Download Chesapeake Colonies

Colonial American society
• You will view three slide shows in my
absence. This is the first
• This will give you just enough of an
understanding of America’s colonial
institutions to help you make sense of the
course of US history
• You will view these at home, and read an
associated document in class the next day
First, a little reality--America was not “discovered” by Europeans, nor
was it empty. Major and minor Indian tribes filled the hemisphere, and
some had societies just as advanced as the Europeans. As many
were farming tribes, they had already altered the landscape
profoundly--in fact, New England had already been converted into
farmland through tree clearing before the Pilgrims even arrived.
2ndly, as these
maps suggest,
the English had
the smallest
area of control
in the “New
World.”
Spain’s territory
was the largest,
followed by
France.
Even Portugal’s
land holdings
were larger.
More interestingly, the Spanish and French colonials worked very closely
with the Indians in their empires. They baptized them, and often
intermarried with them. The English refused to do this. See if you can
figure out why as we go along (and also--think of the consequences of this).
We will take a closer look at
“New Spain” next
semester, and we will skip
“New France” altogether.
Instead, you are going to
take a closer look at two
regions in the British
colonies-1. The Chesapeake colonies
(which will also help
explain the Lower South
Colonies)
2. And the New England
Colonies.
The
Chesapeake
Colonies
Jamestown is the oldest
English settlement in what
would become the US, but
historians don’t talk about it
very much.
We prefer to remember the
Pilgrims in Massachusetts,
even though they came later
and did less interesting stuff.
This slide show will give you
hints about Americans prefer
not to remember Jamestown.
Unsurprisingly, the Chesapeake colony was not founded on this basis.
MelGibson/Capt John Smith was not rescued by Pocahontas, in the
company of talking animals and poorly written musical numbers.
It was more like this:
“The systematic slaughter of the Powhatan Indians … reached its
apogee in Virginia during the 1650s, yet it proceeded without
interruption until the entire Chesapeake had been ethnically cleansed
of its diverse indigenous peoples. Estimates vary on the number of
Chesapeake Indians dispossessed and massacred for their rich
tidewater lands, but whatever figure to which historians eventually
agree is beside the point. All acknowledge it was conscious and
deliberate genocide. By the end of the seventeenth century only
charred remains were left of Chesapeake Indian society. Virginia
colony administrators referred to the genocide as ‘land improvement.’”
--from The Origin of Violence in Virginia: A Brief History By
Jonathan Scott
Boring informational slide
The first thing is, the English colonies in the “New World” were not
founded by the King’s army, or by armor-clad conquistadores, as in the
Spanish colonies, or even by Mel Gibson. They were founded by private
companies, called joint-stock companies, which were made up by a
number of investors pooling their money together (like modern
corporations).
These joint-stock companies wanted to make profits of the raw materials
found in America, while others hoped to find gold.
Furthermore, some English officials hoped to push the increasing
numbers of poor and unemployed people out of the cities and across the
ocean.
In other words, the early colonists were not seeking religious asylum as in
Massachusetts. They were either company investors or workers hired by
the company. And they were pretty incompetent at the beginning.
May, 1607. 3 ships from the London Company land in Virginia, with
orders to find gold and a sea-route to India (!) A record log tells us that
within a month they were able to complete the building of a large
triangular fort on the banks of a river the Indians knew as "Powhatan's
River," or "Powhatan's Flu." The settlers named it the James, after their
King.
Interesting informational slide 1
“At first the climate seemed mild, the Indians friendly. As a military officer
named John Smith wrote, "heaven and earth never agreed better to
frame a place for man's habitations.”
