Chapter 3 - The Giddy Multitude

Chapter three is The Giddy Multitude the hidden origins of slavery. In Ronald Takaki’s book I learned some facts that I had never before heard of. According to the book the first Africans arrived in England around 1554, and they were called Negroes or Caliban. Then we move on to Virginia were some of the first American slaves had went to. In the details that are enclosed in the book we learn that quite a few English people were here in America as indentured servants. The white indentured servants were just those indentured servants, only to work to repay the debt they had made mostly on their voyage to America. People who owned land began to realize that they could make a bigger profit from a black slave, than English indentured servant. The slave trade began by sending African slaves to Virginia. The ones who were already there who were indentured servants status was often changed to work forever. The English and African people were very unhappy with their lives working for the service of others. Many of them hatched plans to escape, and many did but often were caught and severely punished for trying to escape. The white servants were punished less severely than the African slaves. Another problem was that many white people both male and female were having children with African Americans, those who were received punishment for so called violation of racial purity. Even though they were few incidents of this behavior Virginia originally was only made up of two percent of African Americans. The country of Barbados in the same time period, half the population were African slaves. The English at first did not want to operate America in the same fashion not wanting to have a biracial society, and second they were not trying to raise money to go back they instead wanted to permanently settle here in America. They eventually gave in and imported more slaves, even though they were risking the hierarchical society they had began forming. The book also informs us on the life of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a slave owner; he also had a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian of his slaves. We also find evidence that he felt guilty for owning slaves, and wanted to develop a plan to send them back to their land for them to start over again. Basically in the overall summary of this chapter we learn that society with racism was brought to the America from England. W e also learned that white people suffered some but their punishment varied greatly from that of the African Americans.