John Harpham (University of Oklahoma)

The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery

The period from 1550 to 1700 was critical in the development of slavery in the English Atlantic world. Over the course of this period, ideas about slavery were oriented around answers to a central question: how could free persons be made into slaves? John Samuel Harpham demonstrates that English authors found answers to this question in a tradition of ideas that stretched back to the ancient world and found most powerful expression in Roman law.

The Roman tradition had located the main source of slavery in war: enslavement was the common fate of captives who could otherwise have been killed. In early-modern English culture, this account was incorporated into studies of the common law and the influential natural rights theories produced by authors from Grotius to Locke. The important reports from Africa in this period were received into a culture saturated in Roman ideas, and the common customs of enslavement among the nations of Africa were seen to fit within the Roman model. At first, Englishmen had expressed reluctance to take part in the Atlantic commerce in African persons. But once assured that the slave trade could be traced back to customs that they understood to be legitimate, Englishmen proved themselves keen to profit from human bondage.

The persons responsible for the development of slavery in the English Atlantic world believed that what they did was legitimate as well as profitable. In this important new account, John Samuel Harpham examines how this could have been the case.