Generations: A Commentary on the History of the African Immigrants and Their American Descendents

Contents

DEDICATION

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE THE AFRICANS

1 LEGACY OF THE 1619 AFRICANS

2 WHO WERE THE 1619 AFRICANS?

3 AN AFRICAN HOLOCAUST

4 THE IMMIGRANTS: AFRICANS AND EUROPEANS

PART TWO THE AMERICAN DESCENDENTS OF THE AFRICANS

5 THE GENERATIONS OF DESCENDENTS

6 THE LEGACY OF NINETEEN GENERATIONS

7 SOCIO ECONOMIC PARITY

8 RACIAL SLURS: WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE BLACK AMERICAN

9 MYTHS & MISINFORMATION

PART THREE THE BLACK AMERICAN COMMUNITY,

IN THE 21ST CENTURY

10 THE BLACK AMERICAN COMMUNITY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

11 THE BLACK AMERICAN COMMUNITY’S WORLD VIEW

12 RATING THE SOCIO ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE BLACK AMERICAN COMMUNITY

13 A MEMORIAL DAY TRIBUTE TO THE AFRICAN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEDICATION

This effort is dedicated to the members of the nineteenth (1966-1995) and twentieth generations (1986-2015) of black Americans to whom the torch is passed. For they are the generations whose academic, entrepreneurial, and moral successes will plot the course of the black American community for the next century.

It is also dedicated to my parents. It is, after all, only a composite of my heritage. They were the ones who taught me that self-esteem and self-confidence are products of the correct mixture of arrogance and humility. Also, I thank them for the notions of refined parental responsibility they, who were of the sixteenth generation (1906-1935), instilled within each of their seventeenth generation (1926-1955) children as we were growing up.

PREFACE

When water molecules are cooled to a very low temperature, they form ice. When heated to a very hot temperature, they become steam vapor. At a point between these two extremes, the H2O molecules form a liquid, their fittest state. Similarly then, the fittest state for the black American community exist somewhere between being the perennial victim and exceeding to ethnic arrogance. It is this fittest state lying between these two extremes that the black American community will attain socioeconomic resonance. And with socioeconomic resonance will come the self-esteem and self-confidence that will motivate them to achieve socioeconomic parity in the market places of America. It is the goal and objective of this commentary to alert the black American community of the urgency of applying an internal affirmative action program to launch a much-needed re-invention of it self. The success, or failure, of this work, rest quite literally upon its ability to convey certain assertions; some traditional, and others more innovative. For that to work it must become a successful town crier. Each assertion, the traditional and the more innovative, must be convincingly relayed to all living generations of the black American community. The black American community, or BAC, consists of the five, and sometime six generations of children, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great great grandparents, and even great-great-great-grandparents. Therefore, it is imperative that this commentary establishes itself as a medium akin to the historical town crier of the pre-mass-communication era. Through it, members of the parents generation will have ready access to the cultural and moral estate of the four senior generations of their generational heritage.

As stated, this commentary is as the voice of the town crier. And as the town crier’s voice is not modulated in the smooth tones of the music scale, neither are the words of this commentary necessarily compliant with the tone and writing style of classic literary form. I therefore plead your tolerance in areas where the concepts may not be as defined as they ought, nor the skills of grammar as polished as becomes a professional writer. I am after all, as a town crier, a novice. I know only that I must callout at the top of my voice in an effort to draw attention to a situation that I think warrants concern.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is not possible to acknowledge all the support and encouragement that I have received during the course of this work. However, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to some.

However, I do wish to acknowledge the motivation and source of encouragement that I received from my eleventh grade homeroom teacher back during high school. Her inspirational counseling—seemingly a thousand years ago now—provided a solid anchor for my inspiration.

To my family, I owe a corner slice of gratitude. To my daughters Jacquelyn and Theresa, thank you for your tolerance and patience. To my grand daughters Briana and Taylor, I love you both very much. Briana, forgive me for all the times that Grandpa might have been to busy.

