In his chapter about the Chesapeake colonies, Taylor outlines the social classes and power struggles, as well as the developing slave nation that would shape the rest of American history.\u00a0 These power rankings emerged from labor classes.\u00a0 Taylor describes that in England, power rankings were based on aristocracy and education, whereas in the colonies competitive middle-class men were on top of the social ladder (139).\u00a0 Underneath these middle-class men were indentured servants, who labored until they had paid off their dues.<\/p>\n

I thought was most interesting about the reading was how the colonies changed from tensions between English colonists to tensions between English colonists and slaves.\u00a0 Bacon\u2019s Rebellion exemplifies the strained relationship between English laborers and the elites, when a disgruntled colonist attacked the Virginia Governor, Governor Berkeley.\u00a0 Although this event did not lead to major changes in the colony, it showed the tensions between these two groups.\u00a0 But there was a lower supply for indentured servants, as well as no longer economically beneficial, so slaves started to become more common in the colonies.\u00a0 Along with the rising slave trade, the developing racism in the colonies created new power rankings.\u00a0 It was no longer elite versus laborer; it was English colonist versus slave.<\/p>\n

As Charlotte says in her post, color of one\u2019s skin became a major marker in identity, which led to unity between the colonists based on this common identifier.\u00a0 I agree with Charlotte that Taylor\u2019s description of this process of \u201cothering\u201d is more complicated than what Taylor makes it out to be.\u00a0 Taylor described in detail the punishments against slaves if they were to step out of line, but he did not describe the more elitist attitude that white colonist had during this time.\u00a0 I think Taylor could have expanded more on this, as it creates an important distinction that leads to important events concerning the Civil War and the Reconstruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his chapter about the Chesapeake colonies, Taylor outlines the social classes and power struggles, as well as the developing slave nation that would shape the rest of American history.\u00a0 These power rankings emerged from labor classes.\u00a0 Taylor describes that in England, power rankings were based on aristocracy and education, whereas in the colonies competitive … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Power Tensions in the Chesapeake Colony”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,47,198],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afircan-slave","tag-chesapeake-colony","tag-racial-tension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}