From Servitude to a System
The early colonies used indentured labor, but slavery became increasingly structured and racialized. In 1619, enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown. In 1640, Virginia sentenced John Punch, a Black indentured servant, to lifelong servitude after he ran away from an abusive owner.
In 1655, John Casor was declared enslaved for life after Anthony Johnson, a free Black man, sued over the alleged theft of Casor’s services. In 1662, Virginia adopted partus sequitur ventrem, making a child’s status follow that of the enslaved mother. This transformed slavery into a hereditary condition.
Law as an Engine of Bondage
The legal system continued to reinforce the institution. Virginia declared that baptism did not exempt enslaved people from bondage, while another law ruled that killing one’s own enslaved people was not a felony. The Royal African Company was founded in 1660, and when England ended its monopoly in 1698, the number of Africans transported to American colonies rose from 5,000 to 45,000 per year.
Resistance Never Disappeared
Enslaved people resisted in many forms. Elizabeth Key Grinstead successfully sued for freedom in 1656. The Stono Rebellion erupted in South Carolina in 1739, while other revolts and alleged conspiracies were suppressed across the colonies. The first recorded formal protest against slavery, the Germantown Quaker Petition, appeared in 1688.
The system’s growth was not inevitable or uncontested. It was built through law, commerce, and violence—and challenged wherever people found a way to claim their freedom.