Thanks to all of my family for allowing me to be so self-indulgent with my time—time that rightfully belonged to them.

Lastly, to the many friends and well-wishers, especially those of SBC, and to co-workers who, knowing of my aspirations, became a constant source of support and encouragement.

INTRODUCTION

AN OVERVIEW: IN THE LEGACY OF THE 1619 AFRICANS

In 1619, twenty men and women, citizens of an African country arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, aboard a man o’ warre ship. Certain historical facts tend to suggest that the ship flew the flag of Holland.

This commentary looks at the circumstances surrounding the arrival of those twenty Africans and seeks to establish continuity between them and the thirty-five million black Americans who live, work, play, and have their being in America today. In this attempt to establish continuity between the generations of the black American community, certain traditional approaches will be challenged. As one reads through this commentary, he or she will undoubtedly notice that the term black Americans is used throughout, rather than the current, and perhaps more politically correct term African-Americans. It employs the term black American because it is considered by the author to be a more generic definition of the black American community’s American nationalism. The truest characterization of the black Americans’ nationalism is of course, simply Americans. However, since the focuses of this commentary addresses both black and white Americans, black Americans is used to differentiate between them. Black Americans will be utilized when referring to the descendents of the African immigrants and the term white Americans" will be used when referring to the descendents of the European immigrants.

What makes the term black American more generic one might ask? It’s certainly not because all descendents of the African immigrants have black skin. We know that since being brought to America, the gene pool of the original African immigrants has been expanded considerably. It now includes descendents from a wide range, or assortment of other racial groups; consequently, the range of skin color variation among the black American community varies considerably. Therefore, the use of the modifier in black Americans does not intend to suggest that the descendents of the African immigrants all have black skin. It simply aligns itself with one of the more common features consistent among members of the black American community. For if one’s African hood is not sustained by the compound term black American, then neither is it sustained in the hyphenated term African-American. Hence the black American application is considered to be more generic because of its widespread use and its natural applicability, and because the opposing option constitutes a less-favorable designation of nationalism. Actually, applying of the term African-American at this late date in our American residency smacks of the classic rebuttal lines of a disenchanted stepchild who tells his disciplining stepfather, "You’re not my real daddy anyway."

There are other reasons for preferring the use of black American. The first of those reasons is that the descendents of other immigrant groups in America do not all hyphenate their American nationality. So, unless and until all Americans, the native Americans, the English, the Irish, the Germans, the Jews, the Poles, the Italians, and all other ethnic groups are prepared to hyphenate their American nationality, then neither should black Americans hyphenate theirs. Another reason is—and this one is much more personal—I believe fervently that America belongs as much to the black Americans as descendents of the African immigrants as it does to the white Americans as descendents of European immigrants. Therefore, I believe that to apply the modifier African before American is to suggest that there are Americans and then there are African-Americans. Thisdesignation seems to imply that the descendents of the African immigrants are somehow one tier removed from being true or real Americans. I take strong personal exception to any such implication, or allusion. Another reason for not using the hyphenated term is because Mr. Nelson Mandela does not refer to himself as an African-South African. And if Mr. Mandela—former president of South Africa, a man of worldwide recognition, and winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize—is comfortable describing his nationality and that of his associates as black South Africans, then what greater validation can there be for the black American community’s use of black Americans as an equally appropriate designation of their nationality?

Black Americans should abhor the use of any word, term, notion, or thought that would, in even the most remote way, suggest that they, as descendents of the Africans, are not deservedly as American as others. Furthermore, they should also refute the use of African-American as insufficient to characterize their American heritage, one that has been handed down to the black American community by ancestors who gave of themselves in much the same manner as those who served and died on the nation’s battlefields gave of themselves, to build this great and powerful nation. The black American community should hold in disdain any assertion that suggests they are more African than American. They should do this not because they love Africa less, but because, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Brutus, they love America more.

