ee white laborer
found the road to economic success had become much more difficult. To be
a successful planter meant that he had to begin with substantial capital
investments. Capitalist agriculture substantially altered the social
structure of the colony. On one hand, it created a small class of rich
and powerful white planters. On the other, it victimized the small white
planters, or white laborers, and the ever-growing mass of African slaves.

The second unique factor in American slavery was the growth of
individualism. While this democratic spirit attracted many European
immigrants, it only served to increase the burden of slavery for the
African. Instead of being at the bottom of the social ladder, the slave
in America was an inferior among equals. A society which represented
itself as recognizing individual worth and providing room for the
development of talent, rigidly organized the entire life of the slave and
gave him little opportunity to develop his skills. In America, a person's
worth became identified with economic achievement. To be a success in
Virginia was to be a prosperous planter, and white individualism could
easily become white oppression leaving no room for black individualism.
The existence of slavery in a society which maintained its belief in
equality was a contradiction which men strove diligently to ignore.

Perhaps this contradiction can be partly understood by seeing the way in
which individual rights had come into being in English society. Instead
of springing from a belief in abstract human rights, they were an
accumulation of concrete legal and political privileges which had
developed since Magna Charta. Viewing it in this light, it may have been
easier for the white colonists to insist on their rights while denying
them to the slaves. Nevertheless, the existence of slavery in the midst
of a society believing in individualism increased its dehumanizing
effects.

The third characteristic which set American slavery apart was its racial
basis. In America, with only a few early and insignificant exceptions,
all slaves were Africans, and almost all Africans were slaves. This
placed the label of inferiority on black skin and on African culture. In
other societies, it had been possible for a slave who obtained his
freedom to take his place in his society with relative ease. In America,
however, when a slave became free, he was still obviously an African. The
taint of inferiority clung to hi