The Helios Biblios Hour : PT 2 The founding black women of the Republic

These advertisements turn the masses of enslaved blacks into individual people giving them back some of the humanity that was often stripped by their masters.1 But to place them in their proper context, it is critical to examine the history of the institution of slavery in Maryland. The slave trade began in Maryland at least as early as 1644 when we find the first notice of a slave being sold. Much like the other colonies of the south and Chesapeake area, Marylanders turned to Africans to fill their labor demands primarily for economic reasons. Indentured servants from Europe could be forced to work a certain number of years, usually seven, before they became free. many of these European servants were lured by the vast amount of land available in the new world and after their time was up they wanted to establish their own farms rather than continue working for others. 2 The institution of lifetime slavery in Maryland officially began with the passing of a 1664 Act which established practices of perpetual slavery. More and more slaves were born in Maryland instead of being transported from Africa which made assimilation much easier. Women slaves, however, did not share the same opportunities as men did. Women and men were often forced to marry and have children in order to ensure that their master had enough workers to make a profit. In the eighteenth-century the slave population.continued to grow because slaves were increasingly less expensive than free white laborers. Many slaves took the freedom ideology of the prerevolutionary period and applied it to their own situation in order to obtain their own freedom. The war years brought more opportunities to men and women to run away successfully and they took advantage of them in order to make personal others ran to the British line in hopes that they would be set free. Some even ran off to form maroon communities where they could live freely among themselves.