The next, and perhaps more convincing reason for discontinuing the use of the African-American designation is because members of the eleventh generation (1806-1835) voted to discontinue using it. At a black American convention held in Philadelphia in June of 1835, convention members voted to direct black Americans to stop referring to themselves as Africans. That decision was made one hundred fifty-eight years ago by a generation of black Americans who were considerably more in touch with their African roots than members of either of the current black

American community generations can boast. They also directed their members to stop identifying their businesses as African. Instead, they were to allow the names of their business, organizations, and institutions to reflect their American nationalism rather than their African past.

Such arguments as these and others contained throughout this commentary are submitted as cautionary notes to the black American community and to those who, for whatever motives, are seeking to construct an African-centered national identity for the black American community. To achieve such an objective would be the equivalent to putting the black American community on an ethnic reservation. In a sense, such an approach would have the black American community patterning itself into a new kind of reservation community. Establishing such a reservation within the social ethos of the black American community would have the unfortunate effect of being in America, but not of America. I would argue—and our heritage supports this contention—that the black American community is ofAmerica, and not just in America. All socioeconomic indicators will support the premise that the social and economic integration of the black American community is far more beneficial to its advancement, both socially and economically, than if it segregates itself from the mainstream. The real beneficiaries to a resolution of this dilemma will be black American children. Today, caught up in the confusion of who they are and where they fit, instead of seeking to become increasingly more and more integrated into the mainstream of American life, wherein is the promise of their socioeconomic advancement, they are instead, increasingly caught up in a dead-end mode of social and cultural protest; hosting attitudes and engaging in activities that will ultimately prove to be counter-productive to their own career objectives.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, there are approximately eight to nine million black American boys and girls currently in the twentieth generation (1986-2015), those born since 1986. It is time to tell them they are not children of a lesser god, nor are they children of a lesser America,but are of the same America. Therefore, my final exception to the use of African-American as a favored definition of our nationalism is on behalf of black America’s children. One need not be a practitioner of the social or psychological sciences to appreciate the potentially harmful effect such an identity crisis can have in the lives of these children. Understanding who they are and where they fit in is a valuable asset to the maturation process.

Integration into the mainstream of American life does not mean that members of the black American community must ignore their own particular mores and traditions. Even the idea of America as a melting pot does not require ethnic homogeneity. Actually, life in America is much more like a family reunion than a true melting pot. Consider the example of a typical family reunion where the heads of the extended family unit are a Mr. and Mrs. U. R. America. They live in a small town we’ll figuratively call Main Town, USA. At their family re-union in the bi-centennial year 2000, Mr. and Mrs. U. R. America’s five adult children; their nine adult grandchildren; and their twelve great-grandchildren, all minors, were in attendance. Even though this family reunion was a relatively small affair, there were fifteen different nuclear family units present. The analogy is that, even though there were fifteen different nuclear families at Mr. and Mrs. U. R. America’s family reunion, they were all of the same family. And that is also how the cultural structure of America operates. The melting-pot phenomenon provides the basis for a single cultural and national identity while recognizing the uniqueness of each individual ethnic community. Metaphorically, all in attendance were members of the Mr. and Mrs. U. R. America’s family reunion, yet each nuclear family present had its own distinct family name, its own respective other-family affiliations, and each lived in different hometowns. So in spite of all the ethnic diversity in America, as with the Mr. and Mrs. U. R. America family reunion, America’s unity is not challenged nor is the integrity of its cultural fabric offended. The individual nuclear families participating in the reunion are reflective of the many different ethnic communities existing in America.

Each has its own particular identity, origins, traditions, and operational mores but all share a common American affiliation. And all are steeped in the fundamentals of a cultural and national American identity.

The issue of national identity is not the only area where this commentary will challenge the conventional way of viewing things. Therefore, be advised that, as you read on, you will notice the use of other politically incorrect applications. In two such instances, the Africans who were brought over to America are referred to in this commentary as immigrants rather than as slaves. And, they are referred to as having been enslaved rather than being referred to as slaves. The allusion to the Africans being enslaved as opposed to being slaves may be a relatively minor point so many years later, but I am inclined to think it more consistent with the focus of this commentary. For while history does record that the Africans were enslaved, it does not record that they became slaves. That is, history does not assert that the Africans acquiesced to slavery. On the contrary, the number and frequency of protests, sabotages, insurrections, and revolts clearly suggest that though they were enslaved, they never became slaves.

