Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American 

Slaves

By: Ira Berlin 

"Slavery was ubiquitous--its marks-- need not be discussed to be understood.  A back disfigured by the lash, an ankle bruised by a shackle, a body seared by a branding iron were all silent reminders that slavery's history was none too distant" (Berlin, 235).  

Chapter 1: Charter Generations

17th century Old World Map

             “Black life on mainland North America originated not in Africa or America but in the nether world between the two continents. Along the periphery of the Atlantic- first in Africa, then Europe, and finally in the Americas- it was a product of the momentous meeting of Africans and Europeans and then their equally fateful rendezvous with the peoples of the New World. (Page 23)”

 Middle Passage

Atlantic creoles are a mixture of three continents surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. They are part of all three worlds combined and yet not really part of any. There peoples had heritage both European and African, they could have European dress and deportment. They are aware of local norms and were multilingualism. They had the knowledge of both communities but were not fully part of either society. 

       

New Netherlands

17th Century New Netherlands Map

The Dutch were in charge of shipping over to new world for a long time. Some Creoles were brought over as slaves others worked for company as free men like Jonges Tobias. Black people who came to New Netherland from 1620-1660 were able to integrate into society even though there were slaves.  Blacks made up over 30% of the population and were the major labor force of the colony.

Slaves could gain freedom at this point but it was very difficult; nearly impossible for privately owned. If the slave was owned by the West India Company which valued their slaves and would free elderly, but maintain ownership of their children.

Blacks in New Netherland were part of colonial life with Christianity, church functions like marriage and all other aspects of life.

The Chesapeake

17th Century Chesapeake Map 

In Chesapeake colony African/creoles were brought over to the new world and were the labor force. Anthony Johnson is an example of what happened in this colony for some blacks. Johnson married and had four children; he was allowed to farm his own land while working for his master. Johnson earned official commendation for hard labor and town service. Johnson was able to petition for relief when his farm burnt and received aid. Anthony Johnson even owned his own slaves. There were other Creoles types in the region that prospered in similar way to Johnson but there were also those who did not. 

Lower Mississippi Valley

17th Century Lower Mississippi Map

Creoles came over with masters and were brought to work and labor the land. Plantations did not flourish in Louisiana area, they did have government system and blacks used the law to their advantage like Samba Barbara.

Florida  

17th Century map of Spanish Florida

Spanish allied with slave in Florida because they saw slaves as an enemy to their enemy which made them a friend. Escaped slaves could come from Carolinas and into Florida where they could be paid to work, allowed to marry and provided everything that makes up freedom besides the actual title of being free. In 1693 Spanish went so far as to offer freedom to fugitives who converted to Catholicism. The Spanish did use the skills of Creoles and would enlist them in militia to attack Carolinas. Near Saint Augustine the governor of Florida established a black settlement that newly arrived slaves and free blacks would go to and be instructed by a priest to be converted to Catholicism. In Florida Creoles enjoyed far more full lives and freedom in society that anywhere else in new world at the time. 

Chapter 2: Plantation Generations 

“Their successors were not nearly as fortunate. They worked harder and died earlier. Their family life was truncated, and few men and women claimed ties of blood or marriage. They knew- and wanted to know-little about Christianity and European jurisprudence. (Page 53)”

The next generations of blacks in North America were not as fortunate as the charter generation. They worked really hard, died young, not as many got to neither marry nor bore children. They rarely owned property and little ever escaped slavery. They were thrown into the new world as slaves, denied most natural wants and needs of humans, and worked to death. 

Chesapeake and South colonies

A tidewater plantation, Virginia, circa 1750

Transition from society with slaves to a slave society came quickly. Indentured servants were changed to slaves. Plantations grew and the owners purchased slaves in large amounts, tobacco plantation owners purchased more than ever before. This cost the slaves more than ever. They died young, did straining work that left them mentally drained. In low country the slaves society came quicker than in Chesapeake because of the exportable stables like rice, indigo, rosin, etc. The planters started to choose slave types from where the blacks were coming from in Africa they preferred Gambian peoples and no Angolans which were known to run away. 

