Carolina – U.S. to 1877

September 18, 2013

Slavery in the North, Virginia, and South Carolina

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Slavery took on distinct forms in the various regions of America. In the North slavery was not as commonplace as in the South, but slavery in some areas was still the primary backbone of physical labor, and unlike the South, Northern slaves were more directly in competition with working class whites, but at the same time had more elements of their own autonomy and were often quite close to their white owners. In Virginia slavery underwent several transformations. Slavery saw its roots initially in Virginia as very similar to indentured servitude, with some slaves finding freedom after working for a master for a set number of years. The beginning years of slavery in Virginia showed a surprising degree of egalitarianism between freed blacks and whites, with some blacks becoming planters and slave owners themselves. As time went on however, and more slaves entered Virginia, the elites among the society grew upset at the idea of this near racial equality and worked to enshrine black inferiority into the laws, resulting in a vast removal of the rights of freed blacks and of those of slaves. In South Carolina, a interesting dichotomy emerged, slaves were crucial to almost every aspect of South Carolina life, from working the fields to fighting Indians, and the slave owners profited greatly from the slaves’ skills and labor, but the slave owners were greatly fearful of the possibility of a slave uprising, as they were outnumbered by their slaves and instituted harsh slave codes to attempt to prevent it. But in spite of this slaves had a greater degree of cultural autonomy than within other portions of the American colonies.

September 18, 2013

Rise of the Plantation Elite

In his discussion of the Chesapeake colonies, Taylor discusses the rise of the ruling plantation elites who would go on to form the basis of the Antebellum South’s title-less aristocracy. The Chesapeake colonies saw a brief period of social mobility in the formative years of the colonies, during which time many of these elites made their place, a combination of freed servants and the initial planters who hired these servants formed the basis of this elite, but those who would come to the Chesapeake colonies after this brief period found the period of social mobility to be very short lived, as usable land vanished, thus leaving a growing divide between the wealthy landowners possessed plenty of good land to grow tobacco, and those with little or no land who were struck with poverty. This growing divide was further widened by the Governor of Virginia, who gave out vast land grants to his favorites among the plantation elite, which resulted in growing tensions between the ruling class and the lower classes, as well as those landowners dissatisfied with their position, ultimately resulting in Bacon’s rebellion and the recall of the governor. After this rebellion the planter elite underwent a major change, as they moved to build solidarity with the lower classes by developing a genteel manner and emphasizing shared racial bonds and their differences, conflicts, and superiority towards the Indians and Africans.

Unlike Virginia, the Carolinas did not start off with a planter elite at odds with the poorer common planters and servants, rather from the beginning the Carolinas the planters found a need for the commoners as they feared the possibility of slave and Indian alliances , and knew that they needed white commoners to help defend them against these dual threats. The fear of slave revolt drove these planter elites to greater solidarity with the white commoners and also drove them to attempt to set black slaves and Indians at odds with each other by offering indians rewards for black slaves being returned and declaring war on Indians who harbored black slaves. The plantation elite were able to fully establish their power, eventually overriding the Lords Proprietor and controlling the majority of political power within the Carolinas.

September 18, 2013

Southern History Ain’t Pretty

Finally, we reached the South. We piddled around the area for a little while with Virginia and shortly after went North. But now we can talk about some good ole southern tales of rice, raiders, terror, and for brief moment, Georgia. Those short headers from Taylor’s Chapter 11 on the Carolinas show us just how great colonial times were in the Carolinas. It is safe to say that they showed up a little late to the party. The “new world” was no longer a disease ridden mystery but rather a disease filled reality. People had been in America long before the Lords Proprietor were set govern the large state of everything above Florida and below Virginia. But quickly, as Taylor points out and we might expect, that large land mass split into North Carolina, South Carolina, and eventually Georgia.

However, for the Carolinas showing up late to the party might not have been a bad thing. Just as Virginians figured out their crop was tobacco, so did South Carolinians figured out that rice could be their fortune. So the South Carolinians did as all respectable rich white men did back then, they bought slaves. The slave trade was not a new entity, but rather a practiced trade. And these were not any slaves. They were specialists in their fields, literally. However, being so southern the slaves could easily run south away from the slaveholders and into free territory. So, to prevent them for running away they armed themselves at all times, scared them, and armed the Native Americans around them to help if any slaves were to run in their direction. The whites were scared up an uprising in a society where blacks were a large part of the population. As history tells us, South Carolina becomes a slave state and remains that way for a long, long time.

Now, as Taylor did with Georgia, I will briefly speak of the Chesapeake colonies. Taylor presents a lot of information here. Yet, while I was reading, I felt as if I was reading a book of fun facts. He spats off numbers about how much it cost to cross the ocean and then mentions the story of Elizabeth Abbot and her master. Which leads him to wealth, successful planters, which in turn lead to Bacon’s Rebellion, and so on. Taylor then ends the chapter with slavery. He acknowledges a successful freed black man, Anthony Johnson, but then speaks his final words on the demise of the status of freed black men. One colonist even said that Negro and Slave had become homogenous (157).

I’ve always had a passion for studying southern history because it is where I am from. But it has never been nor will it ever be pretty. Taylor does what should be done. He speaks of truths, horrible, horrible truths, but truths that should be acknowledged and learned from.

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

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.

September 17, 2013

Carolina (Chapters 7 and 11)

In Chapters 7 and 11 of American Colonies a major theme is the idea that the land in the New World is land that is not owned by anyone and therefore it can be given away by the British. The British landed in South Carolina for the first time in 1670. Three ships carrying 200 colonists had sailed from Barbados to the mouth of the Ashley River, where they would found Charles Town, named for King Charles II. This represented the founding of Carolina, a land further south than Virginia. This meant even hotter summers and more miserable humidity. For a group sailing from the crowded heat of the small island of Barbados though, the wide open empty space and less intense climate of Carolina was inviting. The space was given by the King to a council called the Lords Proprietor which was a member of 8 Lords who were to govern over the new space. Essentially, this made sure that the King would not have to be bothered by the trivial matters of starting a colony, but ensured that people he trusted would take care of it. And so Carolina was formed as the newest British colony in the new world.

The location of Carolina was very helpful from the King’s perspective. Charles II’s main interest in the New World was the tobacco output that Virginia was supplying and until Carolina was founded, there was essentially nothing between Jamestown and San Agustin, the Spanish colony. Carolina acted as a buffer between the two colonies as it was in fact much closer to San Augustin than Jamestown. The location of Charles Town was also a bold statement by the British who essentially said that they weren’t scared to claim any land they wanted in the New World, no matter how close it was to Spanish colonies. This claim was challenged by the Spanish who attacked up the coast and eventually destroyed Port Royal, a town even further south than Charles Town. The amount of British colonists coming into Carolina was far to great, especially in comparison the amount going into San Agustin. The Spanish quickly became far outnumbered and stopped attacking. The population of South Carolina grew up to 6,600 by 1700.

How did they get all these settlers to go to South Carolina and increase the population so much? They incentivized. They were prepared to offer each colonist 150 acres for each member of his family if he would make the voyage over to Carolina. Even if you couldn’t afford to make the journey yourself, you could become an indentured servant, where you would pledge to serve someone for four to seven years if they payed your way across the Atlantic. After a servant was freed, they were given land and tools and became a member of the New World. Many young men found their way across the ocean in that way. The British justified giving away all the land they wanted to, not realizing that some of it may belong to Natives who were already there. What shocks me as a reader is how Indians did not revolt as the British forged further and further in to their land. While the land that the British were giving away seemed to have no owner, I’m sure it had some very important meaning to Indians of the area.

I think that the founding of the Carolinas was important for the British because it sent a message to the Spanish and it allowed British yet another place to populate in the New World. The New World was also a place in which many enslaved people found a home. By 1700, out of the 6,600 people living in South Carolina, 2,800 were black. I think that my classmate Funderburg raises a good point about how eventually the white’s goal became to make the African slaves angry at the Indians as the British feared that one day the enslaved people would join forces with the Natives and overthrow the whites.