U.S. to 1877 – Fall 2013 – Page 18 – Just another My blog Sites site

September 18, 2013

Development of slavery

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

Like Alia Karout states in her blog post, I was surprised by the amount of change slavery underwent in America; I had never considered the process through which it developed either. While completing the reading for this week in Inhuman Bondage, I was struck to learn the degree to which slavery evolved in America from a system based on economic and labor needs to one integral to the economy (especially in the more southern colonies) which is based on racism. In my other history classes, slavery in America was talked about in a way that made it seem like a very static, unchanging aspect of American society. It seemed as if it had been a part of the colonies since the beginning, however, as Davis shows, this is not the case. Like Davis points out, “…no British founders of North American colonies, except for South Carolina, intended to create slave societies,” therefore slavery developed gradually in different regions (the north, Chesapeake and south) as a solution to economic and labor conditions (Davis 126). For example, in the Chesapeake colonies slavery didn’t begin to take hold until the mid-1670s when improving economic conditions in England meant fewer emigrants were arriving in Virginia and Maryland as indentured servants. Slavery developed according to need

While it may seem obvious that slavery would develop differently in different regions according to economic need, the degree of diversification described both by Davis and Taylor in this week’s readings came as a surprise to me. Slaves in northern urban centers were working in specialized jobs such as carpenters, stoneworkers, and weaving. Most surprising, was the specialization of slaves in the Chesapeake and southern colonies who were bought specifically for their expertise in areas such as rice farming (in the Carolinas).

September 18, 2013

Carolina on My Mind (and Georgia and Chesapeake too)

As the 17^th century progressed, the map of the United States was becoming more and more complete as people from all over Europe came to the New World to settle the land. Out of all these countries, England emerged as the dominant colonizing force. Starting with the colonization of Roanoke in 1585, the English gradually took control of the majority of the eastern United States by the end of the 17^th century.

Chapter 7 and 11 of Alan Taylor’s American Colonies discusses the English colonization of Chesapeake Bay, the Carolinas and Georgia. The chapters almost read like a coming-of-age story for English settlers, who finally learned how to effectively and efficiently settle American land. The ultimate testament to this is how Taylor discusses the settlement of Georgia, the final colony discovered by the English. He uses three pages at the end of discussing the settlement of the Carolinas, not even giving the colony its own chapter. This is due to the fact that colonization there was significantly less arduous than at other locations, where there was no major quarrel with the local Indians or disastrous experiments in running the local economy. Taylor describes James Oglethrope and the Georgia Trustees as “powerful and distant elites (242)” and even “dictatorial (242)” in their approach to successful management. Initially after reading the chapter I felt unsatisfied with Taylor’s overview of Georgia’s founding, but when Georgia students in the class spoke of how dry the history of their own state was, I felt fulfilled.

In reading Taylor’s work, it is interesting to see how each colony makes use of its unique environment to create an agricultural-based economy, and the Carolinas were no different. As a Canadian and being inexperienced with American history, while I was aware of the Virginia tobacco plantations, I was unaware of the significance that rice played in the economy of the Carolinas. Taylor writes how rice “thrived in the wet lowlands of Carolina (237)” and that annual exports reached 43 million pounds in 1740, “comprising over 60% of the total exports from Carolina (237).” While their economy was dependent on a different resource than other colonies, the means by which the Carolinians exploited the available rice was through the same method of other settlements: slavery. As echoed in the blog posts made by JANEWTOWN and ROMANGONE, and in Taylor’s own words, the treatment of slaves in Carolina was among the worst on the entire continent. “Desperate to suppress the rebellion (240),” Taylor writes, the Carolinians clearly took no chances with their slaves.

One aspects of the reading on Chesapeake Bay that stuck with me was Taylor’s description of the social hierarchy that mirrored the traditional English model of king, provincial government, court and household. For a group of settlers that were desperate to escape from the overpopulation and underemployed English cities, they still retained many of the same elements of society they left with.

