Jamestown and Virginia P4

Last week we began to talk about the beginnings of chattel slavery in the Virginia Colony and the southern propensity for slavery. Great Britain saw the South's interest in slavery as a way to divide the Americans, so in late 1775 Britiain promised freedom to slaves who escaped and joined her. While some 100,000 slaves joined the British, only about 5,000 of them were actually freed, with the most of the rest remaining in slavery with the British. In fact, the British forcibly seized and kept slaves to increase their own resources. The announced British plan had an opposite effect. It motivated many slave owners, including some Americans with British sympathies, to get involved in the fight in order to save slavery and their plantations.

Content Sourced From “The American Story The Beginnings. By David Barton & Tim Barton”