lot of unrest in Virginia.
00:19:56In 1661, servants rebelled in York County.
00:20:01Two years later, Gloucester County authorities
00:20:04foiled a plot by nine servants to steal arms and ammunition
00:20:08and march on the seat of colonial government.
00:20:10In 1676, the unrest in Virginia exploded into civil war.
00:20:18An army of 500 free men, servants, and slaves
00:20:23rebelled against the colonial establishment's restriction
00:20:26on available lands.
00:20:28They attacked peaceful Indians, ransacked property,
00:20:32and burned Jamestown, sending the governor into hiding.
00:20:39This disorder that the indentured servant system had created
00:20:43made racial slavery to southern slaveholders
00:20:46much more attractive,
00:20:47because what were black slaves now?
00:20:49Well, they were a permanent, dependent labor force
00:20:54who could be defined as a people set apart.
00:20:58They were racially set apart.
00:21:00They were outsiders.
00:21:01They were strangers.
00:21:02And in many ways throughout the world
00:21:05they had to deal with a couple possible exceptions.
00:21:07Slavery has taken root especially well
00:21:11when the people who are enslaved
00:21:13are defined as strangers, as outsiders,
00:21:16and can therefore be put into an inheritable,
00:21:20permanent status of slavery.
00:21:27I understand there are some slave ships expected
00:21:29into York River now every day.
00:21:32I desire you to buy me five or six slaves,
00:21:37whereof three or four to be boys, a man, and a woman.
00:21:42The boys from eight to seventeen or eighteen,
00:21:45the rest as young as you can procure them.
00:21:49William Fitzhugh, Virginia Planter, 1681.
00:21:54Few ships coming from Africa made the voyage beyond the Caribbean
00:21:58to sell their cargoes on the mainland of British America.
00:22:03In 1672, the King of England chartered the Royal African Company,
00:22:08encouraging it to expand the British slave trade.
00:22:12Shareholders included fifteen English lords and twenty-five sheriffs,
00:22:16the governor of Virginia, and John Locke, the philosopher of liberty.
00:22:22In its first sixteen years, the company transported nearly 90,000 Africans to the Americas.
00:22:30In the last decade of the seventeenth century,
00:22:33it was possible to imagine that in a single year,
00:22:37the number of new Africans arriving would equal the total black population in the colony,
00:22:44or close to it.
00:22:46These were men and women that had no sense of the world they were getting into,
00:22:50and they seemed to whites as very alien, foreign, unknowable.
00:23:02The Europeans look upon these people, and they project an image on them.
00:23:07They project an identity, and that identity is African.
00:23:12What that means is non-American.
00:23:15What that means is non-European.
00:23:17What that means is separation.
00:23:24All servants imported and brought into this country
00:23:27who were not Christian in their native land
00:23:29shall be counted and be slaves.
00:23:33If any slave resists his master correcting such slave,
00:23:37and shall happen to be killed in such,
00:23:40it shall not be accounted felony.
00:23:45If any Negro shall absent himself from his master's service,
00:23:49and lie hid and lurking,
00:23:51and if he shall resist any person employed to apprehend the said Negro,
00:23:55then it shall be lawful for such person to kill the said Negro.
00:24:00Virginia General Assembly, June 1680.
00:24:09We think about slavery as this complete package that just came to evil landowners,
00:24:17and it didn't happen that way.
00:24:19It happened one law at a time, one person at a time.
00:24:24And as landowners felt the need to control a different behavior,
00:24:32year after year, they added more laws.
00:24:35Until finally, 1691, they passed the law that made it illegal to free a black slave,
00:24:44unless they were leaving the colony.
00:24:47So by then, it was pretty much set that this was going to be a slave society.
00:24:55To move from indentured servitude to racial slavery means that they're setting their own history
00:25:00on a course where freedom is going to depend on slavery,
00:25:05where the political economy of a major portion of these colonies is going to depend on slavery,
00:25:12where the freedom of some is going to depend on the bondage of others.
00:25:17It means that the American colonies, this jewel of the British Empire,
00:25:22is living this contradictory history now of a society that is increasingly rooted in a labor system
00:25:28that's human bondage, that's racial slavery.
00:25:51Anthony Johnson moved his family out of Virginia and north to Maryland.
00:25:56There he leased 300 acres he called Tony's Vineyard.
00:26:01On that farm, Anthony Johnson died.
00:26:06Back in Virginia, a jury decided that the land Anthony had left behind
00:26:11could be seized by the state because he was a Negro, and by consequence, an alien.
00:26:20One wonders how Johnson would have viewed this changing world of Virginia.
00:26:24He lived a very long time. He survived and did quite well.
00:26:29By the standards of the day, building up properties, hundreds, hundreds of acres, and cattle.
00:26:37By the standards of the time, anyone would say he did quite well.
00:26:40There's no reason to believe, as of, say, the 1670s, that the Johnson family is going to be squeezed out.
00:26:53Within a few years, Anthony's grandson, John, purchased another 44 acres,
00:26:58and in memory of his grandfather's homeland, called the farm, Angola.
00:27:08By the time the end of the century came, Anthony Johnson's children and grandchildren may well have been fighting to
00:27:18stay free.
00:27:19Many free people were sold into slavery.
00:27:22No, they couldn't prove that they were free.
00:27:25They had no way of letting anybody know that they were free.
00:27:29So if a plantation owner came by and said,
00:27:32this is my slave and I want to sell him, you were sold.
00:27:44By the end of the century, nearly 58,000 people lived in the colony.
00:27:4916,000 were listed as Negroes.
00:27:53In 1705, the Virginia Assembly passed laws clearly defining the distinction between a slave and a servant,
00:28:02relegating all slaves to the status of real estate.
00:28:08The next year, John, the third generation of Johnsons in America, died without an heir.
00:28:15That would be the last dimension of the plantation named for Anthony's birthplace.
00:28:21Angola plantation, like the Johnsons themselves, disappeared from the record books of colonial America.
00:28:45The African trade is a trade of the most advantage to this kingdom of any we derive.
00:28:51And as it will all profit, it is indeed the best traffic the kingdom hath,
00:28:56as it doth occasionally give so vast an employment to our people both by sea and land.
00:29:03John Kerry, Bristol, England.
00:29:07In 1698, the English Parliament ended the monopoly of the Royal African Company on the African slave trade.