September 18, 2013

Bounty Hunting in the Chesapeake and Carolinas

In this week’s reading on the Chesapeake Colonies and the Carolinas, Taylor eloquently portrays a colonial image of agriculture and slavery. These colonies or rather areas at the time were founded right when slavery was beginning to take flight and become a prominent institution in the Southern part of the Atlantic seaboard. The Chesapeake colonies had a cash crop, which was the very profitable tobacco while the Carolinas found a cash crop of their own in rice and indigo. These very profitable cash crops in both colonies took many extensive methods for growing and extracting the final product for sale and thus proved to be very laborious activities.
First and foremost, I took a strong liking to the fact that Taylor talked about the rice market in the Carolinas with such detail as he did. Being a North Carolinian myself I never knew to what extent rice had on Carolina’s economic development and prosperity. As I mentioned before both of these chapters seemed to portray an image of colonial hardships or rather the grunt and grind of hard work. I feel the way Taylor emphasized this idea was with his choice of titles for each section. Taylor’s creative titles caught my attention upon reading the chapters and this interest was further expanded when it was introduced in our class discussion. An interesting point that Sarah Funderburg mentions in her post on September 16, was that the colonists looked to pit the Indians and African slaves against one another.
This idea of using the Indians to hunt the runaway slaves for bounty that Sarah brings up was part of the colonists search for security for they feared what could happen to them if the slaves and Indians formed an alliance against them. One thing Taylor does well is his use of detail with American history, rather than rewriting the typical formalities or the black and white of history; Taylor includes aspects such as this in order to better inform the reader. Therefore, I feel that his spin on the titles, most notably the ones in the chapter on the Carolinas such as Raiders and Terror, put some emphasis on the actions of the Indians. This emphasis on the Indians takes away from the stereotypical historical depiction of the white man coming over and wiping out everything in his path. These titles and details seem to put more blame on the Indians for some of the violence that took place in these colonies during this time.
Taylor provides us with an account of American history and specifically of the Chesapeake colonies and the Carolinas that is different from most accounts. Taylor touches on areas that many historians tend to go into short detail about or simply neglect altogether; and these chapters are another example of Taylor giving careful attention to the events that took place in the Chesapeake colonies and Carolinas.

September 18, 2013

The Headless Horse”man”?

Although the pilot for Sleepy Hollow entertained me, it was, as Dr. Shrout puts it, “woefully inaccurate”. The only correct reference to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is Ichabod Crane’s name. He never marries Katrina. Also, the Headless Horseman is not one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and the Catholic Priest would look at the apocalypse with anticipation, rather than dread. Also, the fact that the Horseman is not a man makes his character a misnomer. I could continue about non-historical inaccuracies, but I won’t.

From a historical perspective, the episode is wrong about many historical aspects of the Salem Witch Trials. First of all, they occurred in the 17th century, not the 18th century. If the writers worried about being historically accurate, they would have changed this aspect. After seeing the first episode, I don’t see how vital the time period would have been to the story, but the time period of Ichabod Crane’s origins and his wife’s trial could become more important later on in the show. Also, at the time of the Salem Witch Trials, the Church was the organization prosecuting all of the supposed witches, but in the story, Kristina and the priest are on the same side. The story would fall apart if it were historically accurate.

Luckily, I can still look at entertainment in the historical fiction genre as entertaining even when it is inaccurate. I do, however, appreciate these narratives much more when they are historically accurate. Accuracy gives a greater sense of reality in the situation, where as inaccuracy seems to take these stories out of the historical fiction genre and put them into the fantasy genre.

September 18, 2013

Inhuman Bondage: Chapter 6

In chapter 6, Davis discusses slave culture and social norms along the Atlantic coast. Rather than the arguements Taylor put forth, showing the similarities and differences between the three geographical regions, Davis makes the case that slave culture and treatment differed along lines that were by no means geographical. The differences between how black slaves were treated, he points out, is far too complex to be grouped into distinct categories, and even within small regions slave social norms take on unique identities. He points out an example from the mid atlantic colonies, where a graveyard of 23,000 dead slaves were found buried, but within the same community slaves were allowed to eat the same food at the same table with their white masters. As in the nature of the text, Inhuman Bondage dives deeper into the story of African American’s lives as slaves, and how many of them worked the system to become free men. Davis discusses how slaves would spend time learning about christian culture, and use it to their advantage in order to bargain to for their freedom, or in most cases half-freedom. Davis also makes the argument that a major reason for the difference in the number of slaves was due to the number of indentured servants available to work in the particular region. He states that many of the northern areas had less slaves because many vagrants and criminals from Britain were being shipped over in order to work,and that slavery boomed when the labor pool of indentured servants dries up. Overall, I enjoy the more focused writing of Davis, and his ability to condense large ideas into concrete writing that paint an alternative picture of slavery in colonial america

September 18, 2013

Gradual Racialization of Slavery

Tuesday’s reading revealed the nature of slavery in the Chesapeake and the Carolinas. For some reason, I was under the impression that slavery, especially in the South, had been racialized from the beginning. However, as the reading revealed, the development of white supremacy and racialized slavery actually happened in steps.