The other instance in which a question might be raised is in my referring to the Africans as immigrants, again avoiding use of the term slaves. This designation is used, even though the traditional approach has always been to refer to them as slaves. My reasoning for the different approach is, on the whole, rather simple. As history records it, the Africans left Africa—the circumstances of their leaving notwithstanding—and subsequently settled in America. That simple statement also describes all other immigrants that ultimately settled in America. There may be any number of valid arguments against the use of immigrants rather than slaves, but since an immigrant is defined simply as one who leaves a country to settle permanently in another, it is not possible to disqualify the Africans from being rightfully described as immigrants. After all, this definition makes no distinction as to whether those who were leaving a country were doing so of their own free will or were being forcibly relocated. Often, immigrant groups consist of war refugees, refugees from famines, persons fleeing for, or being deported for other reasons. Such immigrants were also being forcibly relocated. So whether one is relocated as conscripted labor or otherwise within the latitude of the definition, they would be immigrants. Therefore, we were obliged to accord the Africans brought to America the same definitional status as other immigrants. Even as this is being written, there are black Americans of a particular view who will protest that the Africans were not immigrants but slaves. The contention can be seen as being analogous to a hitchhiker out to catch a ride. Simply because a would-be hitchhiker catches a ride before he or she has the opportunity to stick out a thump does not preempt his or her claim of being a hitchhiker. In the same context, it does not matter that the Africans were forced to immigrate to America. It is entirely possible that with the ever-increasing frequency of European ships trading in and out of African waters, the Africans might have, of their own volition, chosen to immigrate to American in much the same fashion as the millions of other foreigners did.

Besides, despite all the apparent differences between the status of the 1619 Africans and the 1620 Pilgrims, there were a number of similarities. Accordingly, the English immigrants—the Pilgrims—sold themselves into indentured servitude prior to leaving Europe, and upon their arrival in America, they began serving their European masters for the terms of their indentures. Conversely, the African immigrants were sold into indenture upon their arrival at Jamestown. Also, while it is true that the Africans were abducted from Africa and brought to America against their will, some Europeans were also abducted from Europe and brought to America against their will. They, too, were sold into indenture upon their arrival at Jamestown.

Part One

THE AFRICANS

"About the last of August,

came a Dutch Man o’ Warre

that sold us twenty Negroes

The Diary of John Rolfe

1

LEGACY OF THE 1619 AFRICANS

On April 12, 1990, at 11:58 P.M., my first grandchild, Briana Robinson, was born. Her birth, though precious to me, her grandfather, was in all other regards indistinguishable from the birth of a countless number of other American babies born that same month and date. However, because Briana is of African descent and because she was born between 1986 and 2015, she does bear a measure of genealogical distinction. As a black American born during that particular time period, she is representative of the twenty generations of Africans and the descendents of Africans who have called America home since that fateful day toward the last of August in 1619. It was in that year, 1619, that John Rolfe (friend, suitor, and husband to the famed native American princess Pocahontas) wrote in his personal diary, About the last of August, came a Dutch Man o’ Warre that sold us twenty Negroes. In what can surely be termed one of history’s grandest understatements, John Rolfe’s unembroidered notation, in retrospect, hardly seems an adequate or appropriate bugle call for the social and political drama that was to be played out in this country as the result of the arrival of those twenty Negroes. From this beginning—the 1619 docking in Jamestown, Virginia, of a Dutch ship, characterized by John Rolfe as a Man o’ Warre, and the sale of twenty Africans he identified as Negroes (the Spanish word for people with black skins)—began a saga that would call into account the morality of the social and political thought of America and, ultimately, of the world.