00:29:14It became the right of every freeborn British subject to trade in slaves.
00:29:22Over the next half century, the number of Africans transported to the British colonies in British ships increased from 5
00:29:30,000 to 45,000 a year.
00:29:34England became the largest trafficker in slaves in the Western world.
00:29:39It is the first principle and foundation of all the rest, said one British writer.
00:29:44The main spring of the machine, which sets every wheel in motion.
00:29:54He was born Igbo, the son of a tribal elder, the favorite of his mother.
00:30:01He died an Englishman, the father of two daughters, and the husband of an English woman.
00:30:07At the age of 11, Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped by Africans and sold to Europeans.
00:30:16.
00:30:16.
00:30:46When the grown people
00:30:47were gone far in the fields
00:30:49to labor, the children
00:30:51generally assembled together to play.
00:30:56And some of us
00:30:58often used to get up into a tree
00:30:59to look out for any assailant
00:31:02or kidnapper that might come
00:31:03upon us.
00:31:11One day,
00:31:13when only I and my sister were left
00:31:15to mine the house,
00:31:16two men and a woman
00:31:18got over our walls
00:31:20and in a moment seized us both
00:31:22without giving us time to cry out
00:31:24or to make any resistance.
00:31:26They stopped our mouths
00:31:27and ran off with us.
00:31:30O lauda equiano.
00:31:46O lauda equiano.
00:32:00Who are we looking for?
00:32:02Who are we looking for?
00:32:04It's equiano we are looking for.
00:32:06Nzumalizo.
00:32:07Has he gone to the stream?
00:32:10Let him come back.
00:32:11Has he gone to the market?
00:32:13Let him come back.
00:32:14Has he gone to the farm?
00:32:16Let him return.
00:32:17Let him return.
00:32:18It's equiano we are looking for.
00:32:20Nzumalizo.
00:32:35For more than four centuries,
00:32:37people disappeared from the savannas,
00:32:40the rainforests,
00:32:41and the villages of black Africa.
00:32:48Farmers and crafts people,
00:32:50commoners and African nobility.
00:32:53Most were strong young men
00:32:55age 15 to 25.
00:32:58But women and children
00:32:59were also taken and sold.
00:33:11To obtain slaves,
00:33:13Africans waged war,
00:33:15destroying communities,
00:33:17stealing people.
00:33:19To escape the spreading violence,
00:33:21many moved into the interior,
00:33:23abandoning family compounds,
00:33:25farms,
00:33:26entire villages.
00:33:38In West Africa,
00:33:40more than 20 million people
00:33:41were kidnapped into slavery.
00:33:43Only half would survive
00:33:45the journey to the coast.
00:33:48The boy Equiano
00:33:49was one of the survivors.
00:34:01At last,
00:34:02I came to the banks
00:34:04of a large river.
00:34:06I was beyond measure,
00:34:09surprised at this,
00:34:10as I had never before
00:34:11seen any water larger
00:34:13than a pond or river lit.
00:34:27And to my surprise
00:34:28was mingled with no small fear
00:34:30when I was put into
00:34:31one of these canoes
00:34:33and we began to paddle
00:34:35and move along the river.
00:34:39On the journey to the coast,
00:34:41Equiano passed
00:34:42from one African master
00:34:44to another.
00:34:46Once he was sold
00:34:47for 172 kauri shells.
00:34:51He learned
00:34:52three different languages,
00:34:53traveled some 800 miles,
00:34:55and encountered people
00:34:57and customs unfamiliar
00:34:58and frightening to him.
00:35:10After close to seven months
00:35:12of travel on foot
00:35:13and by boat,
00:35:14he reached the African coast.
00:35:21The first object
00:35:22that saluted my eyes
00:35:24when I arrived
00:35:25on the coast
00:35:26was the sea
00:35:26and a slave ship
00:35:28which was then
00:35:30riding at anchor
00:35:31and waiting for its cargo.
00:35:34These filled me
00:35:35with astonishment
00:35:36that was soon
00:35:38converted into terror.
00:35:41Un laud, Equiano.
00:35:44Un laud, Equiano.
00:36:06Fifty years before Columbus
00:36:07sailed to the New World,
00:36:09Portuguese explorers
00:36:11had sailed to West Africa.
00:36:13At first seeking gold,
00:36:15they built a fort in 1482
00:36:17and called it
00:36:18Elmina,
00:36:19the mine.
00:36:24The Portuguese pointed their guns
00:36:26toward the Atlantic
00:36:27to guard,
00:36:28not against Africans,
00:36:30but against European competitors.
00:36:33Over time,
00:36:34the castle changed hands
00:36:36from the Portuguese
00:36:37to the Dutch
00:36:38and finally the British.
00:36:41and the trade changed
00:36:42from gold
00:36:43to human beings.
00:36:52Concerning the trade
00:36:53on this coast,
00:36:55we notified
00:36:56your highness already
00:36:57that it has completely changed
00:36:59into a slave coast
00:37:00and that nowadays
00:37:02the natives
00:37:02no longer occupy themselves
00:37:04with the search for gold
00:37:05but rather make war
00:37:07on each other
00:37:08in order to furnish slaves.
00:37:10The Gold Coast
00:37:11has changed
00:37:12into a complete slave coast.
00:37:15Willem de la Palma,
00:37:16director,
00:37:17Dutch West India Company.
00:37:23Along the west coast
00:37:25of Africa,
00:37:26from Senegal in the north
00:37:27to the Cameroons
00:37:29in the south,
00:37:30the Europeans
00:37:31built some 60 forts
00:37:32and castles,
00:37:34warehouses
00:37:34for European merchandise
00:37:36and for African slaves.
00:37:40Called factories,
00:37:41they were commercial centers
00:37:43where agents
00:37:44or factors
00:37:44traded rum,
00:37:46cloth,
00:37:46and guns
00:37:47for human beings
00:37:49and gold.
00:37:55The most notable item
00:37:57is the slave house
00:37:58which lies below ground.
00:38:01It consists of vaulted cellars
00:38:04divided into several apartments
00:38:06which can easily hold
00:38:07a thousand slaves.
00:38:10Captain John Barbeau,
00:38:12French slave trader.
00:38:19In dungeons built deep
00:38:21into the ocean rock,
00:38:22people waited.