North Colonies

             In the Northern section of colonies there were not plantations that had slaves but there was a need for work force which they filled with slaves especially with war times that took away young white males. Owning slaves in the north was a way of showing wealth and prosperity. Slaves worked in master’s homes as well as in city shops. Life for slaves was hard because they were coming straight over from Africa without stop in West Indies. The north was cold, damp and full of diseases the Africans had never come in contact with and had no immunity to. This caused low reproduction rates and high death rates. There was also a huge amount of African men in colonies but not African women.

Slaves did form their own culture with things to celebrate like Pinkster days. They also designed homes like back in Africa and tried to maintain themselves with their heritage as much as masters who allow. 

Opinions on Charter and Plantation Generations

Slaves, Indentured servants and Masters

When first reading about the charter generations of slaves in the different colonies their lives seem like hard work and in general not what I would want for myself, but compared to plantation generation they are way better off. They have the ability to use the law on their side for things like land, relief, and when their property is stolen. They also have the chance of freedom, owning their own land and having a family. By far Creoles like Anthony Johnson had relatively good colonial life, he had wife and children and land. The problems that they faced were workloads, getting children and other blacks freedom, and that they were second class citizens.

The plantation generation was a lot worse off. The slaves were brought over in crowded ships. They were not taking Africans just from the coast but also from inland Africa and classifying the worth of the slaves based on their background. The slaves were brought over to new world with no strength after the long journey across the ocean. Then there was the auctioning and buying of the slaves, plantation owners would take them home and put them to work. They were exposed to new diseases that they had never been around which made them susceptible to them and many died. This was not a problem for the plantation owners who could easily go buy more and more slaves to fill their spots. These people were not treated like humans in any way; they were treated like dirt.

                  If I were to have to be back in that time period and was an African forced to go over to new world I would hope that I was a Creole that way I could know languages and laws of the cultures and be able to manipulate my way to having some freedoms and having land to take care of my family with. However, if I was a plantation slave I would just hope I died quick of a disease that was not too painful. 

 Chapter 3: Revolutionary Generations 

“The age of the great democratic revolutions—the American, the French, and the Haitian—marked a third transformation in the lives of black people in mainland North America, propelling some slaves to freedom and dooming others to nearly another century of captivity” (Berlin, 100).

Chapter three is intended to inform the reader of dramatic changes in slavery throughout all of the Americas as a result of the American Revolution leading into the cotton revolution. 

“The shock of revolution profoundly altered slavery…but slave-holders did not surrender their power easily.  In most places, they recovered their balance, sometimes overwhelming their opponents and sometimes acquiescing just enough to revitalize their shaken institution.  At the end of the revolutionary war there were many more black people enslaved than at the beginning” (Berlin, 100).

The author vividly paints the scenery through each territory and the form that slavery shapes due to revolution.

North

The events of the revolution attracted a “flood of fugitives [that became] difficult to stop and continued long after the fighting [had] stopped” (Berlin, 103).  Emancipation came quickly, but the demise of Slavery was slow in northern New England, and the free black population dramatically grew from several hundred to over 50,000 by 1810 (Berlin, 104).  “Emancipation did little to elevate the status of former slaves and, in many ways, weakened the place of black men and women in the northern economy” (Berlin, 107).  The majority of the migration went from country to urban living.  Although the free black people were no longer enslaved they were far from having equal freedoms to whites.  Poverty forced freed people to indenture themselves or their children to white households. 

“Slavery’s slow demise had powerful consequences for African-American life in the North.  “It handicapped efforts of black people to secure households of their own, to find independent employment and to establish their own institutions.  It gave former slave-owners time to construct new forms of subordination that prevented the integration of black people into free society as equals” such as, “curfews, travel restrictions, and denied the right to vote, sit on juries, testify in court and stand in the militia” (Berlin, 105).  No matter how restricted their freedom was, it was still viewed as freedom.

Free slaves took on new names, completely abandoning their African or slave roots, and changed their names to Christian names such as John or Sarah.  Slaves did not have surnames and many adopted ones such as, Freeman, and Newmans, reflecting their new status as free people.  Families worked hard to keep their families together, and even find members who had been placed elsewhere.  Most lived together in dwelling that held more than one family.

Adoption of the term “African” in the designation of African-American institutions marked the final creation of an African nationality in the New World…henceforth, all people of African decent in the United States would be one people” (111).

