Examples Of Primary Source Analysis Of Slavery

Primary Source Analysis
During the 1600’s, many Africans were being shipped from Africa into the Colonies so that they could be used for the production of difficulty harvested crops like tobacco, sugarcane,and cotton. The use of slaves helped plantation owners become wealthy quickly, and it led to more and more slaves being brought to the colonies until there were more Africans than there were Europeans. This worried many slave owners and led the creation of black codes. The General Assembly in Virginia created “An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves” in October of 1705 to establish new laws regarding slaves and indentured servants. The IV, XVII, and XXXIV laws display how the General Assembly wanted to justify slavery by making non-converted

They had their own goals in mind, which was prominently money. 2 One of the purposes presented in the document was to prove that slavery is not wrong because it involves people who have not converted to Christianity. In Act IV, it states that any servant that was brought to the colonies that is not a Christian will automatically become a slave, even if they convert afterward. This shows that the General Assembly believed that slavery was okay because the bible, which is against slavery, did not apply because the slaves were not Christians. They wanted only non-Christians to become slaves so that it would be clear to people that they are only making people who have not converted slaves. Another purpose of this document was to prevent the revolt of slaves since there were more slaves than Europeans in the country. This is obvious in Act XXXIV that states that slaves cannot resist their owner and if they do they can be killed for it. This prevents slaves from revolting because they know the consequences for getting caught leaving could be fatal. This connects to the General assemblies main purpose of creating these laws of wanted to continue to make more and more money. If they have fewer slaves running away, they can make more money. Another purpose is

Leah Lefler’s article about slavery shows more on each of the laws and the way they affected Africans. In the article, she states how these laws affected almost free indentured servants and turned them into slaves and how slaves were treated like animals because of these laws. This reveals that the General Assembly did not consider or care about the effects the laws would have on the slaves. In Ira Berlin's article named “The Origins of Slavery” he explains how the reason slavery began in the United States was to make money from plantations and that proves that the intentions of the General Assembly who created the laws were to make money. This further demonstrates that the General assembly's main intention while creating these laws was to make