Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Miller on Indian Slavery in Virginia

Robert J. Miller, Arizona State University-Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, has posted Virginia's First Slaves: American Indians:
A little known fact of American history and law is the ubiquitous legal enslavement of Indian peoples over much of what is now the United States during colonial and early American times. In the Virginia colony, it seems that the first slaves of the English settlers were local Indian peoples and then large numbers of Indians captured elsewhere and transported to Virginia to serve as slaves on plantations. Much of this activity appears to have occurred before Virginian planters and traders began importing Africans to be enslaved. Complicating this history is that several Indian nations and many individual Indians actively participated with the English in raiding, enslaving, and trading Indians from other tribes and cultures and transporting them to Virginia, other American colonies, and even to the Caribbean.