Slavery - Always equated with "African" slavery?

In the reading of Out of Many, by various authors, the focus is on the African slavery of colonial America. The African slavery account is one that is rightly recorded as of the most brutal sort in all history, beginning with the inhumane and reckless Middle Passage, and later how displaced Africans were transported to colonial America to serve out the rest of their condemned lives under the ruthless oppression of the plantation owners who sought cheap labor.

But I think that Zinn's work in A People's History of the United States provides a more balanced account of the type of slavery that was found in colonial America. For example, in chapter 3, page 35, Zinn describes how English residents were also exploited for colonial labor:

"In the 1600's and 1700's, by forced exile, by lures, promises, and lies, by kidnapping, by their urgent need to escape the living conditions of the home country, poor people wanting to go to America became commodities of profit for merchants, traders, ship captains, and eventually their masters in America." (Italics mine).

Generally, when we think of slavery in colonial America, we think of the African slavery, and not of the "White" slavery that colonial America also benefited from commercially. African slavery carries a much more ominous spirit, being that it was reinforced by already existing racism and the belief that Africans were "heathen" and thus not under the grace of God. Africans were ripe for exploitation in the eyes of greedy European merchants for these reasons and more, but this did not prevent the exploitation of White lower-class peoples. The reference in Out of Many to the conscientious objection to Christian slavery was more than likely the Clergy's exercise in formalistic but empty perceived piety, and not representative of those desperate Europeans who were looking for financial gain in a time of little opportunity.

The White underclass who were also condemned to a short existence in the harsh reality of colonial America were not as easily identified by their skin color, but the stratification of European society identified them as useless and of no real value to "civilized" society, and thus also well suited for indentured servitude.

One cannot deny how some White underclass persons were exploited in nearly the same manner as African persons, being involuntarily drug from their homeland via horrific sea passage to a foreign world of harsh servitude and crushing work. This is because the slaver traders and plantation owners alike saw these two groups in the very same manner, as COMMODITIES to be exploited for their selfish gain. There may have existed distinctions in the types of contempt, either racial or caste, but not in how they lacked seeing the dignified existence as human beings.

Ironically, revolts against their masters among these two groups were sabotaged by promoting the very insidious racist views of the elite into the underclass. Zinn states that "racism was becoming more and more practical" in its use by the elite to control the serving class. Thus the White slave was converted into a weapon of social disruption against the otherwise merging societies of African and White slaves, and once again the elite class maintained their status on the backs of now two distinct groups instead of the slowly homogenizing one, that of White servants and African slaves.

Below you will find a 13 minute video on the enslavement of the White underclass in colonial America. It is not the most scholarly source I could find, but what it lacks in reference and citations, it makes up for in dramatization and production. If the video doesn't work (which often times it doesn't), follow the link below it to see it direct on the Google source page.




White Slavery In Colonial America

SOURCES:

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

White Slavery in Colonial America. Dir. Randall C. Smith. Online video. Video.Google.com. 2006. URL.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. HarperCollins Publishers; New York, New York. 2005.