GRE阅读资料之文科.docx

American historyAfrican American Slavery eraAn artists conception of Crispus Attucks (1723–1770), the first martyr of the American Revolution.Main articles: Slavery in the United States and Atlantic slave tradeThe first African slaves arrived in the present-day United States as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic and the colony was abandoned, leaving the escaped slaves behind on North American soil.In 1565, the colony of Saint Augustine in Florida, founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, became the first permanent European settlement in North America. It included an unknown number of free and enslaved Africans that were part of this colonial expedition.The first recorded Africans in British North America (including most of the future United States) arrived in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. As English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. The Africans were likely treated as indentured servants, similar in legal position to poor English indenturees, who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America.[7] Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom.[8] They raised families, marrying other Africans and sometimes intermarrying with Native Americans or English settlers.[9] By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards.The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 18th century. The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the importation of eleven black slaves i