Racism And African Americans

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Racism And African Americans

Did Racism cause enslavement of African Americans?
Did Racism cause enslavement of African Americans? To answer this question you have to determine what a slave is? And what Racism is? By my views and believes, slavery is any type of duty somebody does for you. You own them so they work for you otherwise they will get punished. Now Racism is a negative attitude towards another race. After these to words are cleared up you come to a conclusion that racism in the 17th century caused enslavement of African Americans. To believe this you have to look at the history left for us to read. The court papers, and journals of people back in the 17th century.
The first blacks arrived at Jamestown in 1619, they were from Africa and there were 20 of them, (C. Degler pg 64) there were probably Africans in the Virginia colony before that famous ship in 1619. What the Africans are seeing is a wilderness, forested plains, teeming waters, empty land. They have come to a place that is undeveloped in the way that Europeans envision that development. So what do the English men do, they put to work the Africans immediately. The Africans were sent to cut the trees to pick up the stones. To move the boundaries to level land, put crops in, fish, hunt, to do all the necessary labors that settlement and society demand. This was the slaves life, and if they did not cooperate than they were punish.
Now reading different history facts I found that these 20 African Americans were from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) ( C Degler pg 67) to racial slavery did not happen overnight. There are no laws regarding slavery early in US history. By 1640, the Jamestown courts had sentenced at least one black servant to slavery. Because of his race ethnicity he was punished harder than the whites. This is called racism. John Punch was one the three servants working for a farmer and ran away to Maryland. Two were white; one was black. They were captured in Maryland and returned to Jamestown, where the court sentenced all three to thirty lashes. This was considered a severe punishment even by the standards of 17th century. The two white men were sentenced to an additional four years of servitude. The strong punishment for whites, but in addition to the whipping, the black man John Punch was ordered to serve his master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere. (C Degler pg 65) Because he was a different c...

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