Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Andrew Gavin Marshall
Between
1619 and 1860, the American legal system, from that imposed by the
British Empire to that constructed following the American Revolution,
“expanded and protected the liberties of white Americans – while at the
same time the legal process became increasingly more harsh as to the
masses of blacks, with a steady contraction of their liberties.” This
process marked the ‘social construction’ of race and with it, racial
superiority and inferiority, delegated to whites and blacks,
respectively.[1] Interesting to note was that between 1619 and the
1660s, the American colonial legal system was “far more supportive for
blacks; or, phrased differently, the early legal process was less
harsh.” Georgia’s original charter, in fact, had three prohibitions: no
alcohol, no free land titles, “and no Negro slaves.” In Virginia, as
late as 1672 and 1673, there were legal records of some slaves “serving
limited terms as indentured servants rather than being sentenced to the
eternity of slavery.”[2]
Andrew Gavin Marshall
Slavery & the Social Construction of Race
Between
1619 and 1860, the American legal system, from that imposed by the
British Empire to that constructed following the American Revolution,
“expanded and protected the liberties of white Americans – while at the
same time the legal process became increasingly more harsh as to the
masses of blacks, with a steady contraction of their liberties.” This
process marked the ‘social construction’ of race and with it, racial
superiority and inferiority, delegated to whites and blacks,
respectively.[1] Interesting to note was that between 1619 and the
1660s, the American colonial legal system was “far more supportive for
blacks; or, phrased differently, the early legal process was less
harsh.” Georgia’s original charter, in fact, had three prohibitions: no
alcohol, no free land titles, “and no Negro slaves.” In Virginia, as
late as 1672 and 1673, there were legal records of some slaves “serving
limited terms as indentured servants rather than being sentenced to the
eternity of slavery.”[2]
The colonies in the Americas required
a massive labour force, “Between 1607 and 1783, more than 350,000
‘white’ bond-labourers arrived in the British colonies.”[3] The Americas
had both un-free blacks and whites, with blacks being a minority, yet
they “exercised basic rights in law.”[4] Problems arrived in the form of
elites trying to control the labour class. Slaves were made up of
Indian, black and white labourers; yet, problems arose with this “mixed”
population of un-free labour. The problem with Indian labourers was
that they knew the land and could escape to “undiscovered” territory,
and enslavement would often instigate rebellions and war:
The social costs of trying to
discipline un-free native labour had proved too high. Natives would
eventually be genocidally eliminated, once population settlement and
military power made victory more or less certain; for the time being,
however, different sources of bond labour had to be found.[5]