Chesapeake

“Chesapeake planters kept their holdings intact even as slavery collapsed in the states to the north… the nature of the war itself in the Upper South helped preserve slavery” (Berlin, 111, 112).  Progressive agriculture became the slaveholder’s agenda.  It included “new managerial techniques to rationalize production and increase the profitability of their estates…slave perspective was just the masters euphemism for working their slaves longer and harder” (Berlin, 115).  The internal slave trade, or Second Middle passage, proved to be a source of enormous profit to slave-owners in the Upper-South—what one Maryland newspaper called “an almost universal resource to raise money” (Berlin, 113).  Slaves were forcibly removed through apprenticeship, rental, and especially sale to the southern interior.  The number of families in which parents and children shared a residence declined among the revolutionary generation, and it became as an English visitor observed, the “usual practice for the Negroes to go to see their wives on Saturday night” (Berlin, 117).

Newly freed blacks faced heightened proscription, ostracism, and discrimination.  Much like the North new restrictions were made to ensure they did not receive equal status.  “Voting, sitting on juries, testifying in court, attending the militia, owning dogs, and carrying guns…a pass system prevented black men and women from traveling freely and required them to register annually with county authorities” (Berlin, 120-121).  In the territories the development of intense restrictions and increasing control of planters arises the further south one goes.  In order to live free blacks took jobs such as shoemaking, catering and a barber.  However, even though they worked they remained poor and propertyless.

Lowcountry South Carolina, Georgia and East Florida

“The War for Independence greatly disrupted plantation life, but the Patriot victory affirmed the power of the planter class and armed it with new weapons to protect and expand slavery” (Berlin, 123).

“Plantations became the killing grounds of the war, and their residents died by the thousands.  Nonetheless, amid the carnage, slaves began to make their lives anew on the old estates…death, flight and evacuation sharply reduced the slave population of the Lower South during the war years…before [planters] could begin rebuilding their shattered economy, reconstructing the labor force, and establishing new markets, planters had to restore order on their estates” (Berlin, 128). Planters and slaves came to agreements to allow slaves to participate in markets.  Markets allowed them to earn money to purchase food, and clothing that meant less money the slaveholder had to pay out for each slave.  However, overtime some planters became weary of the freedoms it gave slaves and restricted their involvement in ways such as plantation-based stores.  Others wanted to eliminate this privilege altogether resulting in friction between planter and slave. 

“In South Carolina and Georgia, where slaveholders maintained a firm grip on the levers of power, the Revolution remade slavery.  The prime element in the change was the emergence of cotton” (Berlin, 130). 

“The resumption of staple production kindled the demand for slaves, as slave masters hustled to replace the laborers lost during the war and add new ones…planters purchased many slaves from the North, where emancipation induced some slaveholders to sell off their slaves at bargain prices, and from the Upper South, where planters complained of excess of slaves and the appearance of “Georgia traders” initiated a massive forced migration.  The Second Middle Passage—the domestic slave trade—would eventually bring millions of slaves to the Lower South, but in its infancy it could not meet the swollen demand” (Berlin 130-131).  Thus reopening the Atlantic slave trade.  By 1808 another 90,000 African slaves were imported to South Carolina.  Large landholders purchased large estates from loyalists who moved on, as well as ousting small landholders. “The arrival of thousands of black newcomers –some from Africa, some from state to the north—complicated the struggle between master and slave” (Berlin, 133).

Just as free black people in the North and Lower South, free blacks of the South changed their names.  The major difference was the adoption of their previous owners surname.  The free population consisted mainly of Creole, women, children, and city dwellers.  Similar of the North and Upper South free black the free southern blacks continued to struggle with their freedoms partly because some “whites presumed them to be more black than free” (Berlin, 137).  Free blacks (Creoles) established societies that mirrored white societies.  The Brown Fellowship Society was open to Creoles, but not to black Africans.  The black African slaves in response opened their own societies.  “The transformation of black life in the Age of Revolution marked the emergence of a three-caste society in the Lower South” (Berlin, 140).   

Lower Mississippi

“With the end of the American Revolution, ambitious European and American planters and would-be planters flowed into the lower Mississippi Valley” (Berlin, 145).  To ensure slave loyalty and control slave-owners restricted slave mobility and denying them the right to hold or inherit property, contract independently, testify in court, gun ownership, reconstructed old slave codes and incorporated new provisions according to their territory.