The arrival of those twenty Africans, though they were not the first Africans in America, represented the vanguard of an institution and an industry that would, for 246 years, survive in the unkempt median lying between the merging lanes of the sociopolitical practices of the past and the advancing sociopolitical concepts of the future. Unlike the simple annotation in Rolfe’s diary announcing the arrival of the 1619 Africans, the concept of advanced sociopolitical thinking arrived on the scene with the proverbial bang. Whereas Rolfe’s announcement was a precursor to the institution of slavery, the new concept of natural individual rights was a precursor of the demise of that peculiar institution. Entering the sociopolitical spectrum from the lanes of evolving religious freedom, the notion of the natural rights of the individual was ultimately destined to clash with slavery’s abject denial of such rights. Slavery, in all of its various forms, reprehensible as it is and was even then, had always managed to survive within the social and political systems of the nations of the world as integral components of their socioeconomic franchises. The convergence of these two events, as though engaged in a turf war over morality, would, years later, crash into each other with the sound of cannon fire at Fort Sumter. Actually, that proverbial bang manifested itself as two separate bangs. The first—more like bang, bang, bang—occurred as the resultant sounds of Martin Luther’s hammer as he nailed his ninety-five theses onto the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, almost one hundred years before the 1620 arrival of the Puritans in America. That action would subsequently be interpreted as the beginning of the Reformation movement. More properly called the Protestant Reformation, it began as a movement against what Luther considered to be papal abuses by the Catholic Church. Instead of internal reformation within the Catholic Church, his revolt actually signaled the beginnings of an entirely new denominational doctrine. The doctrinal revisions were not simply about church structure and disciplines but also in the fundamental concepts of the individual’s relationship to God and the church. Under the movement, the individual was defined not as an insubstantial link inthe chain of beings, but essentially as executor of his own religious, social, and political estate.

History of Slavery as a System of Labor Management

At one time or another, almost all the world’s countries have utilized slavery. Institutionalized slavery as a labor distribution system dates from the time of the ancient Babylonian empire. While details surrounding the social life of the average Babylonian four thousand years ago are scant, it is known that as early as 2100 B.C. Babylonian society was made up of both free persons and slaves. Babylonian business transactions written onto clay tablets speak of Babylonian landowners or plantation owners using slave labor to work their farms. From the time of Babylon until its gradual emancipation during the later part of the 1800s, slavery in its various forms had been utilized as the accepted and almost exclusive system of labor management and the distribution of labor. The use and institution-alization of slavery in Europe began with the Greeks in the eighth century B.C. and spread rapidly. Almost three thousand years ago, in 750 B.C. certain events occurred that caused the Greek civilization to face a large and sudden demand for additional manpower, not unlike the one Europeans encountered following their discovery of the Americas. To meet such demands, the Greeks enslaved their European war captives. Almost two thousand years later, in the face of similar demands, the Europeans enslaved African war captives. The parallels between the action taken by the ancient Greeks and those taken two thousand years later by the Europeans are striking. They are not the only similarities. Around 700 B.C. the Greeks had greatly expanded their influence in the region in and around the Black Sea and; like the western Europeans of the much later sixteenth century, were enjoying the benefits of being the most advanced civilization of their respective period. The industrial achievements of the seventh-century Greeks were tantamount to the seventeenth-centuryindustrial revolution of Europe. It was also during that time that the oppressive rule of Greek noblemen was beginning to have a negative impact upon the living standards of the Grecian peasantry. In response, large numbers of the peasants and farmers sought new lands to harvest that were outside the control of the nobles. Conversely, although in sixteenth-century Europe the issue was not land, the oppression of religious freedoms had a very similar effect upon the European peasantry.

Greek merchants, supported by an increasing industrial capacity, were also seeking greater outlets for their goods. Their trading stations, located among the primitive Europeans who inhabited those distant regions, offered the disconnected farmers of Greece plenty of land with which to begin life all over again. Prior to the 600 B.C. expansion, the farmers and trading merchants had encircled the Black Sea with an assortment of settlements and villages. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Greeks had colonized practically all of the large islands of Cyprus as far away as Egypt across the Mediterranean and had sought and received permission to establish trading sites. One such site was located at the very spot where, hundreds of years later, another Greek, Alexander the Great, would establish the city of Alexandria. But even with all the expansion the Greeks had made into the eastern region around the Black Sea and to the south into Egypt, they still had not ventured much westward. That area had not been charted by any ocean voyages and had remained virtually unknown to them.

