The Precedent to Slavery in North America tracing the origins of slavery or racism in either sense, one must keep in mind that neither is an event or circumstance that occurred in North America in the 17th through 19th centuries. We must examine slavery as an institution and racism as a mentality defined by the oppressor, independent to the oppressed.

Europeans who came to North America in the 17th century were predisposed to the institution of slavery. Slavery had long since been a proactive institution in South America. Africans were also slaves in Europe before 1619. Slave trades that preceded the Trans-Atlantic slave trade also show evidence that there were black slaves in Europe from many centuries. Therefore, Europeans never arrived in the colonies with the thought that slavery was not a natural human institution, or that blacks were equal to them and deserving of rights.

We must look at slavery not as an event or what happened (or didn’t happen) to an individual, but as an institution that existed as real as the air we breathe for centuries. Late in the 18th century anti-miscegenation laws are an example of whites attempt to define systematic supremacy over blacks. Many whites feared that blacks were not worthy have or deserving the very rights and freedom that they were fighting for in the American Revolution. Whites have constantly oppressed and exploited blacks for their own self-aggrandizement. It was this selfish mind and racist disposition that caused race slavery in the North America. This mindset was established in Europe and carried on to the colonies as a tool for enslaving generations of African descendent people.

The racist views that derived from European’s predisposed bias against blacks were a justification the race-based slavery that existed in North American beginning in the 17th century. Whites had a negative proclivity towards blacks in pre-colonial times.

We must also not let the successes of very few blacks subtract from the fact that most blacks were slaves. “Africans pre-17th century could be indentured servants as well as slaves. Few acquired considerable property as well as slaves.”(Foner, 150) They were by far the envied minority. Their status also began to deteriorate by the late 17th century as well as other free blacks. Europeans indentured servants came to America voluntarily searching for in essence, the “American

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