In addition to cotton, specifically in Louisiana, planters invested in sugar production.  North of sugar country tobacco and indigo became a lucrative alternative (Berlin, 147).  “Sugar and cotton changed the face of the lower Mississippi alley, just as tobacco had earlier remade the Chesapeake and rice the low country…the boom of sugar and cotton increased the slave’ burden…planters imposed the order of slave society on the mainland’s oldest society with slaves, stretching the workday and adding new tasks to meet the unique demands of sugar and cotton” (Berlin, 147, 149).  

The demand for slaves increased dramatically, especially black African males who could endure the hardships of labor.  “Africanization marked the arrival of the plantation revolution in the lower Mississippi Valley…violent confrontations between masters and slaves seemed to grow as the lower Mississippi Valley became a slave society” (Berlin, 148, 149). 

Free people did managed to ignore the plights of the enslaved to ensure their safety and freedom was secure.  However, their lack of involvement did not prove them to be safe.  Whites imposed strict laws that limited their freedoms and in ways forced them to be subjugated to the whites. 

“As the Age of Revolution receded, the plantation revolution roared ahead, and with it the Second Middle Passage” (Berlin, 157).

Opinion:

I find it interesting how different each territory handled slavery before and after the Revolution.  Shockingly free slaves were restricted to the extremes of a slave.  They lived in poverty, and whites tried so hard to limit their ability to thrive and even live.  Most remained living with or in close proximity of their previous owners.  I imagine it was a sense of security, but if it were me, I would have packed up my family and ran West or somewhere that I wouldn’t have to be subjugated to a race who felt they were superior than myself, even though they claimed to live a Christ like life.  The mistreatment of humans is a tough subject to read let alone write.  Berlin does an exceptional and respectful job at describing the lives of slave-owners and slaves, but doesn’t go into the gory details of punishments and insurrections.  They are important part of understanding slave history, but I found the information he delivered produced a clear understanding of the development of post-revolutionary slavery that leads into the migration generations and civil war. 

 

Chapter 4: Migration Generations 

“Driven by the cotton and sugar revolutions in the southern interior, the massive deportation displaced more than a million men and women, dwarfing the transatlantic slave trade that had carried Africans to the mainland” (Berlin, 161).

“The Second Middle Passage was the central event in the lives of African-American people between the American Revolution and slavery’s final demise in December 1865” (Berlin, 161).

The purpose of Chapter 4 is to establish the understanding that slavery grew dramatically after the Revolutionary War.  The Second Middle Passage from the dramatic influx of slaves from Africa, free blacks being plucked from the streets in the North, to the selling or renting of slaves in other areas of the nation altered African-American society.  Tensions grew throughout the nation between slaveholders and anti-slavery supporters. 

The Southern Interior

“The Second Middle passage washed thousands of black men and women across the continent, expanding slavery westward” (Berlin 163). 

“Having seized the most fertile lands and prime river line locations, planters made the region safe for slavery by securing political power.  Without exception territorial governors were appointed from the ranks of the planter class or those who would soon enter the planter class, and slaveholders populated the territorial and state legislatures as well as the country courthouses and sheriff’s offices…upon entering the new territories, planters could be assured that their claim in property-in-persons would be protected, that their rights to discipline their slaves would be unchallenged, and that slaveholders and nonslaveholders alike would cooperate in the return of fugitives and the suppression of slave rebel” (Berlin, 165,166).  

The price of slaves rose quickly and in order to maintain and grow the need for slaves, slaveholders “depended upon smugglers, kidnappers, and traders to build their labor force” (Berlin 167).  Slaves and free blacks were informed through churches to be aware of the plight of kidnappers, and illegal slave sales.  In one instance the son of Isabella Van Wagenen was sold to Alabama.  With help from Quaker lawyers her son was retrieved (Berlin, 167). The ongoing threat of families being torn apart by the Second Middle Passage was terrifying.

“The sugar revolution paralleled the cotton revolution, as planters monopolized the best land, ousted smallholders, imported slaves in large numbers, and ratcheted up the level of exploitation” (Berlin, 179). Conditions on plantations were harsh for slaves, “few slaves lasted longer than seven years” (Berlin, 180).  Because of the drastic high mortality rate sugar planters relied on importation of new slaves (Berlin 181). The increased work from the demands of cotton production was hard on them.  Insurrections and rebellion arose in either severe instances, or minor sabotage increased the tensions between slaveholder and slave.  Masters punished their slaves severely for even the smallest infractions, trying to prove a point that it was unacceptable. 

