The Truth About Slavery

Many of the descendants of North American slaves have a delusion that slavery was only about white people owning black people.   The fact is that Africans were capturing, enslaving and selling each other for centuries before Christopher Columbus discovered a new market for African slave traders.   Africans continued to enslave each other after the end of North American slavery.  There are numerous reports that Africans still practice slavery.

The career of  Englishman John Newton demonstrates not only that whites could be slaves, but that those who engaged in the slave trade could also be slaves.   Newton was a sailor on a slave ship whose shipmates sold him to a West African slave trader because  they didn't get along with him.   A friend of Newton's retired ship captain father arranged to free Newton. Newton eventually got a position as the captain of a slave ship.  A religious experience convinced Newton to become a Christian minister and become active in the movement to abolish slavery.  He wrote the popular hymn "Amazing Grace" which according to gospel singer Larnelle Harris uses a west African sorrow chant for the melody.

The initial forced labor in the British North American colonies involved indentured servants who served a limited amount of time and were then freed. Many whites volunteered to  serve a period of time in exchange for funds to pay for their trip to North America.  The Africans and many Irish were forced to travel to the British colonies. Irish were sometimes sentenced to "transportation to America" for illegal acts.  Most indentured servants were white, particularly Irish, but some were Africans like Anthony Johnson who like white indentured servants was given some land after being freed.  Johnson used indentured servants on his land. 

Later when a decision was made to allow people to be held as permanent slaves, only Africans could be permanent slaves because they were foreigners.  The law didn't allow British subjects to be permanent slaves.  However, initially black children of indentured servants could be treated as permanent slaves because the mother's status as free or nor free determined the  child's status.  By the time permanent slavery began whites and blacks had been having relationships for years and produced children of mixed ancestry.   Some plantation owners forced white indentured servants to mate with black men so the children would become permanent slaves.  This practice increased the portion of the slave population that had European [white] genes as well as African [black] genes.   The slave population received additional white DNA from slave owners and overseers.

The relationships among those of mixed ancestry and between those with  mixed ancestry and whites were producing children who could " pass for white " in the 18th Century.   Some with a slightly dark complexion might have claimed to be of North American or Mediterranean ancestry to gain acceptance as whites.  The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his sister-in-law and virtual wife  Sally Hemings provides an example of this situation.  Hemings was the daughter of a union between Jefferson's father-in-law  John Wayles. and a slave. Wayles took Hemings' mother as his concubine after his first three wives died.   Hemings was legally classified as  "white" and had  long straight hair, but the social situation and laws governing slavery likely made an actual marriage impossible.   Some of their children later passed for white after being freed and leaving Virginia. 

This situation demonstrates that slavery was no longer about "race" or "color" in 1800.  Even though Hemings was the "white" daughter of a plantation owner, she was still considered a slave who became part of the property of her father's estate when he died in 1774. 

Various accounts in the following years indicate that household servants were often of lighter complexion than field slaves.   Many suggest this situation indicates color prejudice.  The more likely explanation is that the household servants had lighter complexions because they were related to the plantation owner.

By the time of the Civil War there were a relatively small number of black slave owners and  many slaves who were light complexioned or even white.   The strange case of Jane / Alexina Morrison demonstrates that slavery wasn't necessarily about color.  According to the slave trader who sold her in Louisiana the blonde haired blue-eyed young woman he called "Jane" was born a slave. The woman who called herself "Alexina" sued him for kidnapping her after she escaped from him. The case bounced around the Louisiana courts just before the Civil War with juries siding with the woman and the courts with the slave trader.  It  apparently is still technically before the courts.   Regardless of which person was telling the truth, the fact that the courts even considered the possibility of Morrison being a slave demonstrates that white slaves were a part of southern slavery by the start of the Civil War.   Some of the escaped slaves whose narratives were published before the Civil War mentioned having seen white slaves.