Red, White & Black Make Blue
Chapter 5 pages 73-77
- Godin Guerard, the owner of Jupitor who ran away, described him as being "yellow" because he was part Native and part African. This was a very common thing for the slaves to interbreed. They were known as "mustee".
Indentured Slave 2
As plantation sizes grew and trading became more popular, there was a point where there were more people enslaved than there were free white men. In 1708, Indians made up 25% of the slave population. After the Yamassee War in 1715, the number of enslaved natives decreased drastically as the Africans were seen as more fit to do the job. The colonists also felt that because of their skin tone, it allowed for them to better stand out as a slave.
Natives destroyed the colonists, raiding plantations along the way. In 1717 the war came to an end when the Cherokee sided with the colonists causing the natives to finally withdraw. They migrated to St Augustine and split off into the Seminole and Hitchiti tribes.
Post war, the natives now traded with the colonists for land, deerskin and maps and the use of Indian slavery dwindled.
The skills that the African slaves brought to the colonists was more important to growing rice and dying with indigo. The slave owners would watch and take notes of how they would work. The entire time never knowing the real toll all of their work was taking on their bodies.
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