“Whether they grew cotton or sugar, slaves transported to a strange land struggled to recapture the life they had once known.  Their lives were informed by a deep nostalgia for the world they had lost” (Berlin, 188).  Contact with family was hard to come by, and even those who were literate struggled and longed to know where there families were.  “The Second Middle Passage, like the first, dismantled families, but not the idea of family” (Berlin, 190). 

Slaves adopted Christianity and were encouraged to do so by their owners.  Some areas slave owners and slaves attended the same congregation, but the message of Exodus and other Christian values made it uncomfortable for slave owners, as did the election of black members of the clergy.  Slaves were then separated to meeting as only blacks, or slaves and monitored to ensure rebellions were not being planned. 

White women were scarce and many times men left their wives behind in the colonies to establish their plantations before moving their families.  “Slave women became plantation mistresses in both meanings of the word” (Berlin 182).  As plantations became stable, planters moved their wives and families out to live with them.  While some people turned their eyes away from the intermixed marriages, other opposed it.  One planter built a secret apartment in his mansion for his free black mistress and their children to live in.   

The Seaboard South

The Second Middle Passage extended west, but even further south in Georgia, Carolina’s, and Florida.  “the transformation of the seaboard South into a slave-exporting region, like the westward march of the cotton revolution, did not take place all at once” (Berlin, 213).  Slave owners relied on slave children as a profitable crop.  The fear of waking in the morning or going off to work and finding that your child, mother, father or other family had been sold was a constant strain on slaves. 

Communication between plantations moved quickly.  News of opposition to slavery, and the development of protests were a hot topic among slaves.  However, they had to be careful with how they shared information.  Many times meetings were held in secret.  Communities and support for the slave population for funerals, marriages, and aid were supported greatly by their established churches.  “In a world made turbulent and insecure by the second Middle Passage, such institutions offered a shelter strong enough to sustain its members and flexible enough to address the realities of sale.  Churches, schools, and associations—with their charters, regular meetings and membership rosters-- provided passports to community leadership, sites for debating the events of the day, and a means to mobilize slaves and free people of color” (Berlin, 230). 

“The massive torrent of the Second Middle Passage, which every year washed thousands of slaves southward, also spawned a small tributary that carried hundreds north” (Berlin, 230). 

North

The gradual emancipation laws were enacted in some northern states, such as New York, but in others were trying to revive it (Berlin, 231).  Even more limitations were forced upon free blacks.  In the North and South black people were excluded “from the rights that became identified with American citizenship” (Berlin, 231).  “Rather than “free states,” the post-emancipation from a society with slaves was still incomplete.  The protracted evolution from slavery to freedom was affirmed by the extraordinary slow growth of abolitionist sentiment” (Berlin, 233).  The separation of blacks and whites remained constant even in the north.  As Martin Delany, a free black said, “we are slaves in the midst of freedom” (Berlin, 234) blacks were not given the constitutional right of equal freedom that white males were entitled to.  However, blacks, both male and female, in the North did not fear standing up against slaveholders and proslavery.  “At every opportunity, they denounced slaveholders as the essence of evil and the social order of the plantation as an affront to the ideal American nationality” (Berlin, 240).  They extended their anti-slavery attacks even in the south.  The development of the Underground Railroad, safe houses, and freedom trails developed with the efforts of black and whites alike helping southern slaves escape. 

“By the 1850’s, few slaves did not know of the struggle between slave and free states or appreciate how that conflict might affect their future.  According to one planter, slaves followed the election of 1860 almost as closely as their owners, having “very generally got the idea of being emancipated when ‘Lincoln’ comes in” (Berlin, 244).  The hope for freedom started this historic time. 

Opinion:

I find it shocking that in the north free blacks were not bound by slavery they were still treated as such.  When we hear or think about the pre-Civil war era we think how the northerners are completely against slavery and want to give rights to blacks.  We are mistaken and do not understand the crucial imbalance that continued even with the emancipation laws being enacted in the North.  Southern planters were the strong, wealthy society that made it almost impossible to fight against.  Slaves endured an enormous amount of suffering and carried through the Civil War and even into the twentieth century.