British Slave Trade and Role of Native Americans

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The colonialist past of Great Britain includes quite a substantial history of slave trade, particularly, the enslavement of Africans. According to the existing records of this shameful page of Great Britains history, over the course of the slave trade, around 3,000,000,000 Africans were transported to Great Britain and forced into slavery.¹ However, after the discovery of the economic and political opportunities in North America, Great Britain expanded the scope of its slave trade to include Native Americans.²

Also being viewed as the material for slave trade, Native Americans were captured and sol, yet the resistance that Native American tribes demonstrated led to military confrontations resulting in the First Indian War.³ Although the resistance that Native Americans demonstrated was beyond impressive and inspirational, the strategic advantage of the British colonists defined the outcome, leading to a spike in the British slave trade and the further exploitation of Native Americans.

Delving into the nature of the British slave trade as one of the most atrocious phenomena in the British history one will need to outline several factors that predicated the development of slave trade as a phenomenon. First, the presence of racial biases affected the surge of colonialist ideas and helped build the philosophy that would reify the concept of subjugation of people perceived as inferior into the concept of slavery as a system combining forced labor and institutionalized dehumanization of people of other races and ethnicities.⁴ Therefore, the European and British point of view on slavery suggested that slavery should be seen as a norm in the relationships between European citizens and members of other ethnic and racial groups.

When assessing the factors that predetermined the specified despicable perspective, one must mention the presence of the perceived sense of supposed intellectual superiority. Being confined to the context of European culture, its representatives could not grasp the idea of an alternative perspective on art, nature, and science, hence the immense feeling of intellectual and cultural superiority.⁵ Additionally, the military factor was another crucial constituent of the slave tared development process. Although the military progress did not supply additional fuel for the racist ideology that British colonists upheld, it assisted in subjugating indigenous people due to a significant military advantage.

Finally, the religious factors need to be mentioned as a massive contributor to the development of slave trade. Driven by the same idea of superiority, British colonists viewed the idea of slavery as acceptable since it was mentioned in the bible without evident condemnation of the practice.⁶ Given the massive impact that Christian standards and values had on the British community at the time, the role of the Bible in shaping British peoples attitude toward slavery can be considered unmistakably high.⁷

Arguably, it should have occurred to British colonists that the ethical standards and perceptions of cross-cultural relationships should progress and need not be lifted from millennia-old cultural practices. However, the Biblical references to slavery as an acceptable practice were far too useful an instrument for promoting the same power dynamics based on inequality and subjugation of other races.

The propensity of the British slave trade to expand and become even more ruthless could be observe d as British settlers established their presence on the North American continent. Specifically, the East India Company could be seen as an attempt at expanding the British slave trade by starting a colony slave trade in Virginia⁸. Representing a frontier hub, South Carolina was also included in the range of locations where slave trade was prevalent.⁹ Affecting primarily Cherokee tribe members, who inhabited the territories of Virginia and South Carolina, British slave trade defined the further genocide of indigenous Native American people.

Examining the relationships between British colonists and the Yamasee community, one should mention the propensity among British people to encroach upon the rights and freedoms of Native Americans. Known as the European encroachment, the specified change involved gradual appropriation of the lands belonging to Native Americans by British settlers.¹⁰ Therefore, the very philosophy of British settlers was built on the ideas of colonialism and racial superiority, therefore, defining their attitudes toward Native Americans. In turn, the resistance demonstrated by the latter challenged the specified perspective significantly, therefore, causing British slave trade to become even more ruthless toward ethnicities perceived as inferior.

Culminating in a massive military resistance, the conflict between British colonists and Native Americans finally took the shape of the confrontation that would, later on, be known as the Yamasee War. Representing the Native Americans unwavering intention to resist the colonialist attitudes of the British Empire and, ultimately fight the slavery into which Native Americans were subjugated, the Yamasee War can be considered one of the prime examples of how the slave trade affected the British Empire, causing countless deaths of British troops and the continuous conflict with Native American tribes.¹¹

What made the Yamasee war particularly remarkable was tat, due to the fragmented state of Native American tribes, it never factually ended, as Bossy explains.¹² As a result, the effect that the war had on Great Britain could be described as devastating, costing the empire a tremendous amount of resources. Thus, Native Americans affected the British slave trade in a multitude of unexpected ways due to their uncompromising resistance.