00:38:24Sometimes a day,
00:38:26sometimes a year.
00:38:29these chambers
00:38:30would be their last memory
00:38:32of Africa.
00:38:35When a slave ship arrived
00:38:37and anchored off the coast,
00:38:39they would be led out
00:38:40from the darkness
00:38:41to the beach.
00:38:50As the slaves
00:38:51come down to feed
00:38:52from the inland country,
00:38:53they are put into a booth
00:38:54or prison
00:38:55near the beach.
00:38:56When the Europeans
00:38:57are to receive them,
00:38:59they are brought out
00:39:00into a large plain
00:39:01where the surgeons
00:39:02examine every one of them,
00:39:04all stark naked.
00:39:07Each which have passed
00:39:09as good
00:39:09is marked on the breast
00:39:11with a red-hot iron
00:39:12imprinting the mark
00:39:13of the French,
00:39:14English,
00:39:14or Dutch companies.
00:39:16In this,
00:39:18particular care
00:39:19is taken
00:39:19that the women
00:39:20as tenderest
00:39:21be not burnt
00:39:22too hard.
00:39:24Captain John Barbeau,
00:39:26French slave trader.
00:39:30The white people
00:39:32did not need
00:39:32to be present
00:39:34in the interior
00:39:35of Africa.
00:39:36All they needed
00:39:37to do
00:39:37was to supply
00:39:38the weapons.
00:39:39The people
00:39:40they dealt
00:39:40with were
00:39:43those coastal peoples
00:39:45right on the coastline
00:39:47who controlled
00:39:49the territory
00:39:51down there.
00:39:52So Aquana
00:39:53would not have met,
00:39:55maybe not even heard,
00:39:56of white people.
00:40:01I have found
00:40:02no place
00:40:03where I can enlarge
00:40:03my fortune so soon
00:40:05as where I now live.
00:40:07in this manner
00:40:08we spend the prime
00:40:10of youth
00:40:11among Negroes
00:40:12scraping the world
00:40:13for money,
00:40:14the universal
00:40:15god of mankind
00:40:17until death
00:40:19overtakes us.
00:40:21Nicholas Owen,
00:40:22slave trader.
00:40:27Europeans died
00:40:28like flies
00:40:28in that climate.
00:40:30the average
00:40:31expectation
00:40:31was three
00:40:32or four years
00:40:33you know,
00:40:33really.
00:40:34And so
00:40:35they had to make
00:40:36money while they could
00:40:38because they knew
00:40:39they didn't have
00:40:39much time.
00:40:40So in that sense
00:40:41of course
00:40:42they were trapped.
00:40:45They were caught
00:40:47in the web
00:40:47of the system
00:40:48and held there
00:40:50and died there.
00:40:57the Europeans
00:40:58made more than
00:40:5954,000 voyages
00:41:01to trade
00:41:02in human beings.
00:41:04No one will ever know
00:41:05the exact number
00:41:06of people
00:41:06taken from the shores
00:41:07of West Africa
00:41:08but more than
00:41:1011 million
00:41:10have been counted
00:41:11in the records
00:41:12that remain.
00:41:13Most headed
00:41:14for South America
00:41:15and the Caribbean
00:41:16Islands
00:41:17some half a million
00:41:19to the mainland
00:41:19of North America.
00:41:40December 29th,
00:41:421724.
00:41:44No trade today
00:41:45though many traders
00:41:47came on board.
00:41:48They informed us
00:41:49that the people
00:41:50are gone to war
00:41:51within land
00:41:52and will bring
00:41:53prisoners enough
00:41:54in two or three days
00:41:55in hopes of which
00:41:57we stay.
00:42:04December 30th, 1724.
00:42:07No trade yet
00:42:09but our traders
00:42:10came on board today
00:42:11and informed us
00:42:12that people had burnt
00:42:13four towns
00:42:14of their enemies
00:42:15so that tomorrow
00:42:16we expect slaves
00:42:18we expect slaves
00:42:21Liverpool surgeon.
00:42:26Received in this cargo
00:42:2846 men
00:42:2934 women
00:42:3114 boys
00:42:336 girls
00:42:34and 147 chests
00:42:36of corn.
00:42:38The rest of the goods
00:42:39delivered onshore
00:42:40to Cape Coast
00:42:41to Cape Coast
00:42:41and Accra
00:42:42to Mr. Harbin
00:42:44William Dexter
00:42:45ship's captain.
00:42:48Ship captains
00:42:49were cautioned
00:42:50not to buy
00:42:50all their slaves
00:42:51from one place.
00:42:52Africans who knew
00:42:54each other
00:42:54who spoke
00:42:55the same language
00:42:56were more likely
00:42:57to conspire
00:42:58and rebel.
00:43:00There would be
00:43:01maybe 25
00:43:03seamen
00:43:04and the ship's officers.
00:43:06There might have been
00:43:06a crew
00:43:07of 30
00:43:09and these 30
00:43:10had to
00:43:13control
00:43:14maybe 300
00:43:16men
00:43:17black men
00:43:18and women
00:43:19who were aware
00:43:21of being abducted
00:43:21and who were
00:43:23desperate
00:43:23and who were
00:43:25dangerous
00:43:25because they were
00:43:26obviously
00:43:28waiting to seize
00:43:29any opportunity
00:43:30that was offered
00:43:31to rebel
00:43:32and to take over
00:43:33the ship
00:43:33and to kill
00:43:34the crew
00:43:35and that did happen.
00:43:37Fairly frequently.
00:43:39The only way
00:43:40that this could be
00:43:41contained
00:43:41was by a system
00:43:42of fear.
00:43:50I was now
00:43:50persuaded
00:43:51that I had
00:43:52got into
00:43:52a world of bad
00:43:53spirits
00:43:53and that they
00:43:54were going
00:43:55to kill me.
00:43:57Their complexions
00:43:58too differing
00:43:58so much
00:43:59from ours.
00:44:01Their long
00:44:02hair
00:44:03and the language
00:44:05they spoke
00:44:05which was
00:44:06very different
00:44:07from any
00:44:07I had ever
00:44:08heard
00:44:08united to
00:44:10confirm me
00:44:11in this belief.
00:44:12I no longer
00:44:13doubted my fate.
00:44:15I asked
00:44:16if we were
00:44:17going to be
00:44:18eaten by those
00:44:19white men
00:44:19with horrible
00:44:20looks,
00:44:21red faces
00:44:21and long hair.
