The Origins of Slavery on English Mainland North America - Essay Example

However, this also suggests that slavery was an important institution within the colonies long before the need for outside support was necessary. “Unquestionably it was a demand for labor which dragged the Negro to American shores, but the status which he acquired here cannot be explained by reference to that economic motive. Long before black labor was as economically important as unfree white labor, the Negro had been consigned to a special discriminatory status which mirrored the social discrimination Englishmen practiced against him” (Degler, 1959: 62).

Investigating the reasons why slavery became such an ingrained element within the North American continental society reveals a deep discrimination combined with a complicated philosophy toward already established social institution led to the development of slavery as it was practiced, regardless of when it appeared in colonial statues. With the introduction of people of darker skin, white man developed a quick and deep discrimination against these people who lived primitive lives and knew nothing of the higher orders of thinking involved in science and technology.

While the English who settled the North American shores did not have a tradition of slavery within their culture, they were aware of the idea of slavery that was practiced in Spain and Portugal. “As early as 1623, a voyager’s book published in London indicated that Englishmen knew of the Negro as a slave in the South American colonies of Spain. The book told of the trade in ‘blacke people’ who were ‘sold unto the Spaniard for him to carry into the West Indies, to remaine as slaves, either in their Mines or in any other servile uses, they in those countries put them to’” (Degler, 1959: 53).

This knowledge regarding the construction of slavery suggested lifetime servitude of the dark peoples rather than