Where
it All Began
Most people can agree
that slavery was a horrific time period in the development of the United
States. Still fewer are aware of the fact that the institution of slavery in
the Caribbean and, more specifically, Barbados set the precedent for what would
become one of the most egregious violations of human rights in Western History.
In the beginning,
European colonialists had established a colony in Barbados and had promised ten
acres of land to all who set foot on the island (Soderlund, 2000, p.64). The
problem was that very few people were willing to do the backbreaking work that
came with the land, so kidnapping hundreds of thousands of Africans and making
them work for free seemed to be the best idea. It helped that most Europeans
viewed Africans as heathens, and inherently sinful, and so subjecting them to
the physical and mental horrors that was chattel slavery was seen as natural
(Soderlund, 2000, p.65). This set the foundations for what it meant to be
enslaved in America.
Edward Rugemer (2013)
discussed the ways that this early form of enslavement shaped the way race is
viewed in Barbados today. He talked about how the slave laws created a boundary
between what was seen as Christian and righteous versus what came to be
understood as Africans deserving the violence that was so often brought against
them (Rugemer, 2013, p.431). He further spoke on the differences between
indentured servitude and African enslavement citing how those white servants
had certain protections under the law that enslaved Africans would never have
(Rugemer, 2013, p. 439). Furthermore, Rugemer cited a law passed in 1633 that
declared that African slaves and Native peoples were bound to be slaves for
life (Rugemer, 2013, p.433).
Kenneth
Andres, an alumnae of the University of Alberta, spoke on a specific slave act
that contributed to the disenfranchisement of enslaved Africans in his blog
post titled “SourceAnalysis of the Barbados Slave Code of 1661”.
He discussed how its fundamental purpose was to have a steady supply of workers
during a time when sugar was fast becoming a lucrative crop. Andres cited the
aforementioned code of 1633 to further argue that the slave codes which came
after were a crucial tool used to implement the social control of enslaved
Africans, first in Barbados and then later, everywhere else.
It
was through these initial slave codes that the establishment of Africans as
being less than, other, and inherently deserving of violence was cemented.
Today, the ramifications of this racial socialization in Barbados can easily be
seen. In an article written by Joan Phillips and Robert Potter (2006), it is
argued that even in recent times the racial status of Black people in Barbados
has not changed much since colonial times. They explained that the domination
of whiteness in this predominantly Black society runs so deep that it has
become internalized both socially and economically (Phillips & Potter,
2006, p. 315). This article from the Lowcountry Digital
History Initiative clearly illustrates how specifically British enslavement and
colonialism of Africans in Barbados set the standard for enslaved people would
be treated in the New World for years to come.
 |
| 'A Topographical Description and Measurement of the Island of Barbados', in Richard Ligon's (1657) 'A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados' [Shelfmark: 455.a.18] |
References
Phillips, J., & Potter,
R. B. (2006). ‘Black skins–white masks’: Postcolonial reflections on ‘race’,
gender and second generation return migration to the Caribbean. Singapore
Journal of Tropical Geography, 27(3), 309-325.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9493.2006.00264.x
Rugemer, E. B. (2013).
The development of mastery and race in the comprehensive slave codes of the
greater Caribbean during the seventeenth century. William & Mary
Quarterly, 70(3), 429-458. doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.70.3.0429
Soderlund, J. R. (2000).
Creating a biracial society, 1619-1720. In W. R. Scott & W. G. Shade
(Eds.), Upon these shores (pp. 63-82). New York, NY:
Routledge.
External Links
https://medium.com/@kennethandres/source-analysis-of-the-barbados-slave-code-of-1661-3e0f9fd8cabd#.6zxsrrihu
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