00:44:30captains call
00:44:31the voyage
00:44:32from West
00:44:32Africa
00:44:33to the
00:44:33New World
00:44:34the Middle
00:44:35Passage,
00:44:36the middle
00:44:37leg of a
00:44:37triangular course
00:44:38that began
00:44:39and ended
00:44:39in Europe.
00:44:41from English
00:44:42ports
00:44:43ships sailed
00:44:44to Africa
00:44:45to trade
00:44:45goods
00:44:46for slaves
00:44:46then the
00:44:48human cargo
00:44:48was taken
00:44:49to the
00:44:49Americas
00:44:50and traded
00:44:50for raw
00:44:51materials
00:44:51which were
00:44:52then carried
00:44:53back to
00:44:53England
00:44:54and sold.
00:44:55The crossing
00:44:57from Africa
00:44:57to the Americas
00:44:58usually took
00:44:5960 to 90
00:45:00days
00:45:01but some
00:45:02voyages
00:45:03took as long
00:45:03as four
00:45:04or even
00:45:05six months.
00:45:07Bad weather
00:45:08and sickness
00:45:08could turn
00:45:09any trip
00:45:10into a nightmare.
00:45:14The cramped
00:45:15quarters
00:45:16of ships
00:45:17being packed
00:45:18in such a way
00:45:19that a slave
00:45:20will be between
00:45:21the legs
00:45:22of another slave
00:45:23and having to
00:45:24lie in the feces
00:45:26the lack of air
00:45:30the longer
00:45:32this trip takes
00:45:33the more suffocating.
00:45:45The surgeon
00:45:46upon going
00:45:47between decks
00:45:48in the morning
00:45:49to examine
00:45:49the situation
00:45:50of the slaves
00:45:51frequently finds
00:45:53several dead
00:45:55and sometimes
00:45:56a dead
00:45:57and living
00:45:58negro
00:45:58fastened
00:45:59by their
00:45:59irons together.
00:46:01When this is
00:46:02the case
00:46:03they are brought
00:46:03upon the deck
00:46:04the living
00:46:06negro is
00:46:06disengaged
00:46:07and the dead
00:46:08one thrown
00:46:08overboard.
00:46:10Alexander
00:46:11Fulcombridge
00:46:11ship's
00:46:12surgeon.
00:46:22There are no doubt
00:46:24people who went
00:46:24mad.
00:46:26Inability to
00:46:27communicate.
00:46:28Decisions
00:46:29having to be made
00:46:30and this person
00:46:31is suffering
00:46:32as yourself.
00:46:33Does one help?
00:46:34Does one simply
00:46:35try to make it
00:46:36the best
00:46:36that one can
00:46:37alone
00:46:38not knowing
00:46:40where am I
00:46:41being taken
00:46:41what is my fate
00:46:44for weeks
00:46:46months
00:46:46depending
00:46:47what the
00:46:48point of origin
00:46:49was.
00:46:50Or
00:47:00will
00:47:02the
00:47:03judge
00:47:09another
00:47:10Do you
00:47:15or do you
00:47:15or do you
00:47:17or do you
00:47:18or do you
00:47:19or do you
00:47:19or do you
00:47:19One day, two of my weary countrymen who were chained together somehow made it through the nettings and jumped into
00:47:26the sea.
00:47:28Immediately, another quite dejected fellow also followed their example,
00:47:33and I believe many more would have very soon done the same
00:47:36if they had not been prevented by the ship's crew, who were instantly alarmed.
00:47:43O lauda equiano.
00:47:45The idea, I think, was that the slave cannot be allowed to die by his own will and intention.
00:47:53He cannot be allowed to die voluntarily.
00:47:57If he's going to die, it must be at the hands of his captors,
00:48:01so that in that case he doesn't spread a dangerous example.
00:48:15Monday, 11th December, by the favour of divine providence,
00:48:20made a timely discovery today that the slaves were forming a plot for insurrection.
00:48:27Surprised two of them, attempting to get off their irons,
00:48:30and in their rooms found knives, stones, shot, etc., and a cold chisel.
00:48:36There appeared eight principally concerned in protecting the mischief,
00:48:40and four boys in supplying them with the above instruments.
00:48:45Put the boys in irons, and slightly in the thumbscrews to urge them to a full confession.
00:48:52Captain John Newton.
00:48:59We stood in arms, firing on the revolted slaves, of whom we killed some and wounded many.
00:49:06And many of the most mutinous leapt overboard and drowned themselves in the ocean with much resolution.
00:49:13James Barbeau, English sailor, 1701.
00:49:33Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the Deep much happier than myself.
00:49:39Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful,
00:49:43and heighten my apprehensions and my opinion of the cruelty of whites.
00:49:50O laudo equiano.
00:49:53The slavers, they knew at one level that these were human beings,
00:49:58because they were obviously clearly human beings.
00:50:01At the same time, they were objects of profit.
00:50:05And those two concepts couldn't obviously be really reconciled,
00:50:10and they never were reconciled.
00:50:11It was just, I think, that the humane, the sense of the humanity of these people,
00:50:17it was simply suppressed for the sake of gold.
00:50:20And the shocking thing is that human beings are able, indefinitely,
00:50:24to suppress the urgings of their common humanity,
00:50:28and to deny it for the sake of making profits.
00:50:34Is not the slave trade entirely a war with the heart of man?
00:50:39And surely, that which is begun by breaking down the barriers of virtue,
00:50:44involves in its continuance destruction to every principle,
00:50:49and buries all sentiment in ruin.
00:51:10The middle passage ended for equiano on the island of Barbados,
00:51:15one of the most profitable colonies in the British Empire.
00:51:20On Barbados, it was calculated that it was cheaper to work slaves to death
00:51:25and replace them with new slaves than to treat them humanely.
00:51:29Within three years of arrival, one out of three slaves would die.
00:51:36The boy equiano, judged too small to cut sugar cane,
00:51:41was shipped north to the mainland of British America.
00:51:45On the mainland, the plantation system of Barbados was admired and imitated,
00:51:51particularly on the Carolina coast.
00:51:56South Carolina started as the colony of a colony.
00:52:00Barbados had become overpopulated with the younger sons of English merchants
00:52:06and with their slaves.
