Slavery in the British Colonies
Three causes, stated together
- All the British colonies participated to varying degrees in the Atlantic slave trade due to the abundance of land and a growing European demand for colonial goods, as well as a shortage of indentured servants.
- Three causes: abundant land, growing demand, and a shortage of indentured servants — the last explains the timing of the change in 2.3.
- All... to varying degrees is the CED's own framing: participation was universal, its scale was not.
Select all three causes the CED gives.
The third explains the timing of 2.3's change.
Four regional scales
- Small New England farms used relatively few enslaved labourers, all port cities held significant minorities of enslaved people, and the emerging plantation systems of the Chesapeake and the southern Atlantic coast had large numbers of enslaved workers, while the great majority of enslaved Africans were sent to the West Indies.
- Four figures in one sentence, and the last is the largest: the great majority... to the West Indies.
- So a colonial answer that describes only the mainland South has understated the system's actual centre of mass.
The great majority of enslaved Africans were sent to...
An answer describing only the mainland South understates the system.
Law made the system racial and hereditary
- As chattel slavery became the dominant labour system in many southern colonies, new laws created a strict racial system that prohibited interracial relationships and defined the descendants of African American mothers as black and enslaved in perpetuity.
- New laws created — the CED says the racial system was made, by legislation, not inherited from custom.
- In perpetuity and descent through the mother are the two legal devices that made the status hereditary.
A cause, a legal device, or a form of response?
Sort each element the CED names.
Select both things the new laws did, per the CED.
The racial system was made by legislation.
The CED counts covert resistance as resistance. Enslaved Africans developed both overt and covert means to resist the dehumanising nature of slavery and maintain their family and gender systems, culture, and religion — so an answer that looks only for revolts has used a narrower definition than the CED's.
Select all the things enslaved Africans maintained, per the CED.
Resistance as preservation, not only opposition.
How enslaved people responded
- Africans developed both overt and covert means to resist the dehumanising nature of slavery and maintain their family and gender systems, culture, and religion.
- Both overt and covert — the CED refuses to count only visible revolt as resistance.
- And it names what was maintained: family and gender systems, culture, religion — resistance as preservation, not only opposition.
2.6 carries two objectives that need separate paragraphs.
One about the system, one about the people held within it.
Two objectives, kept apart
- 2.6 carries the causes and effects of slavery in the various British colonial regions and how enslaved people responded to slavery.
- The first is about the system; the second is about the people held within it, and they need separate paragraphs.
- Answering only the first leaves out the objective the CED wrote specifically to prevent that.
A law that defines a child's status by its mother's has decided the next century in one clause. Nothing further needs to be enacted for the system to keep supplying itself, which is precisely why it was written that way.
All the British colonies participated to varying degrees in the Atlantic slave trade due to the abundance of land and a growing European demand for colonial goods, as well as a shortage of indentured servants, with the great majority of enslaved Africans sent to the West Indies. New laws created a strict racial system that prohibited interracial relationships and defined the descendants of African American mothers as black and enslaved in perpetuity. Africans developed both overt and covert means to resist the dehumanising nature of slavery and maintain their family and gender systems, culture, and religion.