In later years though, this unknown West would become the America of the early Greek colonialists. The Greeks explored Western Europe, a land they might have called the Dark Continent. Flourishing cities like Corinth, located on the isthmus of the Mediterranean, sprang up throughout the region. Their trade dealings with the western coast of Greece helped push the expansion northward along the Grecian coast. It was only a short voyage from the western coast of Greece to the coast of Italy. These coastlines were to the seventh-century B.C. Greeks what the

Americas were to the fifteenth-century A.D. European explorers—new worlds. The Greeks discovery was every bit as momentous for them as the discovery of America was for the Europeans. By 750 B.C., Greek colonies begun to be established in the new western world. And within a hundred years their settlements and towns were all the way past present-day Naples. (As a point of note, the city of Naples had its beginning as a Greek colonial settlement. The colonizing Greeks called the city Neopolis, or New City.) The colonizing of America produced similar new cities such as New York, New Hampshire, and New Orleans. Greek settlements in this particular region of southern Italy became so numerous that the area became known as Greater Greece. Again, a parallel exists between the Greeks, Greater Greece and the European’s New England. Just imagine: Had the Greeks elected to colonize Africa rather than Western Europe, it would have been an African archaeologist who would be pondering the ruins of past Europeans civilizations. As the Greek colonists crossed over into Sicily, they continued to live in the relatively affluent lifestyle of their homeland. As a result, they demanded extensive distribution of Greek-made products. Their colonial expansion, with the growth of industries in the Greek cities, worked almost like an overlay for the events that would follow more than two thousand years later.

Improvement in the manufacturing techniques and expansion among businessmen and manufacturers’ interests led to some rather profound changes in the structure of Greek society. The new colonies of Western Europe not only had needs of their own, but they also made connections with the inland native peoples. This opened the extensive regions of Europe as a market for product made in Greek factories. As the colonizing Europeans influenced the lives of Native Americans, it was also from the much-superior Greek civilization that the primitive cultures of Europe were first introduced to things such as writing, literature, architecture, and art. Before very long, great commercial fleets of Greek trading ships carry Greek metal works, woven goods, and pottery to far distant communities.

They brought back finished products and raw foodstuffs and materials such as grain, fish, and amber. To meet the increasing demands for manufactured goods, the Greek craftsmen were forced to enlarge their small shops, which had heretofore been only large enough to supply the wants of a single estate and now had to be expanded to meet the need of a growing world market. The demand for additional manufactured goods placed large and sudden demands upon the available Greek labor supply. In response to this demand, Greek proprietors, unable to find the necessary workmen, began buying European war captives from the Greek military for use as slaves who were then trained to work in the shops and factories. Even though slavery was introduced into Greek society because of the specific need for an increase labor supply, the institution of slavery took hold and remained entrenched in Greek society for at least the next twenty-five hundred years.

As slavery was with the Greeks, so it was with the Romans. After the decline of the Greek empire, Rome—which had been among the beneficiaries of the Greek colonial expansion—emerged as the region’s prominent political power. Between 200 and 150 B.C., the Roman Empire expanded rapidly. To support that rapid expansion, the Romans utilized and maintained large military forces. Drafted into its military ranks were a large number of men who normally would have been making their living by working small family farms. While these farmers were serving out their military enlistments away from their farms, more and more farming acreage was being left unattended. Worse yet, as more and more land was being left unattended, the military, through conquest, was at the same time bringing more and more lands under Roman control. So while the small family farmers were out fighting the wars, wealthy landowners back home were buying up huge estates. To meet the large and sudden demand for manpower, those wealthy landowners began buying war captives from the Roman military for use as slaves. These persons were then trained to work these large farms or plantations. Over the years, the Roman system for utilization of slaves as a labor force evolved into a system of shared harvest. Under this system, which served as the model for the use of sharecroppers in the post-Civil War American South, the persons actually working the land would share the harvest with the wealthy landowner. This system, by giving those who worked the farms an actual interest in the harvest, allowed the landowners to live away from the plantation; with perhaps only an overseer remaining on the property to look after things.