00:52:07And in both cases, they began to look around, cast around for new places.
00:52:12And within the first decade after South Carolina's initial settlement,
00:52:16there were just loads of immigrants from Barbados who brought with them slaves from Barbados,
00:52:24but more important than just bringing slaves,
00:52:27unlike Virginia, they brought a fully conceived idea of slavery.
00:52:36On the shores of the Ashley River stands Middleton Place,
00:52:41home to one of Carolina's oldest families.
00:52:45Middleton family members were destined to become part of the Carolina elite.
00:52:51A governor, a congressman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
00:52:59The family had been among the first settlers arriving from Barbados in 1678
00:53:04with a land grant in Goose Creek, just 14 miles north of Charleston,
00:53:11Carolina's slave trading center.
00:53:14By 1706, a second generation of Middletons
00:53:18had almost tripled the size of the family's land holdings
00:53:22to 5,000 acres of Carolina wilderness.
00:53:25At age 25, young Arthur Middleton
00:53:29was master of the Oaks Plantation.
00:53:36Dear Sarah, Mr. Arthur Middleton is married to my sister and was a schoolfellow with me when I was at
00:53:42Carolina.
00:53:43He is a sensible man and one of the richest in the country,
00:53:46with upwards of 100 Negroes.
00:53:49Thomas Amory.
00:53:51Racial slavery turns out to be extraordinarily profitable for the people who have seized control.
00:53:58The planter can complain in his diary that it's been a bad year or the crop is weak
00:54:04or the rainy season lasted too long,
00:54:08but year in and year out, tremendous profits are being made.
00:54:16The immigrants from Barbados had searched for a cash crop that would make them rich.
00:54:22Families like the Middletons found it.
00:54:25It was rice.
00:54:27The most prized Africans in Carolina were from Angola, Senegambia, and the windward coast,
00:54:33people who brought the rice-growing skills the Europeans did not have.
00:54:42Rice is the most unhealthy work in which the slaves were employed,
00:54:46and they sank under it in great numbers.
00:54:50The causes of this dreadful mortality are the constant moisture and heat of the atmosphere,
00:54:57together with the alternate floodings and drying of the fields
00:55:01in which the Negroes are perpetually at work,
00:55:04often ankle-deep in mud,
00:55:06with their bare heads exposed to the fierce rays of the sun.
00:55:10Captain Basil Hall.
00:55:21Many masters can't be persuaded that Negroes and Indians are otherwise than beasts
00:55:26and use them like such.
00:55:28I daily perceive that many things are done here out of a worldly principle,
00:55:33little for God's sake.
00:55:36Francis Legeau, Anglican Minister.
00:55:50In 1706, the Middletons donated four acres of land for a church in Goose Creek.
00:55:58Francis Legeau, the first full-time Anglican minister,
00:56:02was not opposed to slavery,
00:56:04but he preached that all men, regardless of color, had immortal souls.
00:56:10He earned a reputation for spending time with the Negroes,
00:56:14baptizing and teaching them to read the Bible.
00:56:17He spoke out often against the brutality of Carolina slaveholders
00:56:22who were seeking to control the growing population of Africans.
00:56:27I have had of late an opportunity to oppose with all my might
00:56:31a very unhumane law in relation to runaway Negroes.
00:56:36Such a Negro must be mutilated by amputation of testicles, if it be a man,
00:56:41and an ear, if a woman.
00:56:43I have openly declared against such a punishment,
00:56:47grounded upon the law of God.
00:56:50Francis Legeau.
00:57:09The Anglican missionaries probably described the black community
00:57:14better than anyone at the time in early Carolina.
00:57:16They described it as a nation within a nation.
00:57:20The Africans lived separated from the rest of society.
00:57:26Being freshly from Africa, their frame of reference was African.
00:57:40They were very much familiar with this kind of subtropical environment
00:57:45that they found themselves in, in Carolina.
00:57:49There are still communities of people who live, love, raise children, and work,
00:57:57and they feel that as people, as humans,
00:58:03they have a right to come and go.
00:58:05They have a right to visit their wives and their husbands on other plantations.
00:58:10It was, as one traveler said, a Negro country.
00:58:26Their numbers increase every day, as well by birth as importation.
00:58:33And in case there should arise a man of desperate courage,
00:58:37exasperated by a desperate fortune,
00:58:40he might kindle a servile war.
00:58:43Such a man might be dreadfully mischievous
00:58:46before any opposition could be formed against him
00:58:49and tinge our rivers as wide as they are with blood.
00:58:55William Byrd, Virginia Planter.
00:59:02In 1710, just 15 years after rice took hold in Carolina,
00:59:08Africans began to outnumber Europeans in the colony.
00:59:12As the number of Africans rose,
00:59:15so too did white fear and retaliation.
00:59:31Mr. D told me once he cut off a Negro man's leg for running away.
00:59:37I asked him if the man had died in the operation
00:59:41and how he, as a Christian, could answer for the horrid act before God.
00:59:47And he told me answering was a thing of another world.
00:59:53What he thought and did were policy.
00:59:58He then said his scheme had the desired effect.
01:00:02It cured that man and some others of running away.
01:00:12If you're a white authority,
01:00:14you're constantly trying to figure
01:00:17how tightly you want to impose the lid
01:00:21with respect to people running away.
01:00:24How fierce should the punishments be?
01:00:28Should it be a whipping?
01:00:31Should it be the loss of a finger or a hand or a foot?
01:00:34You know, should it be wearing shackles perpetually?
01:00:40The entire system of control is based on physical punishment,
01:00:45often making examples out of people
01:00:47so that others will be intimidated.
01:00:50The colonial legislature passed laws designed
01:00:53to more tightly control the growing black majority.
01:00:57Planter records reveal punishments inflicted
01:01:00for infractions, large and small.
01:01:038th February, 1709.
01:01:06I rose at 5 o'clock this morning
01:01:08and then read a chapter in Hebrew
01:01:10and 200 verses in Homer's Odyssey.
01:01:13I ate milk for breakfast.
01:01:15I said my prayers.
01:01:16Jenny and Eugene were whipped.
01:01:2017 April.
01:01:21Annika was whipped yesterday for stealing the rum
01:01:24and filling the bottle up with water.
01:01:27I said my prayers and I danced my dance.
01:01:31Eugene was whipped again for pissing in bed
01:01:34and Jenny for concealing it.