Over decades of slave trade and attempts at subjugating native residents of north America, Great Britain participated in multiple tared wars. Among the most notable ones, one should mention King Philips War (1675-1676) occurring in the areas of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which resulted in the tragic defeat of Chief Metacom.¹³ The Battle of Tippecanoe, which would occur in 1811, also defined the settlers further foray into the north American continent.¹⁴

However, the wars occurring on the North American continent were not confined to the confrontations between Native Americans and colonists. Due to the desire to seize control over as much area as possible, British colonists opposed French ones actively, which resulted in multiple military conflicts in the area.¹⁵ The described confrontations emphasized the archeological nature of the colonists interest toward the continent as opposed to the social perspective that would have allowed them to see Native Americans as human beings deserving their irrefutable rights and freedoms.

Due to the colonialist strategies and the dehumanizing perspective that British settlers applied to Native Americans, the latter were quickly included in the British slave trade as another product to be sold, therefore, causing the relationships between British settlers and Native Americans to deteriorate and result in numerous wars.

Therefore, native American were primarily seen as the object for slave tared, yet the specified perspective was not devoid of consequences for British settlers since Native Americans demonstrated massive resistance and engaged in military confrontations culminating in the First Indian War. Despite the eventual loss of the Native American population due to the tactical advantage and the greater range of resources available to the colonists, Native Americans would not capitulate to the reign of British settlers, which defined the aggravating relationships between the two sides.

Bibliography

Aremu, Johnson Olaosebikan, and Michael Ediagbonya. Trade and Religion in British-Benin Relations, 1553-1897. Global Journal of Social Sciences Studies 4, no. 2 (2018): pp. 78-90.

Beghdadi, Farouk. Economy and the Shaping of the Immigration Policy of the British American Colonies (1624-1775). Traduction et Langues 17, no. 1 (2018): p. 98-111.

Gallay, Alan. The Yamasee Indians: From Florida to South Carolina (Lincoln. NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.

Micheletti, Steven J., Kasia Bryc, Samantha G. Ancona Esselmann, William A. Freyman, Meghan E. Moreno, G. David Poznik, and Anjali J. Shastri. Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas. The American Journal of Human Genetics 107, no. 2 (2020): 265-277.

Norton, Mary Beth, Carol Sheriff, David W. Blight, Howard Chudacoff, Fredrik Logevall. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cengage Learning, 2014.

Petley, Christer. Slaveholders and Revolution: The Jamaican Planter Class, British Imperial Politics, and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 17751807. Slavery & Abolition 39, no. 1 (2018): pp. 53-79.

Footnotes

Micheletti, Steven J., Kasia Bryc, Samantha G. Ancona Esselmann, William A. Freyman, Meghan E. Moreno G., David Poznik, and Anjali J. Shastri, Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas, The American Journal of Human Genetics 107, no. 2 (2020): 267.
Ibid.: 269.
Christer Petlkey, Slaveholders and Revolution: The Jamaican Planter Class, British Imperial Politics, and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 17751807. Slavery & Abolition 39, no. 1 (2018): 58.
Ibid.: 59.
Ibid.: 61.
Johnson Olaosebikan Aremu and Michael Ediagbonya. Trade and Religion in British-Benin Relations, 1553-1897. Global Journal of Social Sciences Studies 4, no. 2 (2018): 82.
Ibid.
Farouk Beghdadi Economy and the Shaping of the Immigration Policy of the British American Colonies (1624-1775), Traduction et Langues 17, no. 1 (2018): p. 101.
Ibid.
Ibid., 103.
Alan Gallay, The Yamasee Indians: From Florida to South Carolina (Lincoln. NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018): 236.
Ibid.: 238.
Ibid.: 251.
Mary Beth Norton, Carol Sheriff, David W. Blight, Howard Chudacoff, Fredrik Logevall. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States (Thousand Oaks, CA: Cengage Learning, 2014): p. 219.
Ibid.: 252.

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British Slave Trade and Role of Native Americans

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