Essay On Native American Slavery

Improved Essays
Often over looked in the history of colonial slavery is the impact of Native American slaves. Consequently, the most widely perceived view is Native slaves proved to be a less profitable endeavor than African American slaves, and therefore had little impact on the institution. Evidence points to the contrary. The use of Native Americans as slaves was an important part of the slave trading history of the Americas and deserves to be told. Examining the works of two historians who composed books on the Native American slave trade, it is easy to see just how varied and complex the use of Native slaves in the western hemisphere was. As a result, there is no uniformly accepted narrative available from which to tell, therefore no story is told.
There have been many attempts to create a cohesive story, but a consensus has been proven difficult. This essay is aimed at highlighting two of those attempts. Dr. Brett Rushforth endeavors to tell one version of Native American slavery by focusing on Native Americans and French colonialist in the Pays d’en Haut. Dr. Rushforth, an associate professor at
…show more content…
Allan Gallay, professor of history at Texas Christian University, tells a completely different version in his book The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670-1717. He paints a much more manipulative version of Native American slavery than Dr. Rushforth. While using a different method to convey his research Dr, Gallay does highlight some of the same points made in Rushforth’s book. He describes how most imperialist saw Natives differently than Africans. Europeans saw Natives as instinctly free people, not meant for enslavement, but Africans as bred for captivity. Although they shared similarities in their views on Natives and Africans, the types of settlements created in British controlled colonies was very different from the settlements found in New France, for this reason different conflicts and different relationships were

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    The second chapter explores slavery and the transition from a mostly African-born slave to population, to a mostly American-born population, during the colonial period (late 1600s until about 1770). At the beginning of this time period, most slaves were imported and not born on American soil. After their forced immigration, these slaves underwent a process called ‘seasoning,’ or training, where they were “broken in” and made to realize that slavery would be their identity for the rest of their lives. As time went on,…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Sarah Ruan Professor Garvin History 11 4 June 2015 Takaki Paper #1: The Hidden Origins of Slavery (Chapter 3) When one thinks of the origin of slavery, they commonly think of the profit that the South was able to make off of it. Although this is a major origin and would explain why the institution carried on so long, the text in this chapter gave me a different understanding of the history of slavery. The author, Ronald Takaki, gives us a feel of the early colonial foundations of Virginia and the progression of slavery.…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Collision Of Cultures

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Beginning in the late 1400s, the contact between the Europeans and the Native Americans has claimed to shape the time period into an era called the Collision of Cultures. This time period experienced drastic changes amongst these two groups, which primarily were not supposed to be as life changing. Everyone in America and Europe were completely unaware of the existence of each other—much less aware of how to interact and get along with one other first hand. The Collision of Cultures seemed to be inevitable while the Europeans constantly searched for bigger and more beneficial ways to better themselves. On the other hand, the Native Americans were settled in their own ways and they seemed content until the Europeans came along.…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout world history, countless groups of people from different ethnicities and cultures have befallen to the trap of institutionalized slavery. From the beginnings of colonial America, European settlers have enslaved both the indigenous people and also Africans. When the general subject of slavery is discussed, people assume this refers to the 13 million Africans that were transported to the America, as part of the “Triangular Slave Trade” (Ojibwa). The massive, historical representation of African slaves disregards many other racial groups that were subjected to this dehumanizing treatment. Although, Africans did endure the harsh enslavement by their European owners for approximately 300 years, slavery in America began long before this.…

    • 1539 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    When one considers the actions of the famous Christopher Columbus or Amerdigo Vespucci, one is normally opted to recall one or both of them as the man who discovered the United States of America. However, as history clearly shows, this is not the case for either one of these famous explorers; the lands that would become the United States had been discovered and inhabited long before either of their voyages. The Native Americans, ironically misbranded as Indians by Columbus, can trace their history of this land back much further than the colonists are able. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Native Americans are a popular subject among colonial authors. Three authors who write extensively concerning these original settlers of American Land…