01:01:38I took a walk about the plantation.
01:01:42Eugene was whipped for running away
01:01:44and had the bit put on him.
01:01:47I said my prayers.
01:01:48I had good health, good thoughts, and good humor.
01:01:53Thanks be to God Almighty.
01:01:56William Byrd, Virginia Planter.
01:02:00When you enslave a person,
01:02:04in some ways you become a slave yourself
01:02:07because masters and slaves are natural enemies.
01:02:12And that's what the Europeans had to deal with.
01:02:15They had to deal with the population living amongst them,
01:02:18sometimes the majority of the population, in hostility.
01:02:22They lived amongst enemies.
01:02:25And as one Carolina planter said,
01:02:28nowhere on earth is mankind so plagued
01:02:32by enemies living within them as we are in our own homes.
01:02:43The Spanish are receiving and harboring
01:02:46all our runaway Negroes.
01:02:48They have found out a new way
01:02:50of sending our own slaves against us
01:02:53to rob and plunder us.
01:02:55We are not only at a vast expense
01:02:57in guarding our southern frontiers,
01:03:00but the inhabitants are continually alarmed.
01:03:04Arthur Middleton, acting governor, 1728.
01:03:09On the South Carolina frontier,
01:03:12word spread of Africans and Indians
01:03:15coming up from Spanish Florida to attack planters
01:03:18and of Spanish authorities offering runaways
01:03:21freedom on Florida soil.
01:03:24In Goose Creek,
01:03:25an Anglican minister complained of secret poisonings
01:03:29and bloody insurrections by certain Christian slaves.
01:03:33South Carolina is a pot ready to boil over.
01:03:37Imagine coming into a setup that seems almost unbearable
01:03:42and finding that many of them have somehow rationalized it
01:03:46or are enduring it.
01:03:49You know, that's the best they can do.
01:03:51But you as a newcomer might feel,
01:03:54I'm not going to put up with this.
01:03:55Better to die trying to change this.
01:03:59And there must have been hundreds of people like that
01:04:02in South Carolina in the 1730s.
01:04:09By the 1730s,
01:04:11close to 2,000 Africans were arriving
01:04:14at the port of Charleston each year.
01:04:18From 1735 to 1739,
01:04:21out of 11,000 slaves landed,
01:04:24more than 8,000 were listed as Angolans.
01:04:28What develops is a sense among the Europeans
01:04:32that slaves from certain areas
01:04:35have particular characteristics.
01:04:37Slaves from the Angola area
01:04:40are reputed among the English
01:04:43to be particularly difficult,
01:04:45to be rebellious.
01:04:49In St. Paul's parish,
01:04:52there were close to 1,000 new people
01:04:54who just a few years before
01:04:56had been taken from the Angola region of Africa.
01:05:01One of them,
01:05:02we only know his name,
01:05:05a man named Jemmy,
01:05:06apparently had come recently from Angola.
01:05:09He may not even have spoken English,
01:05:12but he may have had strong contacts
01:05:14with other Angolans.
01:05:16He had to try to build alliances,
01:05:19not only with other Angolans,
01:05:21other new arrivals,
01:05:23but with other Africans,
01:05:26African Americans,
01:05:27people from a community
01:05:30that he was not that familiar with.
01:05:33And apparently he succeeded.
01:05:41During the early morning hours
01:05:43of September 9, 1739,
01:05:46almost as soon as word is received
01:05:48in South Carolina
01:05:49that England and Spain are at war,
01:05:51some 20 Angolan slaves,
01:05:53led by the man named Jemmy,
01:05:56began marching towards St. Augustine
01:05:58and the promise of freedom.
01:06:05Just 30 miles from the Middletons' Oaks plantation
01:06:08at the Stono Bridge,
01:06:10they seized a general store
01:06:12where there were arms and powder.
01:06:19They killed the storekeepers
01:06:21and left their heads on the doorstep.
01:06:26What better moment
01:06:28to start an uprising
01:06:30and try to strike out
01:06:33for St. Augustine
01:06:34and find freedom in Florida
01:06:37in the hope that
01:06:38the Spanish authorities
01:06:40are willing to grant freedom
01:06:42to English-speaking slaves
01:06:45who escaped from the Carolinas
01:06:47into Florida.
01:06:50On the march south,
01:06:52the Africans did not kill
01:06:54every white they encountered.
01:06:56They spared Mr. Wallace,
01:06:58an innkeeper they knew
01:06:59to be kind to his slaves.
01:07:01But before the day ended,
01:07:04they had killed
01:07:04more than 20 people.
01:07:07As other slaves joined them,
01:07:09they became an army
01:07:10of almost 100,
01:07:12camped at the Eristo River,
01:07:14waiting for others
01:07:16to gather under their flag.
01:07:18The entire force
01:07:20of English North America
01:07:23was going to come down
01:07:24on them
01:07:25because this was an issue
01:07:27not merely for
01:07:28those in South Carolina
01:07:30immediately surrounding
01:07:31this area.
01:07:32This was an issue
01:07:33for every European colonist
01:07:36everywhere in the colonies
01:07:38to quash this
01:07:41and to provide
01:07:42some exemplary punishment.
01:07:47Around noon,
01:07:49the nearest white settlers
01:07:51were alerted.
01:07:52By four in the afternoon,
01:07:54they caught up
01:07:55with the Negroes
01:07:56along the Eristo River
01:07:57and fired upon them.
01:08:00Eyewitnesses recorded
01:08:01that the rebels
01:08:02fought boldly,
01:08:04but at least 14 were killed
01:08:06or wounded
01:08:07in the first attack.
01:08:09Others were surrounded,
01:08:11questioned,
01:08:11and then shot.
01:08:15The armed colonists
01:08:17then turned
01:08:18toward Charleston
01:08:19and on milepost
01:08:20along the way,
01:08:22they left the heads
01:08:23of the executed men.
01:08:29Just the way
01:08:30war transforms people,
01:08:33this terrible transformation
01:08:36revolution into race slavery
01:08:38had changed people
01:08:41by the middle
01:08:42of the 18th century.
01:08:44The violence you see
01:08:46at Stono
01:08:46is a violence
01:08:48that had become
01:08:51pervasive
01:08:52in the culture.
