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Slavery in Colonial America
Slavery in Colonial America, defined as white English settlers enslaving Africans, began in 1640 in the Jamestown Colony of Virginia but had already been embraced as policy prior to that date with the enslavement and deportation of Native...
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Virginia Slave Laws and Development of Colonial American Slavery
Racialized chattel slavery developed in the English colonies of North America between 1640-1660 and was fully institutionalized by 1700. Although slavery was practiced in the New England and Middle colonies, and Massachusetts Bay Colony passed...
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African Slave Life in Colonial British America
African slave life in Colonial British America was far worse than slavery practiced in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans. The indigenous tribes took people as slaves in raids, enslaved those convicted of crimes, and traded slaves...
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Native American Enslavement in Colonial America
Slavery was practiced by the Native Americans before any Europeans arrived in the region. People of one tribe could be taken by another for a variety of reasons but, whatever the reason, it was understood that the enslaved had done something...
Definition
Pre-Colonial North America
Pre-Colonial North America (also known as Pre-Columbian, Prehistoric, and Precontact) is the period between the migration of the Paleo-Indians to the region between 40,000-14,000 years ago and contact between indigenous tribes and European...
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Religion in Colonial America
Religion in Colonial America was dominated by Christianity although Judaism was practiced in small communities after 1654. Christian denominations included Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Congregationalists, German Pietists, Lutherans, Methodists...
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Pets in Colonial America
Pets in Colonial America were kept by the colonists for the same reasons they were in Europe: for companionship and, in the case of dogs, for protection, hunting, and herding. Cats controlled vermin in homes and barns until the 18th century...
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Religion & Superstition in Colonial America
Religion and superstition went hand in hand in Colonial America, and one’s belief in the first confirmed the validity of the second. The colonists' worldview was completely informed by religion and so everything that happened - good or bad...
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Daily Life in Colonial America
Life in Colonial America was difficult and often short but the colonists made the best of their situation in the hopes of a better life for themselves and their families. The early English colonists, used to purchasing what they needed, found...
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Slavery in Plantation Agriculture
The first plantations in the Americas of sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco, and cotton were maintained and harvested by African slaves controlled by European masters. When African slavery was largely abolished in the mid-1800s, the center of plantation...