February 2014 – Page 6 – American History to 1877

February 9, 2014

Racism and Social Stability in the Southeastern Colonies

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As he describes the development of the Chesapeake and Carolina colonies, Alan Taylor asserts that the rise of racial slavery allowed for improved social stability even as class differences grew exponentially. I had not made this connection explicitly before, but I agree with Taylor’s argument and believe it accurately explains the events that took place in southeastern colonies.

Before African slavery became economically advantageous, planters relied heavily on indentured servants from England, in the case of Chesapeake, and from Barbados and the West Indies, in the case of Carolina. These servants were poor and desperate for work, and they hoped that they might survive their term of indenture and benefit from the generous headright system. As Thomas explained in his post, a society rooted in indentured servitude was often a fragile one, and social rest became common in incidents like Bacon’s Rebellion.

Even before the rise of vast economic inequalities, in the Chesapeake colonies, Taylor describes how the insecurity of those in power led to increased violence and hostility in relations with the lower class. Because so many, regardless of race, had to work for others in harsh conditions, those who achieved some success anxiously regarded independence as a “cherished and vulnerable status” (Taylor 139). My mind associated plantations with the genteel, incredibly wealthy men Taylor later describes, ruling over hundreds of slaves, and I didn’t realize that, initially, the leaders of Chesapeake felt anxious about their “origins, qualifications, and conduct” (139). As Taylor points out, this insecurity engendered brutal responses to criticism and protest. Society stood divided, and the rise of a figure such as Berkeley in this context could only lead to trouble.

Berkeley, as Emma described in her blog post, took the position of governor with the intent of favoring all of his elitist friends. He created a system that bestowed the wealthy with substantial power and wealth, and when the Navigation Acts combined with economic difficulties put a strain on smalltime planters, he refused, for his own personal interests, to support their plan to attack Indians. While I was familiar with the flow of these events beforehand, the context Taylor creates enhanced my understanding of this time period. I agree with the connections that he draws between tension among classes and the resulting instability. Bacon’s Rebellion did arise from the Navigation Acts, but even without the Acts, the uneasiness present in society dictated some level of conflict.

The Chesapeake colonies eventually adopted African slavery in favor of indentured servants for economic, not social or moral, reasons. The economic improvements in England resulted in fewer emigrants to America, more slave traders were present in the colonies, life expectancy of African slaves increased substantially, and Parliament had lifted a monopoly on the slave trade, resulting in more suppliers and lower costs. Although the incorporation of African slaves rose purely out of economic reasons, it dramatically transformed the social landscape of the Chesapeake colonies.

Thomas described how the rise of African slavery and new legislation “encouraged racism and facilitated white cohesion.” In the event of a slave uprising, the support of “armed whites” proved fundamental for the great planters (Taylor 154), and indeed, planters feared a rebellion so greatly that they felt compelled to maintain order with pain and fear. Racism became a tool to justify this brutality, and as it became widespread, the racial solidarity of the colonists created critical social stability. Taylor traces this pattern both in the Chesapeake colonies and in Carolina. I think it’s an insightful observation, and it aptly explains why colonies became more stable despite the large growth of an economic gap in white society.

February 8, 2014

Early Forms of Racism in the Chesapeake Colonies

While disease, access to clean sustenance and Indian interactions certainly played a role in the Chesapeake colonies’ vitality, Taylor stresses that the production of and English demand for tobacco was the most important determinant of the region’s overall success. With the incredible amount of labor necessary for the production of tobacco and the relatively high costs of enslaving Africans in the mid-seventeenth century, wealthy Chesapeake colonists relied on indentured servants to tend to their land. Theses servants were initially drawn to the Chesapeake area due to “unemployment and hunger in England combined with the pull of Virginia opportunity” (142). Taylor notes further that both the prices of tobacco and the economic conditions in England greatly affected the emigration of indentured servants to the Chesapeake colonies throughout the seventeenth century.

Based on the economics of the Chesapeake colonies, and tobacco production being central to its overall success, the opportunities given to indentured servants varied between periods of relative prosperity and financial hardship. As Thomas alludes to in his most recent blog post, however, by 1700 there was a clear gap in economic opportunity between Virginia’s rich and poor, as a very small percentage of wealthy white families controlled a majority of the area’s land. Despite this distinct economic division among whites in the Chesapeake colonies, they were unified socially as the eventual influx of African slaves led to the beginnings of racism and an overall sentiment of racial superiority shared by whites.

Although Taylor observes that racism was not initially noticed in the Chesapeake colonies, he clearly highlights how the increased number of slaves in the area led to legislative changes that ultimately encouraged racism and facilitated white cohesion. An example of legally justified racism was that, “After 1691 no Virginia planter could free slaves unless he paid for their transportation beyond the colony” (156). By providing a financial incentive for owners not to free their slaves, the Chesapeake colonies further divided blacks and whites by keeping blacks enslaved for longer periods of time. Taylor highlights that legislation geared towards restricting the rights of blacks meant that, “A dark skin became synonymous with slavery, just as freedom became equated with whiteness” (157). Therefore, despite the economic inequality that existed between poor and wealthy whites in the late seventeenth century, a sense of racial superiority united all whites and immediately gave them, regardless of their financial status, an elevated position in Chesapeake’s social hierarchy.