01:08:54By the middle
01:08:55of the 18th century,
01:08:57this had become
01:08:58a way of life
01:09:00in the English colonies.
01:09:01Stono was sort of
01:09:04the beginning
01:09:05of the concept
01:09:06that the black population
01:09:08had to be utterly controlled.
01:09:11And the legislation
01:09:12that came out of Stono,
01:09:13the Negro Act,
01:09:15took away
01:09:16whatever liberties
01:09:17the Africans had.
01:09:21freedom of movement,
01:09:23freedom of assembly,
01:09:25to earn money,
01:09:26to learn to read,
01:09:28all were outlawed.
01:09:30South Carolina
01:09:31imposed duties
01:09:32on all slave importations
01:09:35and encouraged
01:09:36European immigration
01:09:37in order to change
01:09:39the ratio
01:09:40of whites
01:09:40to blacks.
01:09:43The Negro Act
01:09:45became the model
01:09:46for slave laws
01:09:47throughout the mainland
01:09:49of British America.
01:10:04Why do you use
01:10:05those instruments
01:10:06of torture?
01:10:10Are they not fit
01:10:11to be applied
01:10:12by one rational being
01:10:13to another?
01:10:15And are ye not
01:10:16struck with shame
01:10:17and mortification
01:10:18to see the partakers
01:10:20of your nature
01:10:20reduced so low?
01:10:24But above all,
01:10:26are there no dangers
01:10:27attending this mode
01:10:29of treatment?
01:10:30Are you not hourly
01:10:31and dread
01:10:32of an insurrection?
01:10:34O lauda,
01:10:35equiano.
01:10:50news of the rebellion
01:10:51traveled quickly
01:10:52to New York,
01:10:53now the third largest city
01:10:55in British America.
01:10:57of Manhattan Island
01:10:59was unbroken wilderness,
01:11:01crossed by streams
01:11:02emptying into both
01:11:03the Hudson
01:11:04and East Rivers.
01:11:07By 1740,
01:11:09except for Charleston,
01:11:10South Carolina,
01:11:12no city in colonial America
01:11:13had so high a density
01:11:15of slave population
01:11:16as New York.
01:11:19crowded onto the southern tip
01:11:21of the island
01:11:22lived 11,000 people,
01:11:24of which more than 2,000
01:11:26were black.
01:11:27There was really
01:11:29an illusion of intimacy
01:11:30between enslaved blacks
01:11:32and their white slave owners
01:11:34who lived under the same roof.
01:11:35These people
01:11:37could not trust one another.
01:11:39In fact,
01:11:40the slave owners
01:11:41considered the enslaved blacks
01:11:44domestic enemies.
01:11:55New York,
01:11:56November 18, 1731.
01:11:59Be it ordained
01:12:00by the authority
01:12:01of this city
01:12:02that all Negro,
01:12:03mulatto,
01:12:05and Indian slaves
01:12:05that shall die
01:12:06within this city
01:12:07be buried
01:12:08by daylight.
01:12:10And for the prevention
01:12:11of great numbers
01:12:12of slaves assembling
01:12:13and meeting together
01:12:14at their funerals
01:12:15under pretext
01:12:16whereof they have
01:12:17great opportunities
01:12:18of plotting
01:12:19and confederating
01:12:20together to do mischief,
01:12:21be it further ordained
01:12:22that not above 12 slaves
01:12:24shall assemble
01:12:25or meet together
01:12:26at the funeral.
01:12:28Minutes of the Common Council
01:12:29of New York.
01:12:44There were probably
01:12:45a lot of other issues
01:12:46going on
01:12:47in New York City
01:12:48at that time
01:12:49that made whites
01:12:50suspicious of blacks.
01:12:51There was,
01:12:52among the lower classes
01:12:54of blacks and whites,
01:12:55a lot of racial amalgamation.
01:12:57There was a lot
01:12:59of activity
01:13:00in the grog shops
01:13:02between blacks and whites,
01:13:04blacks frequenting taverns.
01:13:05New York City
01:13:06was a cosmopolitan place
01:13:09with people
01:13:11from various ethnic groups
01:13:12converging,
01:13:13lots of seamen,
01:13:14and blacks were
01:13:15very much a part of that.
01:13:17In taverns,
01:13:18black men illegally gathered,
01:13:20drank,
01:13:21and mingled
01:13:22with white New York residents.
01:13:24Many enslaved men
01:13:26in New York
01:13:26were hired out
01:13:27by their masters.
01:13:29They had relative
01:13:30freedom of movement
01:13:31and control
01:13:32over their own time.
01:13:34The African-American
01:13:35adult male
01:13:36is seen as
01:13:38the most troublesome,
01:13:39the most intractable,
01:13:40the most rebellious.
01:13:41Those are the persons
01:13:42who are growing
01:13:43in the population.
01:13:44By law,
01:13:45they're not supposed
01:13:46to be out
01:13:46after sunset.
01:13:48By law,
01:13:49they're not supposed
01:13:50to have any currency
01:13:52of their own.
01:13:53By law,
01:13:54they're not supposed
01:13:54to go and gather
01:13:55in numbers
01:13:56of three or greater.
01:13:58By law,
01:13:58they're not supposed
01:13:59to be out drinking,
01:14:00yet every night
01:14:00they're out doing
01:14:01all of these things.
01:14:03They're developed
01:14:04in colonial New York City
01:14:05a lively street life
01:14:06amongst black men
01:14:07and enslaved and free.
01:14:11These black men
01:14:13organized into clubs
01:14:16or gangs,
01:14:17and they were
01:14:20a constant presence
01:14:22on the streets.
01:14:24They even gathered
01:14:25at nights
01:14:25at the docks
01:14:27or in taverns
01:14:28and they presented,
01:14:30according to the
01:14:31English authorities
01:14:32and anxious white residents,
01:14:34a public threat.
01:14:41On March 18, 1741,
01:14:44a fire broke out
01:14:46at Fort George,
01:14:47the governor's
01:14:48official residence.
01:14:50Whipped by violent winds,
01:14:53it burned until
01:14:54a rain shower
01:14:55cooled the blaze,
01:14:56keeping it from
01:14:57torching the entire city.
01:15:00A week later,
01:15:02another fire broke out,
01:15:03and then in the next
01:15:05three weeks,
01:15:06fires raged.
01:15:11As this rash occurs,
01:15:14a sense that there
01:15:15is some evil hand
01:15:16behind this develops.