    • 1466 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beginning in the seventeenth century, the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia to aid in the production of profitable crops is where a soon to be flourishing slave trade witnesses Africans being snatched and carried to America in bondage, separating them from their families, leaving them with no sense of familiarity. Although, unfortunate, out of this state of anguish and distress came the development of a new culture. Vast generations of Africans turned African-Americans over time advanced as a rich culture infused with music. African Americans were viewed as inferior and unequal for centuries as White Americans went through great bounds to keep blacks separated from their world. Despite the…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slaves Impact During The Abolition Movement During the movement slave holders were preached to by Baptist and Methodist preachers. Black Harry was a Methodist preacher who was once considered the best orator in America. Black Harry was once a carriage driver and servant. He was known for his ability to memorize long passages in the bible this is why he was considered the best orator in America, he was intended to preach to slaves however, further down the road when he would speak at sermons whites became influenced by Black Harry and his skill to cite the bible so well. His intentions were almost identical to Sam Sharpe 's, which was to have slaves free and they both preached.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Disney movie Pocahontas offers the viewer a stark portrayal of how Englishmen viewed Indigenous American tribes upon their arrival to the United States. The movie features a song titled Savages where Pocahontas and her fellow Powhatan tribespeople are described by the English settlers as “barely even human” and “dirty shrieking devils”. In reality, the first European explorers had much more diverse accounts of their experiences with indigenous peoples in North and Central America. To accurately evaluate early settlers interactions with American tribespeople, the works of Christopher Columbus, Cabeza de Vaca, and John Smith will be examined. Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who landed in the Caribbean islands after a two month…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In general, African Americans slaves occupied the British colonies and slavery was establishing law in the 1700s in which the “terrible transformation” started taking. In this transformation, millions of African Americans would be affected for generations. In short, new colonies were been establish and the locals became greater acceptance of race slavery were being founded and the older colonies were continuing to grow (Robin, Kelley & Lewis, 2005, p. 66). Therefore, in this essay, I will discuss some discuss some factors on why this transformation took place locally and worldwide, analyze social roles, economic roles, and other factors the slaves played by the mid-eighteenth century.…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the 1800’s slave owners manipulated the images of young women working in Industrial mills, making it out to be that they were taken away from their homes as “industrial slaves” to appropriate the cruel slavery that was really going on with African Americans and their families. Women were given long shifts with little breaks and were waking up at the crack of dawn to commence their work days as they had done so the day before. The wages given to them were little to nothing, but they worked because many would save after what was taken out of their checks for boarding to send to their families. As for the ones who thought the labor was too much, they were easily replaced with Irish immigrants who were willing to work for less pay. Many wrote…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Slavery Issue

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The issue of slavery can be traced back to 1787 when the constitution was written. Delegates from the north opposed the idea of slavery being counted as votes in the Senate, while delegates from the south approved of it. The slavery issue was never vanished into thin air since it returned into the Unites States after the slave trade was legalized in 1808. A elevating question arose which was, what should the new territories that would admission to the United States be? slave or free state.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Color And Slavery

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Like women, people of color’s role and placement within traditional English society was clearly defined. In the early part of the seventeenth century, the slave trade thrived in the Atlantic, as plantations were established in the New World and the white European land-owners quickly realized that they needed a labor force to work the land, seeing as a startling amount of the Native Americans in the area began to die of disease. In the Natives’ place came captives from Africa who were immediately put to work. The slave trade quickly became a lucrative business as more plantations formed and the need for labor grew exponentially. At the beginning of the slave trade, there was no connection between the color of a person’s skin and their inherent…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In general, the African Americans resisted their new way of life and struggle to maintain their human dignity and to develop social institutions that would sustain them through the rest of their lives (Robin, Kelley & Lewis, 2005, p. 27). For the most part, in the colonial societies, the African Americans were considered the lowest of the social order. In the colonists’ view, they were considered as imported human property in which their sole purpose was to work for those who purchase their rights. In fact, they were considered as a “bad race” in which the term originated in Europe and strengthened the American cause of why they should enslave the African Americans (Robin, Kelley & Lewis, 2005, p. 27). In contrast, the…

    • 1778 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Cook, David Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. In this book, David Cook attempts to synthesize all available information about the spread of disease in the new world in one volume. Cook’s main argument is that the traditional historiography on the subject, most notably that written by Bartolome de Las Casas, over-emphasizes the cruelty of the Spanish as the reason behind the massive deaths experienced in Amerindian populations.…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Brilliant Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Diversity and Culture of Native and African American Communities Sarah Kneifl University of South Dakota Abstract: This paper discusses the minority groups of the Native Americans and the African Americans. It explores the history of both groups, how they are similar and what makes them different. Based on the research, they both suffered at the hands of the whites. Even though both described it differently, the Native and African Americans wanted “citizenship.”…

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays