Begin by introducing students to the changes and laws that fully shifted indentured servitude to slavery in the United States. 

The system of race-based slavery developed due to a variety of factors which contributed to a rise in both the number of African laborers and an establishment of laws to establish chattel slavery. Life expectancy in the Southern colonies improved and significant numbers of White indentured servants could be expected, for the first time, to outlive the terms of their indentures. As these newly free laborers demanded land and political representation, wealthy landowners sought to create systems of labor that would be permanently enslaved. At the same time, the British crown issued a charter to the Royal African Company, establishing a monopoly on the slave trade in West Africa, which provided laborers from Africa that were less costly than contracting indentured sevants in Europe. As Black laborers rose in number, old paths to freedom, such as lawsuits using claims based on religion or parentage, manumission in a landowner’s will, or the purchase of one’s own freedom, were gradually made illegal or were increasingly rare.