Description
Book SynopsisWhat are the origins of slavery and race-based prejudice in the mainland American colonies? How did the Atlantic slave trade operate to supply African labor to colonial America? How did African-American culture form and evolve? How did the American Revolution affect men and women of African descent?
Previous editions of this work depicted African-Americans in the American mainland colonies as their contemporaries saw them: as persons from one of the four continents who interacted economically, socially, and politically in a vast, complex Atlantic world. It showed how the society that resulted in colonial America reflected the mix of Atlantic cultures and that a group of these people eventually used European ideas to support creation of a favorable situation for those largely of European descent, omitting Africans, who constituted their primary labor force.
In this fourth edition of African Americans in the Colonial Era: From African Origins through the American Revo
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Atlantic Origins 7
Atlantic Africa 11
The Atlantic Trade 23
The Slaving Voyage 47
Chapter Two: Development of Slavery in Mainland North America 64
The Chesapeake 8
The Low Country 82
The Lower Mississippi 96
New England and the Middle Colonies 101
Slavery and Racial Prejudice 110
Chapter Three: African-American Culture 117
Africans in America 119
Demography, Community, and Culture 124
The Daily Toil 133
Family 146
Religion 151
Folk Culture 157
Whites and Blacks, Men and Women, Humanity and Inhumanity 169
Resistance, Escape, Rebellion, and Suicide 174
Chapter Four: The Revolutionary Era 185
Slavery and Ideology 187
Freedom for Some 195
Changing African-American Society 206
The Foundations of Caste 227
Securing the Blessings of Liberty 232
Epilogue 236
Bibliographical Essay 240
Index 289
