Intimidation, Violence, and Race in British America

Abstract

In British colonies on the North-American mainland, a political and economic elite employed violence and intimidation to control white subordinates, neighboring Indians, and enslaved blacks. Contemporary laws, customs, and symbols sanctioned much of its brutality. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, colonial authorities altered their methods and strategies to accommodate changing priorities, concerns, and demographics. Lawmakers and officials were very deliberate-one might even say discriminating-in their use of violence and intimidation, carefully considering the race and economic value of the targeted individual, or group, as well as possible repercussions. By contrast, men of lesser means (especially those living in the interior) tended to be more spontaneous in their interactions with servants, slaves, and Native Americans, employing random violence, intimidating through action rather than laws or threats, and sometimes discovering that unchecked power was not in anyone's best interest.

Transformative Justice, Reparations and Transatlantic Slavery

“…As David Brion Davis (1975: 489) has observed, Rousseau was arguing in the 18 th -century that 'the justifications for slavery were no more absurd than the justifications for all forms of privilege and inequality'. The codification of chattel slavery in the Americas also built upon cultural and legal precedents from Europe (Beckles, 1998: 227-233;Christopher, 2010 Navin, 2015). In the early colonial period, the development of slavery took place alongside other forms of coerced and unfree labour which, whilst less severe than chattel slavery, helped to build the mechanisms for a racialised chattel slave system.…”

“…As Blackburn (2011a: 21) notes, ‘[t]he Spanish and Portuguese use of African slaves was heavily influenced by medieval, Mediterranean and Roman legacies’. Similarly, the development of cruel and barbaric punishments in the codification of slavery reflected the use of violence within European societies (see, for instance, Navin, 2015). In the early colonial period, the development of slavery took place alongside other forms of coerced and unfree labour which, whilst less severe than chattel slavery, helped to build the mechanisms for a racialized chattel slave system.…”