Chattel Slavery in the United States
What did Slavery Look Like in the United States?
Chattel slavery is defined as the legal purchase, sale, and permanent ownership of people. Those who were enslaved were defined by law as legal property.
Slavery looked different throughout the U.S. Northern states were not based on the institution of slavery, yet some enslaved people did live in the north. Southern states, by comparison, had societies that relied on violence or the threat of violence to maintain slavery as a whole and thus uphold the social order. Slavery dictated economics, politics, and society as a whole.
Who was Involved in Slavery?
Wealthy European colonists enslaved people of both Indigenous and African descent early in the American colonial period. Colonists transitioned away from Indigenous enslavement for numerous reasons, and instead began to enslave primarily African and African American people. Skin complexion played a major role in the racialization of slavery. However, the 13 colonies and the U.S. also had a significant free Black and African American population.
During the Antebellum period, white southerners who owned enslaved persons were the minority. Only 25% of southerners owned an enslaved person. Most of those individuals only owned one or two individuals. A small portion of southerners owned large plantations with 50 or more enslaved persons.
Those who lived on plantations typically worked in the fields. The length and strenuousness of that labor varied based on owner and overseer, but many people worked from sunrise to sundown and had unrealistic expectations placed upon thier work load. Some enslaved persons lived in the enslaver's home and engaged in domestic labor. This domestic labor was common throughout this U.S. regardless of if a person lived on a large plantation in the south or an individual family home in northern border states that permitted slavery.
Where did Slavery Exist?
Slavery existed throughout the United States.
While the founding documentations of the U.S. did not technically include the word "slavery" the 3/5th compromise counted enslaved persons as 3/5ths of a person to give southern states with large enslaved populations more representation in congress.
After the Revolutionary period, many states in the north applied revolutionary ideology while forming their state governments. As such, they implemented gradual emancipation to slowly end the insitution of slavery without making this process economically disadventageous for slaveholders (who were often wealthy individuals who made significant political decisions).
Gradual emancipation laws began in the colonial period, but Pennyslvania's official process outlining gradual emancipation became the model that most northern states followed. Gradual emancipation laws required slaveholders to register their enslaved population with local governments annually. If they failed to renew this registration, the enslaved person was legally free. Additionally, all children born to enslaved mothers were legally free upon birth.
As the U.S. gained more territory in western regions, slavery often followed. The annexation of new states as either free or slave states was a huge debate in U.S. congress, which was one of the leading causes of the Civil War.
When did Slavery Begin?
The first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia in 1619.
Slavery continued throughout the colonial period and into the United States Republic. The Insitution of Slavery continued until Congress signed the 13th Amendment into law in 1865. However, slavery still continued after the 13th Amendment and persists in many forms today.
How
The 13 colonies blended the institution of slavery with indentured servitude. Gradually over the colonial period, wealthy Europeans moved away from indentured servitude and moved toward racialized slavery.
The first de facto slave law occurred in colonial Virginia. Three indentured servants ran away from their Master and were later caught and brought to trial. Two of the men, who were white, were sentenced to one additional year of indentured servitude as punishment for fleeing. The other man, who was Black, was sentenced to life in servitude for the exact same actions as his white counterparts. This marked the first occurrence where a person was enslaved based on the complexion of their skin, which historians define as the beginning of racialized slavery.
Colonies began implementing formal Slave Codes, Slave Laws, and Slave Patrols that were designed to control the behaviors of enslaved individuals using the threat of violence or intimidation. Many states added to these laws upon gaining statehood, and continued to do so up to the Civil War.
Why
Understanding why slavery existed is a complex and multifaceted discussion. Many enslavers were motivated by economic gain. Over the colonial period and in the new Republic, political power soon factored into U.S. politics. Finally, because the United States granted rights and abilities to some individuals based on their sex, the color of their skin, and/or the economic status, the insitution of slavery meant that poor white people were stratified above individuals of African descent, whether free or enslaved.