Then came blistering heat, swarms of insects spawned in the nearby
wetlands, unfit water supplies, typhus, starvation, fierce winters, Indian
attacks, shiploads of inappropriately-prepared "Colonists" (sent from a
changing England that had no other place for them), and even a period of
tyrannical martial law when missing church 3 times was a capital offense”
From http://www.tobacco.org/History/Jamestown.html
Interesting informational slide 2
“The troubles were exacerbated by the colonists themselves. Many of
them we could call gentlemen-adventurers, "whose breeding," a
contemporary said, "never knew what a day's labour meant." These were
men, often lesser scions of nobility, with no future in overpopulated
England, who were lured by the Virginia Company with promises of land
and wealth--much as people were lured to California during the Gold
Rush. But there was no gold in Virginia, and these "prospectors" didn't
know how to farm, didn't know how to hunt, and--possibly feeling
betrayed by the Virginia Company's promises, and lacking any land of
their own--were not known for their spirit of cooperation either among
themselves, nor with the local Indians of the Powhatan confederacy.”
From http://www.tobacco.org/History/Jamestown.html
John Smith
This guy was a tough little s.o.b.
who took over leadership in 1608,
expelled the governor, ordered
the gentlemen to work, formed an
army to defend the fort from
Indians, and tried to make peace
with the neighboring tribes.
Pocahontas did not fall in love
him, though he claimed she did
save his life when her father
Powhatan wanted to kill him.
He lied a lot…but is credited with
saving the settlement.
And then he was sent home in
1609, and things got worse…
Interesting informational slide 3
“Then another river-freezing, icicled winter hit, and with it a period so bad
it was later called the Starving Time. Arms and valuable work-tools were
traded for a pittance in food. The fields lay fallow. Housing was used as
firewood. The weak settlers were easy pickings for the contemptuous
Indians. Trapped within their walls by the natives, the Jamestown
residents ate their way through their livestock, their pets, mice, rats--and
each other. Many turned to cannibalism, sneaking out at night--braving
Indian ambush--to dig up the graves of both English and Indian dead.
One contemporary wrote of a man who secretly killed his wife and ate
her, until only the head was left. The author wrote --in a tasteless joke
that has spanned centuries--"Now, whether she was better roasted,
boiled or carbonadoed (grilled), I know not, but of such a dish as
powdered (salted) wife I never heard of.”
On May 24, 1610, approaching Jamestown, they came upon only 60
gaunt survivors of the "Starving Time"--nearly 90% of the colony had died
during the winter.”
From http://www.tobacco.org/History/Jamestown.html
English Migration: 1610-1660
Jamestown survived,
however, obviously, and
must have eventually
prospered, since this
chart of English
migration indicates
Virginia received more
people than New
England.
The West Indies dwarfs
both put together though.
The reason was the
sugar plantation. But we
won’t talk about that
since they aren’t part of
the US, and so don’t
matter.
So why did Virginia become
popular?
The Englishman who did
marry Pocahontas, John
Rolfe, learned that his wife
knew quite a bit about
growing a narcotic plant
called tobacco, which was
then becoming popular in
England due to its odd
effects on the smoker—
which included
talkativeness, a heightened
state of awareness, and an
altered state of
consciousness.
The king thought tobacco was a “vile weed.”* But he “could not ignore the enormous import
duties Rolfes' Virginia tobacco brought to the royal treasury--Londoners and others around
the world liked its taste and began demanding it. Since all sales had to be made through
London, the English treasury grew with every transaction. Rolfes' trip was a success.
“Tobacco became the rage, tobacco and nothing else. We have reports of it being grown in
the very streets of Jamestown. Laws had to be passed forcing farmers to devote a
percentage of their efforts to growing food.
By 1619 Jamestown had exported 10 tons of tobacco to Europe and was a boomtown. The
export business was going so well the colonists were able to afford two imports which would
greatly contribute to their productivity and quality of life: 20 Blacks from Africa and 90
women from England. The Africans were paid for in food; each woman cost 120 pounds of
tobacco.
By 1639 Jamestown had exported 750 tons of tobacco. Tobacco was the American colonies'
chief export. The Jamestown colonists had not found gold, nor a route to the South Seas,
nor the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. But they had found tobacco. Tobacco had brought
the settlement from wretched failure to giddying success. Tobacco had created the need for
labor at any price (even institutionalized slavery), and--since it wore out the soil every 4-7
years--the mad rush for land all through the waterways of the Chesapeake Bay--or, as the
entire area soon became known, "Tobacco Coast.”
http://www.tobacco.org/History/Jamestown.html
Thus, the British colonies in America were founded on a cash-crop
economy based on an addictive drug, and which was produced by
forced labor!
