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In this chapter of Inhuman Bondage, Davis is sure to emphasize the complexity of the institution of colonial slavery. Davis is always careful of traditional boundaries and conceptions, and nothing changes in his conception of the colonist’s treatment of enslaved peoples. One of Davis’s more interesting points was that “the lives of white workers who did emigrate, and who were typically bound to work for a master for seven years, were not significantly different from the lives of most slaves.” (127). Additionally, Davis makes sure to point out the discrepancies between slavery in the different regions while also maintaining that it is inaccurate to think of slavery not existing in the north—for example, “black slaves performed one-third of all physical labor in New York city.”
Another interesting argument Davis makes in this chapter is that the origins of racism happened when slavery become more exclusively black. This, when combined with “white workers increasingly [resenting] the competition from slave workers” (131) made for a dangerous mentality. Later on, racial solidarity would allow for racism against black people in full force, despite the somewhat more tolerant treatment slaves had experienced at the outset of their use in American colonies.
Sperry wrote a blog post that talked about our first reading in Inhuman Bondage and the cruel treatment that slaves faced when being brought the North America. I find it very interesting that the same enslaved people that faced such bad treatment on the way over may have found better treatment in their new “master’s” home depending on where they ended up. I had never considered the regional differences in slave treatment prior to this reading. Davis is similar to Taylor in that he does not use very many long quotes from primary sources, but rather shorter examples in the form of quotes.