African Americans in the Colonial Era

What 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 Revolution, acclaimed scholar Donald R. Wright offers new interpretations to provide a clear understanding of the Atlantic slave trade and the nature of the early African-American experience. This revised edition incorporates the latest data, a fresh Atlantic perspective, and an updated bibliographical essay to thoroughly explore African-Americans’ African origins, their experience crossing the Atlantic, and their existence in colonial America in a broadened, more nuanced way.

DONALD R. WRIGHT is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, Emeritus, at SUNY-Cortland, USA. In 2003 he was Scholar-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy.  He is the author of African Americans in the Early Republic, 1789—1831 and The World and a Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumi, The Gambia, 3rd ed., and is co-author of The Atlantic World: A History. He lives in Beaufort, South Carolina.

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

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