Chesapeake – American History to 1877

February 10, 2014

Power Dynamics in the Southern Colonies

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The hierarchical relationships between groups is heavily analyzed throughout these two chapters, largely through interactions with primary sources and comments from elites of the time. The economic and political relationships between the poor and wealthy whites is of particular interest to me. Due to the fact that many poor whites owned land in Carolina and on the frontier, they had a vote in politics. A mutually beneficial relationship formed between the large planters and small famers as a result of the small farmers’ struggles and the elite desire for power. The large planters gained votes into office in exchange for protecting the interests of small famers. Social mobility was also a societal factor present in the colonies, at least for a time, that was largely unheard of for the period. Though Chesapeake later grew to have a stricter social structure, both colonies originally had a fluid society. These points together created a complex power dynamic where each section of the ladder was mobile and dependent upon the others for extensive support. I also found it interesting that these relationships fostered the creation of famous Southern manners. Southern elites had to convince the common farmer of their merits, and this system perpetuated itself into one intense politeness and Taylor’s “condescension” (pg. 153).

The Chesapeake elites discovered during this era that there were tremendous political gains from lowering taxes, uniting all white colonists against a common enemy, and providing a common lower class. These elites lowered taxes to transfer economic discontent from the local governments to the crown. The establishment of an enemy in the Indians provided an evil to lash out against when times were difficult. Finally, the slaves were a uniting factor with the idea of color rather than wealth was the preliminary divider for status. As Willie discusses in his post “Class and Color in the Chesapeake,” racism developed as a result of economic incentives, a shortage of white immigrants, and the need for the development of a “kinship” between whites. The poor whites were eager to have a subordinate in order to raise themselves up on the social ladder, and the elite whites were eager to exploit a cheaper, more controllable, and more sustainable form of labor. The whites all had a common enemy and subordinate that manipulated a positive connection of poor whites to elite whites. Socially, these decisions kept the elites in good standing with the poor whites and provided the elites with power and higher levels of income. Economically, (at least in Carolina and on the frontier) the possibility of independence with elite protection encouraged development and the growth of a sustainable mid-tier white class. This middle group supported the elites through taxation. The system worked well, but could not provide the profits that the elites pursued, and thus the system, in Chesapeake in particular, moved to one of larger plantations with many black slaves and fewer free, land-owning whites or indentured servants.

I would also like to comment that these two chapters further unveil Taylor’s extreme distaste for the Southern elites through his word choice and the information that he selects to display to the reader. I believe that he is losing objectivity when discussing them. History has almost always been written from the point of view of the elites, and I feel that Taylor is attempting to push back against this norm by portraying their class as imperfect, entitled, and harsh.

February 9, 2014

Class and Color in the Chesapeake

Taylor’s piece on the Chesapeake in Chapter 7 definitively traces the emergence of racism in the early colonies. Beginning with an account of the class tensions among settlers in Virginia, the chapter exposes the subjugation of people based on social status rather than race. Among the four levels of hierarchy in society—the king, the provincial government, the county court and the family household—there was an underlying class order whereby the few land elite at the top controlled an enormous portion of the wealth. White landowning men retained a great deal of patriarchal power in the household and also governing power in the community.

The labor necessary to sustain a reasonable crop production for these landowners was dependent on the class of white indentured servants. The cost for a white indentured servant was significantly less than that of an African slave. Therefore, in the beginning of the 17^th century, white indentured servants were almost exclusively the laborers of tobacco and maize farms in the Chesapeake colonies. However, the short terms of these servants (usually only a couple of years) were sufficient to pay off their passage from England to the New World. When the servant completed their term, they were often granted “freedom dues” which were settlement packages of land. Therefore, the name servitude is an apt way of distinguishing this type of work from slavery—which became a lifelong period of service around the second half of the 16^th century.

Due to greater incentives to remain in England, namely higher real wages, the demand of servants in the Chesapeake region went unfulfilled. The farmers had to look elsewhere for laborers and quickly found an alternative in the slave trade. I thought the inclusion of Anthony Johnson’s story provided an effective preface to the drastic change in race relations. This often-overlooked account of a black slave-owner becomes quickly overshadowed by the subjugation of black people in America to a position below even the lowest classes of white colonists. The shift in the servant class, as Dana mentions in his post on February 9^th, permitted all whites to be unified based upon skin color. In using the word “kinship”, Dana seems to illuminate the traces of a central divide contributing to the Civil War. As I expect to see in the later part of this class, many supporters of the Confederacy were united as kin in this acceptance of racism and slavery. Furthermore, Taylor reminds us that racial solidarity accompanied the growing inequality among whites Virginia. To a certain extent, this sense of unification by race diminished the common class white colonists’ concern with class disparity.

This reading provides a very nice foundation for our study of slavery in this class. As Taylor mentions, “A dark skin became synonymous with slavery, just as freedom became equated with whiteness” (Taylor 157). As simple as this observation may seem, it is very telling of the emergence of a new people placed under subjugation. Also it is interesting to trace the underpinnings of racism in America back to this change in servitude caused by a strengthening English economy (see above—real wages increase).

February 9, 2014

Racism and Social Stability in the Southeastern Colonies

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.