By this scene in 1619, Jamestown had developed into a
proper city. Compare this picture to the miserable little fort
from earlier.
* One of the reasons the king thought Tobacco should be illegal is that stoned
people might start fires, but another reason was that people used to smoke in
special meeting houses and occasionally talk about politics and political books,
especially books that suggested that perhaps the king had too much power. They
also drank coffee in these meeting houses. Thus coffee and tobacco were
considered dangerous substances—but the effects on your health was a secondary
concern!
Jamestown Colonization Pattern:
1620-1660
The tobacco economy had
consequences for Virginia’s
physical lay-out.
Tobacco requires land to grow
it, so farmers tended to
purchase large lots of it. It also
exhausts the soil quickly, so
farmers constantly had to look
for new lots to buy.
These large lots became
known as “plantations.”
And these plantations soon
spread inward from the coasts
as coastal soils depleted.
This painting of a plantation
is from 1805, but suggests
the physical layout of
Chesapeake society, as
well as its class hierarchy.
The wealthy landowner
lived in a “big house” or
manor and tried to look as
rich as possible—like a lord
in England. A series of
small farmers rented or
bought land from him,
serving the big house with
its food. The landowner
had his own merchants to
settle his accounts, collect
his tobacco and send it on
to England. In return, the
landowner received the
latest wares from London.
In other words, all life revolved
around the landowner, who sat at
the top of a pyramid of power and
wealth. The further down the
pyramid you went, the less money
and power you had. And the less
“freedom.”
Though the king
appointed a royal
governor to oversee
the colonies, and
guarantee the king’s
cut of tobacco sales,
the biggest
landowners were
given some
authority to govern
themselves. This
was a legacy of the
joint-stock company
that settled
Jamestown, whose
board of directors
met weekly to
organize the colony.
This body was called the House of
Burgesses, and was modeled loosely
on British Parliament. This was the
first representative government in the
Colonies, but only the richest men took
part.
Well, if you had landowners, you had to have people working the land.
Do you remember all those poor people clogging up the cities back in
England?
Their future would be as “indentured servants.”
Indenture Contract:
Lasted for 5-7 years.
Servants were promised
“freedom dues” [land, $]
They were Forbidden to marry.
Between 1610-1614: only 1 in
10 outlived their indentured
contracts!
Headright System:
Virginia landowners
“purchased” servants
and received 50 acres
of land for each person
whose passage they
paid. This land would
ostensibly go to the
servants once their
contracts had expired.
Typically, indentured servants either sold themselves into servitude, or were
assigned to be one by the courts.
Servants could be bought and sold, could not marry without the permission
of their owner, were subject to physical punishment, and saw their obligation
to labor enforced by the courts. To ensure uninterrupted work by the female
servants, the law lengthened the term of their indenture if they became
pregnant.
Both male and female laborers could be subject to violence, occasionally
even resulting in death. The large number of servants who ran away or
committed suicide suggests that the conditions of life during the period of
bondage may not have been so different from slavery. Female indentured
servants in particular might be raped and/or sexually abused by their
masters.
Servants worked as agricultural labor in the South, but also as craftsmen in
the North.
It has been estimated that contracted laborers comprised almost 80% of the
total British and continental emigration to America prior to the Revolution.
Rules for Indentured Servants
“Whereas there are runaways in the colony who very often absent
themselves from their masters service, And sometimes in two or
three month’s cannot be found, whereby their said masters are at
great charge in finding them, And many times even to the loss of
their year’s labor before they be had, Be it therefore enacted and
confirmed that all runaways that shall absent themselves from their
said masters service shall be liable to make satisfaction by service at
the end of their times by indenture double the time of service so
neglected, And in some cases more. And if such runaways shall be
found to transgress the second time or oftener that then they shall be
branded in the cheek with the letter R. and pass under the statute of
incorrigible rogues.”
