Although the twenty Africans brought into Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 arrived by virtue of the slave trade, they actually became indentured servants, Thus, they eventually gained their freedom, and some later actually owned slaves themselves. By the 1640

Although the twenty Africans brought into Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 arrived by virtue of the slave trade, they actually became indentured servants, Thus, they eventually gained their freedom, and some later actually owned slaves themselves. By the 1640s, however, the practices of enslaving Africans for life and hereditary servitude (the permanent enslavement of the children of slaves) had been established in Virginia and, within the following two decades, had achieved legal recognition. The increased importation of tobacco by the English, as their appetite for this commodity soared, facilitated the rise of a large scale tobacco plantation system in Virginia, and by the 1690s most of Virginia’s slaves were being imported directly from Africa, With the introduction and legalization of slavery in 1750 in Georgia, a system of black bondage became common to all of the thirteen colonies.Although a few native American groups were enslaved in colonial America (especially between the 1670s and the early 1700s in Carolina, where predatory raids victimized the Timucas, Guaus, and Apalachees), Africans, for several reasons, became America’s prime bondsmen. Indians were familiar with the terrain and could thus easily run away, and there was fear that their enslavement would bring about continual warfare and also disrupt the lucrative fur trade. Europeans, because of their color, could escape and be mistaken easily as free persons. there were also european indentured servants.