Long before the division between black and white, there existed a stark class divide. A sense of “otherness” was thrust upon the common white planters. Wealth inequality was the first existing divide between the inhabitants of the Chesapeake and Carolina colonies. It was very surprising to find that before the commodification of black slaves around 1670, there were black people who actually enjoyed freedom and legal privileges such as property, land, and even slaves or servants of their own after they had finished their terms as indentured servants (154).

When white indentured servants declined, African slaves were the solution to the lack of labor. I thought solidarity had always existed between all white people in the colonies due to their common ancestry, but it wasn’t until the planter elite began to worry for their safety at the growing portion of the population that consisted of slaves that this sense was forged. They relied on the common white men to muster up a sense of racial pride in order to protect the colonists from uprisings (156). In the process, the issues of wealth inequality and social stratification within the white community were put on the back burner while a preoccupation on racial superiority flourished.

Ultimately, after reading these Taylor chapters it became evident that the discrimination created by the planter elite wasn’t motivated by principle. They were neither particularly against common folk nor black people. Rather, they did whatever was economically beneficial to retaining their wealth and status.

September 18, 2013

The Users AKA Carolinians

The Carolinas were granted to eight politicians who had been favorites of the King of England. The colony quickly became a plantation colony, but they chose to leave the declining profits of tobacco and look at other crops to grow. They looked into raising livestock, which was relatively different from the past colonies, and they cultivated rice at “over 60% of the total exports from Carolina as measured by value.” They also took a major part in the slave trade as they took in so many slaves that the colonist felt threatened by the chance of a slave revolt. This was helpful as they looked to stay away from the Chesapeake’s problem of too much work for few people.

The Carolina colonists were also smart about how they took care of any types of attacks on their people. They had a regular pattern of using other bodies before taking the risks of hurting themselves. The chapter speaks of how slaves were used to kill the Spanish when the colony had problems with attackers from Florida and slaves were rewarded if they killed some of the adversaries. They also used the Indians with the “gun trade.” In this trade the Carolina colonists used the Indian’s numbers and knowledge of the land to find other natives and bring them to back as slaves. Taylor even adds that “colonists paid far more for a slave than for deerskins” which influenced the natives to take the weapons they were provided with and bring back their own kind in order to please the colonists.

The chapter also briefly goes into Georgia and how the Carolinas used that area to their advantage also. As stated in a classmates post (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/the-carolinas-and-the-purpose-of-georgia/) Georgia was mainly a border state to keep distance from the Spanish. Georgia also made it less likely for runaway slaves to make it to the Spaniards, who took runaway slaves in, before being caught by the colonists. Georgia denied the slave system itself but took no part in keeping others from slavery.

September 18, 2013

The Carolinas and the Purpose of Georgia

Chapter 11 discuses the development of the southern colonies known collectively as the Carolinas. This land was granted to eight English aristocrats known as the Lords Proprietors. As pointed out by Mangone, in 1670 when Charles Town was founded the British were making a bold move in challenging the Spanish supremacy directly south of the colony. Thus colonists needed to be brought in quickly which the Lord Proprietors tried to attract with promises of religious toleration and grants of land. It was hard to attract colonist due to the relatively harsh living conditions especially in the Low Country of South Carolina with its, “hot, humid, and enervating summer replete with bitter insects,”. Although most colonist tolerated the conditions due to the abundance of fertile land to be exploited.

Weather was not the only concern of incoming colonists. The regions, being only recently settled, had native tribes who resisted the colonists’ expansion into their land. Although the Carolinas quickly dispatched of most of the native peoples and quickly expanded into the area. The Carolinas opened a trade relation and framed an alliance with the Westo to help deal with other tribes and bolster their profits only to ignore them when they were threatened by the Savannah. While there were skirmishes between the natives and colonist, most were relatively small and did not really affect colonial encroachment. Later there were, however, many raids on native villages such as Moore’s raid on Nooherooka, where they slaughtered hundreds. There was also the Carolina Indian rebels who tried to push back the Carolina colonist. They were unable to maintain their supplies and were forced to make peace due to the colonist superior firepower and their native allies.

The Carolinas’ plantation style of agriculture required more labor than was obtainable from the mother country thus they turned to slavery. The planters in the Carolinas had feared slave rebellions to the location, since it was a frontier colony they know that it would be easy for slaves to escape and form large groups to resist capture. Once such rebellion occurred in 1739 near the Stono River in Charles Town where runaway slaves obtained firearms, gained a fairly large following, killed whites and burned down multiple plantations. They were not entirely prejudice as they did spare an innkeeper who was not harsh to his slaves. After this rebellion and other minor ones, slave owners in the Carolinas feared slave rebellions so some would resort to brutal methods to keep the slave population in check. Although not all slave owners adopted this policy it was still a widespread issue in the Carolinas.

