Major Problems in African-American History

When studying African American history and looking at the historical genealogy which has lead us to 2017, there are many specific dates which scholars study so that they can better grapple with the subject. However, when looking at the birth of race in America, there is no specific date. Scholars and historians have been arguing about when slavery actually begun compared to a servitude for a set period of time.  With all these different historian’s opinions on this date being given after slavery was abolished, it shows the zeitgeist of the 1600’s, when very few people cared about when slavery truly started.

            In the collection of essays, collected by Thomas C. Holt and Elsa Barkley Brown, titled, Major Problems in African-American History Volume I From Slavery to Freedom, 1619-1877, the various authors all look retrospectively at the idea of when slavery actually started in America. Modern historians try to grapple with the beginning of, “the critical point being whether Negroes were enslaved almost from their importation or whether they were at first simply servants and only later reduced to the status of slaves (p. 92)”. To me, this shows how race was intertwined in the beginning of the America, and how the whites did not care about the Africans that came from over seas, and only saw them as their inferiors and never questioned the idea. With all of the historians still arguing about this today, proves that no one deemed it necessary in the 1600’s, to note down when slavery begun. Americans at this time simply did not care about the establishment about of slavery, proving America’s racist origins.

            When looking at African American history, the origins of how to all began is generally over looked because it is so difficult to pinpoint its birth. This proves that the white men “assumed that prejudice against the Negro was natural and almost innate in the white man (p.93)”.  In my opinion, this debate proves the idea that the early Americans viewed white skin as a default, and viewed everyone as less, is a common theory, from which our nation was born. To prove that this was only based on the color of skin, Winthrop D. Jordan highlights on three runaway servants. He notes that one was a Scots man, a Dutchman, and the other, an African. Jordan writes that the two white servants “were ordered to serve their master for one additional year... but ‘the third being a nergo… shall his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or else where’ (p. 95)”. By showing the results of this court case in 1640, proves that skin color was the deciding factor in not only this court case, but would soon be the written laws the would lead to the rise of America. No one seemed to care about this, or look into the start of Slavery until much later, proving that slavery just began with the idea of race as a function of appearance.

Brown, Elsa Barkley. Holt, Thomas C. Major Problems in African-American History, Volume I.

From Slavery to Freedom, 1619-1877.