01:15:20And then people
01:15:21begin to see
01:15:22a black hand.
01:15:23They begin to worry
01:15:25that slaves are
01:15:26behind this,
01:15:27that this is some
01:15:28act of vengeance,
01:15:29that this is some
01:15:31prelude to rebellion.
01:15:33In 1741,
01:15:35England was now
01:15:38at war with Spain,
01:15:39and many of the
01:15:41colonial authorities
01:15:42in New York City
01:15:43feared that
01:15:45the enslaved blacks
01:15:47would have been
01:15:47influenced by
01:15:50the promises
01:15:51from Spain of freedom.
01:15:53It was the English
01:15:54authorities who
01:15:55claimed that they
01:15:56had discovered
01:15:57a combination
01:15:58between enslaved blacks
01:15:59and the lower orders
01:16:01of white town dwellers,
01:16:03transients,
01:16:04and vagabonds
01:16:06to destroy the town,
01:16:08to burn it to the ground,
01:16:09and to set up
01:16:10a black or negro regime
01:16:12that would owe
01:16:13allegiance to Spain.
01:16:16Just 30 years
01:16:17earlier in New York,
01:16:19fire had been
01:16:20instrumental in the
01:16:21negro plot of 1712,
01:16:23where nine whites
01:16:24were killed
01:16:25and five were
01:16:26seriously wounded.
01:16:28Now,
01:16:29the city's officials
01:16:30did not waste
01:16:31any time finding
01:16:32an explanation
01:16:33for the mysterious events.
01:16:36A general
01:16:37dragnet goes out
01:16:39and just about
01:16:40every African-American male
01:16:42over 16 years of age
01:16:44is taken up
01:16:45and put in jail,
01:16:47crowded under the city hall.
01:16:52The court used
01:16:54the testimony
01:16:54of Mary Burton,
01:16:56a 16-year-old indentured servant,
01:16:59to accuse the alleged conspirators.
01:17:02Burton worked
01:17:02at a tavern and brothel
01:17:04in the city,
01:17:04a business that regularly
01:17:06served black customers.
01:17:09Promised her freedom
01:17:11from servitude,
01:17:12Mary Burton started implicating
01:17:14a constant stream
01:17:15of men and women,
01:17:16some white,
01:17:18but most young black men.
01:17:21For close to four months,
01:17:23black men were dragged
01:17:24into court
01:17:25off New York streets.
01:17:29New Yorkers
01:17:31are so incensed
01:17:32over what they conceive
01:17:34of as a conspiracy
01:17:35that they create
01:17:37this wave of paranoia
01:17:39that leads to
01:17:40incredible murders
01:17:41and incredible punishments.
01:17:42It speaks to
01:17:44the whole entrenchment
01:17:47of slavery,
01:17:48even in the North,
01:17:49and also it speaks
01:17:50to racial attitudes as well,
01:17:53that they are
01:17:55very much afraid
01:17:56of racial egalitarianism
01:17:59and people
01:18:01in the lower echelons
01:18:03of their society
01:18:04coming together
01:18:05to form any kind of bond.
01:18:12In May,
01:18:13New Yorkers witnessed
01:18:14the public execution
01:18:16of Caesar and Prince,
01:18:18two black men
01:18:19accused of participating
01:18:20in a robbery
01:18:21connected to the fires.
01:18:23Caesar's corpse
01:18:24was then hung in chains
01:18:26until it decomposed.
01:18:33From the spring of 1741
01:18:35through the following winter,
01:18:37and into the spring
01:18:38of 1742,
01:18:40some 160 slaves
01:18:42and at least
01:18:43a dozen whites
01:18:44were accused
01:18:45of conspiracy
01:18:46against the city
01:18:47of New York.
01:18:4831 Africans
01:18:49were put to death,
01:18:5113 of them burned
01:18:52at the stake,
01:18:53and four whites
01:18:55were hung.
01:18:55a dozen presidents
01:19:05were金
01:19:07and were金
01:19:11registered
01:19:11They men
01:19:17the home
01:19:21the...
01:19:22Seconds
01:19:25was detected
01:19:25June 1741, to Dr. Catwalla de Calden, Governor's Council,
01:19:32Province of New York.
01:19:36Sir, the horrible executions among you
01:19:39puts me in mind of our New England witchcraft in the year 1692.
01:19:46I am humbly of the opinion that such confessions are not worth a straw,
01:19:51for many times they are obtained by foul means,
01:19:54by force or torment,
01:19:57or in hopes of a longer time to live,
01:20:00or to die an easier death.
01:20:03I entreat you not to go on making bonfires of the Negroes
01:20:07and loading yourselves with greater guilt than theirs,
01:20:12for we have too much reason to fear
01:20:15that the divine vengeance does and will pursue us
01:20:19for our ill-treatment to the bodies and souls of our poor slaves.
01:20:26Anonymous letter from Massachusetts.
01:20:41The encroachment of slavery in American society that began in Virginia
01:20:46culminated in 1750 with the decision to legalize slavery in Georgia,
01:20:51the last free colony.
01:20:54It had been a little over 100 years since Anthony Johnson first arrived in Virginia.
01:21:00Now slavery existed everywhere in the 13 colonies.
01:21:04But the argument over who would be free and who would be equal
01:21:08had just begun.
01:21:09For generations to come,
01:21:12slavery would continue to trouble the soul of America.
01:21:18When you make men slaves,
01:21:20you deprive them of half their virtue.
01:21:24You set them in your own conduct
01:21:27an example of fraud and cruelty
01:21:29and compel them to live with you in a state of war.
01:21:35Olaudah Equiano
01:21:37Enslaved African
01:22:00To learn more about Africans in America
01:22:03and to see the teacher's guide for the series,
01:22:05visit the Africans in America website at www.pbs.org.
01:22:11Next time on Africans in America,
01:22:14America's struggle for independence begins.
01:22:17With the threat of war,
01:22:18black men become soldiers in exchange for the promise of freedom.
01:22:22It gave you a purpose in life.
01:22:24You were part of a national effort.
01:22:27To purchase the Africans in America home video,
01:22:31companion book,
01:22:32or CD soundtrack,
01:22:33call 1-800-255-9424.
01:22:381-800-255-9424
01:22:411-800-255-9424
Comments