S

SlaveCodes.org

@slavecodes.org

348 Followers 97 Following

SlaveCodes.org publishes slave codes from the days of chattel slavery across the Americas. The codes are translated in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

The Development of Mastery and Race in the Comprehensive Slave Codes of the Greater Caribbean during the Seventeenth Century
- Edward B. Rugemer

"The assembly deployed a relatively new word, white, in its Servant Act
of 1681, a change that illuminates the continued efforts of the English in the Caribbean to racialize slavery. Previous servant acts had consistently used the term Christian to refer to European indentured servants, but Jamaica’s 1681 Servant Act dropped Christian in favor of white. As previously discussed, the Barbados Assembly in its 1661 comprehensive acts made clear distinctions between “Christian servants” and “Negro slaves.” But though Barbadians had begun to articulate the language of race in their description of the “Negro,” the law had not employed the term white.

The word white as a description of Europeans had emerged gradually
and inconsistently.

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #6,029,907!