Children and Slavery

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilma King
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
African Descent ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
White Girls

Boys and girls of European and African descent in Colonial America shared commonalities initially as unfree laborers, with promises of emancipation for all. However, as labor costs and demands changed, white servitude disappeared and slavery in perpetuity prevailed for the majority of blacks in the South following the American Revolution. Children were aware of differences in their legal status, social positions, life changing opportunities, and vulnerabilities within an environment where blackness signaled slavery or the absence of liberty, and whiteness garnered license or freedom. Slavery and freedom existed concomitantly, and relationships among children, even black ones, in North America were affected by time and place. Slave societies and societies with slaves determined the nature of interactions among enslaved and emancipated children. To be sure, few, if any, freed or free-born blacks did not have a relative or friend who was not or had never been enslaved, especially in states when gradual emancipation laws liberated family members born after a specific date and left older relatives in thralldom. As a result, free blacks were never completely aloof from their enslaved contemporaries. And, freedom was more meaningful if and when enjoyed by all. Just as interactions among enslaved and free black children varied, slaveholding children were sometimes benevolent and at other times brutal toward those they claimed as property. And, enslaved children did not always assume subservient positions under masters and mistresses in the making. Ultimately, fields of play rather than fields of labor fostered the most fair and enjoyable moments among slaveholding and enslaved children. Play days for enslaved girls and boys ended when they were mature enough to work outside their own abodes. As enslaved children entered the workplace, white boys of means, often within slaveholding families, engaged in formal studies, while white girls across classes received less formal education but honed skills associated with domestic arts. The paths of white and black children diverged as they reached adolescence, but there were instances when they shared facets of literacy, sometimes surreptitiously, and developed genuine friendships that mitigated the harshness of slavery. Even so, the majority of unfree children survived the furies of bondage by inculcating behavior that was acceptable for both a slave and a child.

Sophistry, Security, and Socio-Political Structures in the American Revolution; or, Why Jamaica did not Rebel

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. R. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
North American ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Political Structures

Britain's most important American colonies did not rebel in 1776. Thirteen provinces did declare their independence; but no fewer than nineteen colonies in the western hemisphere remained loyal to the mother country. Massachusetts and Virginia may have led the American revolution, but they had never been the leading colonies of the British empire. From the imperial standpoint, the significance of any of the thirteen provinces which rebelled was pale in comparison with that of Jamaica or Barbados. In the century before 1763 the recalcitrance of these two colonies had been more notorious than that of any mainland province and had actually inspired many of the imperial policies cited as long-term grievances by North American patriots in 1774. Real Whig ideology, which some historians have seen as the key to understanding the American revolution, was equally understood by Caribbean elites who, like the continental, had often proved extremely sensitive on questions of constitutional principle. Attacks of ‘frenzied rhetoric’ broke out in Jamaica in 1766 and Barbados in 1776. But these had nothing whatsoever to do with the Stamp Act or events in North America.

Sex-Role Preference and Parental Imitation within Groups of Middle-Class Whites and Lower-Class Blacks

1972 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 651-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
White Children ◽  
White Girls ◽  
Role Preference

32 second-grade children were assessed on measures of sex-role preference and parental imitation. The middle-class white boys were more masculine in preference than the middle-class white girls were feminine ( t = 3.43, p < .01), and lower-class black girls tended to be more mother imitative than the lower-class black boys were father imitative ( r = 2.09, p < .06). No such differences were found in sex-role preference for blacks or in imitation for whites. The results indicated that there was a dominant masculine influence in the development of sex-role preference among middle-class white children and a dominant feminine influence in parental imitation among lower-class black children.

The Pioneer in American Life Insurance Marketing

1938 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 65-75
Author(s):  
J. Owen Stalson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Life Insurance ◽  
General Public ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Insurance Company ◽  
Fire Insurance

Colonial America gave little thought to life insurance selling. The colonists secured protection against marine risks from private underwriters, first in London, eventually at home. It has been asserted that Philadelphia had no fire insurance until 1752; Boston none before 1795. The first corporations formed in this country for insuring lives were those of the Presbyterian Ministers Fund (1759) and a similar company organized for the benefit of Episcopal ministers (1769). Neither of these corporations offered insurance to the general public. In the last decade of the eighteenth century many insurance companies were formed in the United States. At least five were chartered to underwrite life risks, but only one, The Insurance Company of North America, appears to have accepted any. There is no basis for saying that any of these early companies tried to sell life insurance.

The repatriation of human remains – problem or opportunity?

Antiquity ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (300) ◽  
pp. 404-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurajane Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
North America ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Culture Media ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Historical Continuity

The editor’s question “who do human skeletons belong to?” (Antiquity 78: 5) can be answered positively, but it must be answered in context. The question was prompted by reports from the Working Group on Human Remains established by the British government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2001 to review the current legal status of human remains held in all publicly funded museums and galleries, and to consider and review submissions on the issue of the return of non-UK human remains to their descendent communities (DCMS 2003: 1-8). In effect, the report was primarily concerned with human remains from Indigenous communities, using a definition which follows the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as “distinct cultural groups having a historical continuity with pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories” (DCMS 2003:7). Consequently, the report deals primarily with the Indigenous communities of Australia, New Zealand and North America.

