Here's the public policy chapter I mentioned above:

A National Public Policy on Black People

By Claud Anderson
A chapter from his book: Black Labor White Wealth
Chapter 7

... The public policy on the use of blacks developed incrementally until it became like an onion with many layers. It began taking shape in 1619 and evolved into a systematic, mandated social arrangement that dictated the behavior of both blacks and whites. The policy's core principle stipulated that blacks were to be used as a well-disciplined, uncompensated, subordinated, noncompetitive, permanent labor class that existed on the margins of society.

The national public policy determined black peoples' human worth and status as well as their educational and political opportunities and their cultural and family values. The dominant white society's national public policy explicitly and implicitly defined how blacks were to be treated and used.

Public policy is important for blacks to study because it gives clear insight into the process and methods that the dominant society used to establish absolute control over millions of blacks as a laboring class. But equally important, it shows blacks who are seeking to gain power through community organizing the way whites constructed a national black policy and plan. Understanding that plan is essential to the shaping of a new public policy for blacks.

The public policy was formulated from racial dogmas and doctrines that justified the policy. The doctrine of racial superiority legitimized the exclusion and segregation of blacks from mainstream white society. The doctrine of noninterference dissuaded governments and social institutions from using their resources and power to stop the abuse of black people. And the doctrine of expendability promoted the belief that black life was non-sacred and that there was nothing wrong with using blacks for the betterment and protection of white life. These policy doctrine and dogmas continue to determine the quality of life for whites and blacks in America today.

How the National Policy on Blacks Developed

European culture set the stage of the exploitative use of black Africans, and the social and physical conditions of life in the New World drove the English to construct an aggressive strategy to enslave them. No single factor compelled Europeans to seek out blacks to serve as labor class of the New World. Many factors converged simultaneously.

The English people, like most Europeans, harbored racist attitudes towards black people long before the first settlers arrived on the North American continent. The European traders and explorers to Africa had brought back stories about "The Dark Continent" and its dark-skinned "heathens." The 17th century Anglo-Saxon culture was filled with anti-black terms, and the first English settlers brought their prejudices with them to America.

The first 20 black entered Jamestown in 1619 on Dutch warship. Whether or not these black were slaves in a matter of interpretation, because the records from that period are scant. But it is reasonable to assume that they were not considered slaves initially. They had been rescued from a Portuguese slave-trade vessel by the Dutch warship. They were brought to Jamestown and the Dutch captain exchange them for food and ship supplies. If the Dutch captain indebted the blacks in the exchange, it was probably as indentured servants, because records revealed that within five years, these blacks were free to buy land, carry weapons, go to court, attend church and generally socialize with settlers until the late 1630s.

The cycle of black degeneration in the American colonies was well under way by the late 1630s. Labor was critical. No one was available to do the backbreaking work, not even the free blacks. Word of the terrible work condition had gotten back to Europe and whites refused to come to America as indentured servants. Colonial courts and legislative assemblies had begun to enact punitive legislation or rulings against blacks or any whites who consorted with them.

As discussed earlier in Mr. Anderson's book, the Maryland colony set the stage for black slavery in America by issuing a government policy that singled blacks out for subordinate and exclusionary treatment. Based upon available records, scatted incidences of Indian, white and black slavery were appearing in the Maryland colony as early as 1634. But four years later, in 1638, the first public edict or policy against blacks was issued by the Maryland Colonial Assembly. That edict declared that neither the original 20 free blacks "nor their offspring shall be permitted to enjoy the fruits of white society." This Maryland edict became the founding public policy for the use and treatment of blacks from which white racism, Jim Crowism and segregation later grew.

~S~