9781422274156

OVERVIEW OF RACE RELATIONS IN AMERICA

The history of race relations in the United States started with what might have seemed like a simple exchange of food for labor in the small British colony of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in present- day Virginia, in 1619. After many weeks at

sea, a Dutch ship with twenty slaves captured from Africa disembarked at the port of Jamestown. The crew was running low on food and supplies. Since the crew members didn’t have any money, they agreed to trade the captured slaves for some cash and a few supplies. The twenty Africans in the Dutch ship would be turned into indentured servants, working for a specified period for their English masters in Virginia. Soon, more black laborers would be brought to the colony, as well as to other British colonies in North America, and by the 1640s their status would be changed from indentured servants, who had the prospect of freedom after working for seven years, to slaves. The events that followed this exchange marked the long, disturbing history of race relations in America,

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