Unit 1 Day 13-14 - Lesson - Institution of Slavery in the Americ

Warm Up:

What can you observe from this graphic?

Records from meetings don’t show whether the Africans were married (Mr., Miss, etc.), and unlike records for white servants, they don’t include years next to names — a key detail for knowing when a servant’s term ended. Because of this missing information, it’s likely that some Africans were treated as servants while others were enslaved. Even people at the time found the situation confusing.

By 1640, however, the court had declared at least one African to be a slave for life, ordering him “to serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere.” That decision seems to have been based on his religion (he was non‑Christian) rather than his skin color. But religion can change; skin color cannot. Within a generation, race — not religion — became the main reason people were enslaved in Virginia.

In short, Virginia was beginning a painful shift toward racial slavery.

How are African slaves being treated different from other servants?