Taylor’s description of how the economic conditions in England led the Chesapeake colonies to be based on labor provided by African slaves rather than indentured servants illustrates racism’s roots in the American colonies.

February 8, 2014

Going South

Chapters 7 and 11 in American Colonies focused on the English colonies to the south which included Carolina, Virginia (Chesapeake) and Georgia. As Thomas mentioned in his most recent blog post, the south focused on single cash crops instead of a variety of crops. Virginia’s crop was tobacco, and the importance placed on tobacco greatly shaped the development of the colony. Unlike England, “the Chesapeake demanded too much labor from too few colonists.” (142) What I found ironic is that at this time, the colonists believed it was more profitable to buy English indentured servants for a few years than African slaves for life. This theory would change drastically soon. In Virginia, the government became corrupt when a leader by the name of Berkeley came to power. He appointed his friends to positions of power, and created hefty taxes to benefit the wealthy. This lead to Bacon’s rebellion, a failed attempt by planters who resented his leadership.

What was interesting to me was the fact that in the Chesapeake, slavery and racism were not mixed. Before Africans were enslaved, black men in the colony had the same rights as white men. When slavery became abundant, the colonists were terrified of a rebellion, and made strict rules objectifying these people.

Carolina officially belonged to the “the Lords Proprietor” which consists of English aristocrats. (223) Carolina was created with the intent to serve as a place of religious toleration, low taxes, and large tracts of land. This attracted a lot of common colonists, but also larger planters. One way Carolina kept control was through exploitation of Indians. They created a cycle of enslavement where they supported a tribe, that tribe would capture and enslave another tribe, and then the colonists would find another tribe to enslave the first tribe. I was honestly disgusted by this constant exploitation, and even more disappointed in the Indians. The fact that they all turned on each other whenever presented a possibility just displays how desperate they were. Economically, Carolina became a hub for cash crops. Since it primarily consisted of huge plantations, it could develop crops like rice, tar, cattle and indigo in large amounts to trade in England. This made the elite in Carolina the wealthiest on the Atlantic Coast.

Georgia was created solely for a place to ship “miserable wretches and drones” in hopes that manual labor would transform them. (241) Because of this, it was the only colony that outlawed slavery, due to the fact that it was created to be many compact farms. Georgia’s cash crops consisted of hemp, flax, mulberry, and grapes. Many of the colonists were angered by the strict rules especially against slavery. They felt “unfree” without having the right to own slaves. (243) Eventually they caved and permitted slavery, which changed Georgia into a plantation society.

February 4, 2014

Plantations and the American Revolution

In the film Dazed and Confused, Ms. Stroud, a US history teacher, yells above the commotion of the year’s final bell, telling her students that, while“ [they’re] being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth of July brouhaha,” to remember that they’re celebrating “a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males [who] didn’t want to pay their taxes.” As our exploration of early colonial history has shown, this is an overly simplistic view of America leading up to the revolution. Still, in contexts of this week’s readings, we can see that the statement carries some merit.

The readings deal with the Southern colonies in the Chesapeake and the Carolinas, which Taylor shows to be markedly different from their northern counterparts thanks to, primarily, their economy. Whereas the northern colonies sowed the seeds for a diverse, industrialized economy, the southern colonies quickly developed a single cash-crop system. In the Chesapeake, this crop was tobacco while the Carolinas specialized in rice cultivation. The fact that Virginia’s assemblymen were paid in tobacco—150 pounds per day in session—highlights how valuable a crop like tobacco was there.

Since wealth and power were so closely tied to farming, land was the most important commodity in the Southern colonies. In the Chesapeake colonies of the early 17^th century, this was no problem as even indentured servants were promised substantial acreage as part of their “freedom dues.” However, as tobacco became ever more profitable and the influx of immigrants steadily grew, land quickly became scarce. Most indentured servants stopped receiving land upon freedom, and those that did found that the most fertile land been seized by ever larger plantations. As Taylor points out, “in Virginia’s Middlesex Country the richest 5 percent of the white families owned more than half of the property” by 1700 (157). Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 further highlights the growing inequality in the colonies and its resulting social unrest. Similarly, the split of Carolina into North and South Carolina in 1712 resulted from the power monopoly wealthy Carolinian planters established.

The southern colonies’ economic differences also manifested themselves in the way their treatment of Indians differed from their northern counterparts. Here, we can use Yuxi’s blog post from last week, which elucidates the interaction between the New England colonies and the various northern tribes, to clarify any similarities and differences. She points out that Natives were placed in “praying towns,” in which colonists tried to “enlighten” the Indians religiously. In the South, no such large-scale efforts were done to Christianize Natives. Rather, especially in the Carolinas, planters feared that the Indians would encourage slaves to escape, and so they commercially exploited their rivalries through the gun trade. Such manipulation was also evident in the North, as Yuxi points to the way the English presence inspired King Phillip’s War, which was the “first civil war among the Indians.”