March 1642
This contract shows that indentures were treated as African slaves would
be later, and in many cases, were cheated out of their rewards, since
landowners held all political and legal power in the colonies, and servants
could not testify on their own behalf. How many landowners lied in order to
extend those contracts? We will never know…
English Tobacco Label
First Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619.
Their status was not clear -- perhaps slaves, perhaps
indentured servants.
Nor did they exist in great numbers at this point
Initially, African slaves and white indentured servants worked side by side,
subject to the same laws. Some African slaves gained their freedom and
bought the contracts of white indentured servants!
At some point, that changed, and plantations slowly changed to look like
this.
17c Population
in the Chesapeake
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
White
40000
30000
Black
20000
10000
0
1607
1630
1650
1670
1690
The 1690s seems to be an important
decade…why the sudden increase in African
slaves?
A few other things changed as well…
After 1660, laws began to appear in Virginia that declared anyone born
to slave would also be a slave.
Further, the law made a sharp distinction between white indentured
servants and black African slaves. In other words, no whites could be
born into servitude. Only Blacks. Slavery was legally a race-based
phenomenon.
Another law appeared banning interracial marriage, specifically
between white women and black men. White women who did so could
be enslaved also.
“Slaves charged with crimes in Virginia were tried in special non-jury
courts created in 1692. The purpose of the courts was not to guarantee
due process but to set an example speedily. The courts could resort to
hideous punishments to reassert white authority. Offending slaves were
hung, burned at the stake, dismembered, castrated and branded in
addition to the usual whippings.” (from Susan DeFord in The Washington Post)
Why did this happen? Why were Africans made permanent slaves and
forbidden to associate with whites?
Some historians think this was a natural response to the increasing wealth
from tobacco, and to the existence of similar laws in the West Indies. In
other words, slave owners in the Chesapeake colonies were just
responding rationally to the existence of a very profitable model.
Other historians think the Chesapeake landowners were afraid of their
slaves and were using these laws to control them. But these laws
appeared before there were significant numbers of slaves to control in
Virginia and Maryland. So which came first--the slaves, or the laws to
control to them?
One particular historian has another theory, which begins with something
known as Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, and which documents you will read
during class.
Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion: 1676
Bacon was a “backcountry gentleman” who
led 1,000 Virginians in a rebellion against
Governor Berkeley in Jamestown.
Nathaniel
Bacon
Governor
William
Berkeley
Rebels resented Berkeley’s close relations
with Indians for one main reason.
Increasing numbers of farmers wanted to
attack the local Indian and take their lands
so they could create tobacco plantations, but
Berkeley refused to let them.
Why? Berkeley controlled the lucrative fur
trade with the Indians in the area. But he
was also reluctant to go to war with the
powerful Powhatan Confederacy. As a
result, when Indians and whites clashed on
the frontier, Berkeley refused to retaliate for
Indian attacks on frontier settlements.
Bacon’s Rebellion: 1676
Bacon saw a
chance to
increase his landholdings, and
perhaps even to
take over the
colony from
Berkeley after the
governor had
declared Bacon a
traitor for having
killed members of
a friendly Indian
tribe.
Bacon’s Rebellion
Nathaniel Bacon prepared to lead the largest insurrection against a
colonial government until the American Revolution. Many of the 1,000
men marching alongside Bacon were not only white farmers and
indentured servants, but were black slaves and former black servants.
All were promised freedom if they marched with Bacon.
The rebel army attacked Indians, stole trade goods, and when they were
denounced by Governor Berkeley, they turned and burned Jamestown
to the ground. The governor fled for his life.
Then, at the height of his victory, Bacon died of dysentery. But the
memory of this rebellion lingered. Historian Edmund Morgan argues
that “Large numbers of young, armed, single white men found
themselves working for wages and without much prospect of becoming
landowners. They became a source of peril in the society and created
fears among the landowners of a rebellious underclass. Black slavery
reduced the need to import white servants, opened opportunities for
whites who remained to buy their own slaves and rise up in class, and
enabled Virginia to build its free political institutions upon slavery.”
This became the Chesapeake’s future working class--African slaves