Roman slavery as characterized in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Roman laws, in the heyday of the empire, treated the slave as mere chattel. The master possessed over him the power of life and death; the slave could not contract a legal marriage, or any other kind of contract; in fact he possessed no civil rights; in the eyes of the law he was not a person. Nevertheless the settlement of natural justice asserted itself sufficiently to condemn, or at least disapprove, the conduct of masters who treated their slaves with signal inhumanity

Feudalism as a System of Labor Management

As the Roman Empire declined, its labor management and distribution system gradually evolved into the system of medieval feudalism that dominated the whole of Europe by the fourteenth century. Feudalism, as a labor management and distribution system, relied heavily upon the relationship between a lord and his vassal. Down in hierarchy from the vassals were the serfs. The lord was like the plantation owner, and a vassal was comparable to a plantation overseer, who was himself a slave. The vassals would actually operate the farm on behalf of the lord, and the serfs would work the farm. Whereas the social positions of lord were subject to mobility, the position of the vassals and serfs were not. If you were a serf on a particular farm, you would remain so all your life, as would your childrenand their children. You could not move nor leave the plantation, and you, your children, and grandchildren would be forever owned by the lord of the manor, and after him, by his children, and after them, then by his children’s children. Serfs could not obtain their freedom except by governmental emancipation. To the serfs of Europe, emancipation came very slowly. While the French emancipated their serfs during the latter part of the fourteenth century the English across the channel, continued the use of Feudalism for another hundred years. Feudalism was finally abolished in England during the mid part of the fifteenth century. In other European states such as Prussia, serfdom continued until 1807; and in Austria, Poland, Italy, and Spain, serfs were not emancipated until the mid part of the nineteenth century. In Russia, where living conditions and social disenfranchisement of serfs were quite possibly even worse than those of the average enslaved black American, emancipation did not come until March 3, 1861, just two years, eleven months and twenty-seven days before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that abolished slavery in America. (Coincidentally, as President Lincoln was assassinated following his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Emperor Alexander II of Russia was also assassinated soon after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the Russian serfs.)

With the decline of feudalism and the emancipation of the serfs throughout most of Europe, workers, most of whom were peasants, gradually began to take charge of their own employment opportunities. These were undoubtedly the conditions that existed when the discovery and colonization of the Americas placed a sudden demand upon Europe for large supplies of workers. Since settlements in the New World were obviously too scarcely populated to meet the large-scale demand for workers, the colonies turned to Europe for manpower. This sudden demand prompted the creation of a new form of labor management and distribution. Actually, it was not so much a new form as it was a revisited version of feudalism, a system that was then being phased out, as free-enterprise capitalism was rapidly becoming the dominant factor in economic management. Although most of Western Europe had, with the advent of free enterprise capitalism, emancipated their serfs over a hundred years before, those serfs were, with some modifications, summoned back into servitude in an effort to meet the rising labor demands brought on by the discovery of the New World. It is appropriate to note here that it was this same neo-feudalism that would ultimately be translated as slavery when applied in the New World. Meanwhile, participants in the new modified labor management and distribution system were referred to as indentured servants.

In indenture agreements, the persons serving the indenture—usually peasants—agreed to go to the colonies and work there for a number of years, usually four to seven, in exchange for the cost of their passage. After working for the number of years, they had agreed to, they were then given a change of clothing; some land, a gun, and were set free to pursue their own fortunes. Although the indenture program was generally entered into willingly, there were numerous abuses wherein persons were simply kidnapped from the streets of England and sold into indentured servitude.

Feudalism as a System of Labor Management in the New World

During the seventeenth century, more than half of the manpower demand of