Question

What change in the status of African Americans was taking place in the

early 1700s?
A. More and more African Americans were being freed from slavery
B. The number of enslaved Africans being brought to the colonies decreased
C. All Africans brought to the colonies after 1705 were categorized as slaves
D. African Americans were given the right to vote

Answer 1

The change in the status of African Americans in the early 1700s included the consolidation of the racial slavery system with the 1705 Virginia Slave Codes, transforming the earlier fluid status of Africans to property-based slavery and leading to the creation of a distinctive African-American culture.

Step-by-step explanation:

In the early 1700s, a significant change in the status of African Americans was the formalization of laws that codified the system of racial slavery, particularly with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. Before this, the status of Africans in America was more fluid, with some able to earn freedom or own land akin to European immigrants.

This changed as laws increasingly defined slaves as property and denied them fundamental rights, marking a shift in the colonies from indentured servitude to a reliance on hereditary racial slavery.

By the 1720s, this led to the development of a distinctive African-American culture among the American-born descendants of Africans in Maryland.