Material Culture in the 18th Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Van Horn
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Consumer Preferences ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Enslaved African Americans

Material culture refers to human-manufactured, human-altered, or human-used physical things of all sizes and materials, from houses to domestic artifacts to tools to landscapes. Material culture also refers to the study of artifacts and scholars’ use of objects as a form of evidence to ask and answer questions about the 18th century. Material culture studies is not limited to physical examination of artifacts. It also involves consideration of an array of documentary, literary, and visual sources that provide information about material life. In 18th-century colonial America, the meanings and uses of material goods changed radically. Anglo-American colonists obtained greater numbers and novel types of objects through transatlantic and global trade networks. The British manufactures that flooded the colonies fulfilled colonists’ desire to assert social status and to participate in social rituals that demonstrated refinement. Scholars have labeled these changes the “Consumer Revolution” and the system of “gentility.” Artifacts also built communities and buttressed political beliefs, particularly through non-importation or boycotts of British goods during the imperial crisis. Ideas of gender shaped how women’s growing activity of shopping was understood and critiqued, as well as the association of fashion with women. The importation of Asian and Indian goods, primarily textiles and porcelain, fulfilled fantasies of the exotic while enabling American consumers to demonstrate their worldliness and status. Material goods facilitated cultural exchange and trade between those of different races and ethnicities. At the same time, oppression and political and economic disenfranchisement shaped American material culture. Indigenous peoples expressed consumer preferences for manufactured goods during negotiations within the fur trade. They incorporated British manufactures into preexisting material practices. Enslaved African Americans entered the market as both commodities and consumers. Through their purchases and creative use of refined artifacts, bond people expressed individual identity despite their legal status as property.

Bangladeshi immigrants’ self-organization and associationism in Venice (Italy)

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Claudia Mantovan
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
Personal Variables ◽  
The Social

In Italy, most of the studies on immigrants’ associationism and participation have concentrated on the more formal andstructured aspects. Little research has been done on forms of immigrant self-organization not oriented towards the society in the country of adoption. Drawing on these considerations, this article analyzes the self-organization of Bangladeshi residents in the municipality of Venice considering both their infra-political and their politico-organizational mobilization, seeking relationships between these two spheres of action, identifying transnational bonds, and dynamics linked to the social and political context of their home country. At the same time, the study considers the influence of other factors, such as the social, political and economic context found in the country of immigration (at both national and local level), and also the personal variables that can influence people’s participation, such as gender, generation, social class, amount of time spent in the adopted country, legal status, formal education, human capital, attitudes and personal projects in general.

Catholics in Colonial America (1500–1700)

2020 ◽  
pp. 325-355
Author(s):  
David W. Kling
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Full Knowledge ◽  
The Caribbean

Conversionary efforts in the New World mirrored attitudes and practices in the Old. Christendom remained as much a project in the New as in the Old, and thus religious differences remained as problematic in the Americas as they did in Europe. Images of military conflict—combat, battle, and victory—language familiar on the Continent—infused the outlook of early modern Catholic missionaries, whereas Spanish and French missionaries in the New World often had the arm of the state to protect them and, all too often, to coerce the natives. This chapter selectively examines initial missionary efforts in a variety of locations—Spanish missionary outreach in the Caribbean, Peru, and Alta California and French missions in North America. The depth of Native American conversions was as varied as the methods used to produce them. On a superficial level, conversion meant a transfer of loyalty or allegiance, often without a full knowledge of what that transfer entailed. Or, with defeat, conversion might represent a conscious acknowledgment of the more powerful Christian God over weaker traditional deities.

With Liberty for Some

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Donald G. Nieman
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
State Law ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
Political Coalitions ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
Judicial Interpretations

This chapter examines antislavery ideas and action sparked by the American Revolution as well as the compromises between northern and southern delegates at the Constitutional Convention. The convention created a document that recognized slavery and provided significant, albeit limited protection to it. By building political coalitions and appealing to northern racism, southerners won legislation such as the Fugitive Slave Act, administrative regulations such as exclusion of antislavery literature from the mail, and judicial interpretations of the Constitution such as Prigg v. Pennsylvania that strengthened protection for slavery between 1789 and the 1840s, transforming it into a proslavery document. State law further strengthened slavery by giving masters almost unquestioned authority over slaves and significantly restricting the rights of free blacks.

A Note on Early Meteorological Observations in the United States with Reference to the Germantown Temperature Record of 1731–32

1958 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 211-216
Author(s):  
James M. Havens
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Temperature Record ◽  
Meteorological Observations ◽  
Historical Sketch

Following an historical sketch of meteorological records known to have been kept in Colonial America prior to 1740, the earliest instrumental readings of temperature in North America capable of approximate reduction to present-day standards, those recorded at Germantown, Pennsylvania, are examined in detail. A scale correction for the primitive Fahrenheit thermometer used is derived from two independent methods; when uniformly applied to the observed readings, reasonable values of monthly mean temperatures are shown for December 1731 to October 1732.

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