Georgia was founded mostly as a border colony to protect the recently very profitable Carolinas. As such the colony itself did not attract the attention of wealthy land owners wishing to expand their agriculture empire. The colony also rejected the slave system but did not show the need to emancipate slaves in other colonies. The colony was a refugee to slaves, criminals, and tax evaders. The colony also followed a plantation style of agriculture but on a smaller scale due to lack of labor.

September 17, 2013

Blog Post #4- Differences in English Colonies (Chapter 7 and 11)

What struck me most in reading chapters 7 and 11 in American Colonies were some of the vast differences between the British’s Chesapeake colonies (mainly Virginia) and Carolina during the late 1600’s through the mid 1700’s. Differences are prevalent in the economies, social life, slave labor, politics and so on.

In chapter 7, Taylor discusses the Chesapeake colonies from 1650-1750. We learn that the colonies were essentially governed by “competitive, ruthless, avaricious, crude, callous and insecure men” (p. 139) who abused their power and reaped big rewards while a much larger lower class struggled to keep up. So overbearing and controlling was the ruling class that it even caused rebellion in the colonies. It’s also noted that the colonists in Virginia worked almost year round because of the time and attention tobacco required. Rest was scarce for working men in Virginia as they built an economy off of hard work and tobacco production. Things in Carolina were very different. While Carolina was also ruled by a select group of powerful men, their control and corruption was not nearly as widespread as in Virginia; allowing for a greater sense of balance and fairness amongst the colonists. An economic dependency on rice rather than tobacco and a more widespread, harsher use of slaves were also differences amongst the colonies. Virginia used slaves but the Carolinians adopted the West Indian slave system (after slave revolts), which treated slaves worse and got more labor out of them. The bottom paragraph of the top blogpost in this link gives a solid description of how slavery varied from Virginia and Carolina– ( http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/author/systrauss/ ). It started off worse in Virgina but after slave rebellion in South Carolina and stricter racial lines drawn throughout English colonies, it became much worse further south. This created a society that feared what potential uprisings from slaves. It also created a culture that was far more relaxed than that of Virginia. Taylor describes Carolina elite as “more gracious, polite, genteel, and lavish than the gentlemen of Virginia” (p.238).

To me, it was interesting to learn that even though the inhabitants of these colonies had originally came from the same country, each colony had created an identity that was solely its’ own. I think Taylor highlights these differences as a way to show that even though the original settlers of each of these colonies had at one time considered themselves Englishmen, their identity was now more heavily tied to what colony they belonged to. By 1750 a colonist in Virginia was more of a Virginian than an Englishman. I have to believe that these type of changes in social identity were a key part in kickstarting the American Revolution.

September 17, 2013

Sweet Carolina (Chapter 11 Taylor)

In Chapter 11 of American Colonies Taylor discusses the life of the colonists and the beginnings of the Carolina colonies. Carolina was started in defiance of the Spanish, a way for the English to try and assert their dominance. Taylor made an interesting point about how back in 1607 the English had to hide their colonies but then in 1670 when Charleston was founded they did it to challenge the Spanish and show that they were no longer scared. This was bold but also somewhat foolish and the Lord Proprietors found themselves needing to grow in numbers quickly. To do this they promised freedom of religion and large portions of land to draw settlers to come to Carolina.

Originally Carolina was under the control of 8 Lords Proprietors. It became apparent to the colonists living in Carolina though that these 8 men were not well suited to be leading the colony. The Lord’s Proprietors weren’t able to effectually lead the people and didn’t have any power in the colony. After they lost their power changes were made to the colony, such as a state sponsored religion and soon there was a revolution. The revolutionaries decided they wanted the crown to control them, so in 1729 the crown bought out 7 of the 8 Proprietors

Slavery was also a large attraction for plantation owners in the Carolinas. The Lords Proprietors promised the plantation owners total power over the slaves. After the Stono Rebellion, which was brought up in a previous post here http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/contrasting-slave-systems-in-colonial-america-inhuman-bondage-ch-6/, the slave owners became much more strict in their dealings with the slaves. Rice was the large cash crop of the region and this demanded numerous workers. Because of the large amount of slaves, the owners lived in constant fear of rebellion. Taylor makes this point using a quote from a slave owner about how they wished their slaves weren’t so dangerous and cumbersome.

Taylor also mentions Georgia in this chapter but he glazes over it. They were the colony that no one really wanted to be a part of but it was necessary. This is how Taylor portrays it. He does try to make the point that it is not the hoodlum colony that many people in modern times have made it out to be but it is still used primarily as a place for beggars and dissenters and as a buffer zone to stop slaves from fleeing into Florida as easily.