Final answer:
Slavery became acceptable in the colonies because it was economically beneficial and helped establish a sense of shared racial identity among White colonists.
Legal foundations solidified racial slavery, especially following events like the Stono Rebellion and Bacon's Rebellion, which led to a division of class and race to maintain a permanent labor force and social hierarchy.
Step-by-step explanation:
By the late eighteenth century, racial slavery was deeply rooted in the colonial society, with the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland, as well as the Low Country colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, heavily relying on slavery for economic prosperity.
This not only created a wealthy plantation aristocracy but also forged a political ruling class that valued the liberty and freedom made possible by slave labor.
In the British North American economy, slavery influenced colonial thought and culture, endowing White colonists with an exaggerated sense of their own status and a shared racial identity against the enslaved Black population.
The Stono Rebellion and subsequent restrictive laws exemplified the solidifying system of apartheid that defined social hierarchies based on race, ultimately rendering slavery a widely accepted institution.
The transformation of slavery into a permanent and inheritable status for Africans, distinct from indentured servitude, further entrenched the practice.
Crucially, the legal foundations of slavery established in the Carolinas, influenced by the Barbados slave codes, and Virginia's reactionary laws following Bacon's Rebellion, codified a racially based slavery system that both met labor demands and tempered class conflicts among Whites by creating a shared societal enemy in the enslaved Black population.