In 1607, mass migration of the first British colonies to America established in Jamestown, Virginia. Many British “Diasporas” that settled in North American did so for religious reasons fleeing from persecution under Queen Elizabeth the first for their religious beliefs. The intension was to settle in a different environment where they were able to govern themselves by making laws for the common good. In 1609, many died from diseases and famine. The survival was joined by new settlers and the land prospered through farming tobacco.
The labour needed to farm the tobacco plantation exceeded the colonies and as a result, Slave trade was introduced to Virginia in 1619. This new form of investment took off like a wild fire , capturing and transporting thousands of Africans forcefully from their home or sold to slavery even by their village chiefs. from the mid 1700s Virginia enslaved population was the largest of any state.
Sustainability and the commons 
December 4, 2013 at 9:46 pm |
A historical society in Virginia, where slavery began in the American colonies in 1619, has discovered the identities of 3,200 slaves from unpublished private documents, providing new information for today’s descendants in a first-of-its-kind , society officials say.
Many of the slaves had been forgotten to the world until the Virginia Historical Society received a $100,000 grant to pore over some of its 8 million unpublished manuscripts — letters, diaries, ledgers, books and farm documents from Virginians dating to the 1600s — and began discovering the long-lost identities of the slaves, said society president and CEO Paul Levengood.
December 5, 2013 at 6:09 am |
This was the rise of consumerism.The majority of those sold into slavery were destined to work on plantations in the Caribbeans and the Americas who had had largely been colonized by the Europeans. These plantations produced sugar and tobacco mainly for consumption in Europe. It has been estimated that by the 1790 about 480 000 people were enslaved in the British colonies.
Has there been any lessons learnt from the abolition of slave trade looking at the soft slaver of present day.
December 10, 2013 at 10:07 pm |
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