Rights+and+Freedom

Laborers and Slavery
The settlers who came to America were mainly people looking to get rich easily; they weren't interested in working. Many settlers already had indentured servants, but they weren't enough. Poor people were taken from the streets to come to the New Land to work as indentured servants as well. However, servants would eventually be freed, and sometimes paid, and their children were always born free. Some rules for servants were:
 * Servants can't vote
 * Servants can be bought or sold
 * Servants need permission to marry
 * Servants can be punished (beaten, whipped, etc.) publicly or privately at the discretion of the owner

The enslaved Africans worked with/ in place of the servants from Europe. 

Black children took the status of their mother- because of this they were enslaved for life, as were their children, grandchildren, and so on. Slaves were treated like animals, with more rules and even fewer rights. They were worked hard; it wasn't uncommon for them to die in the fields. As if the work wasn't horrid enough, slave masters could do whatever they wanted to their slaves- including mutilation, and burning them alive. The right to beat, whip, even kill slaves was legally protected.  The settlers' religion was important to them indeed, and they allowed slaves to be baptized into Christianity, but that didn't grant them any freedom. Until slavery was legally abolished in the 1800's, slaves were horrifically abused, and worked to death, with no freedom or rights.

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. "African American Experience." //Introduction to Colonial African American Life//. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Feb 2012. . ======