Aristocrats, Servants and Slaves The Founding of the Virginia Colony and the Great Paradox of American Slavery

I. Motive behind English colonization Like the Spanish - wanted gold and/or land Like the French - pursued “extractive” industries BUT English had no use for the Native Americans Need for labor led to introduction of slavery

The Great Paradox... The English will pursue genocide and slavery… They will also introduce Liberalism and a culture of independence

A. Economic opportunity and crisis 1. Richard Hakluyt ( ) “godfather” of British mercantilism 2. Enclosure movement (Price Revolution) - social dislocation

3. How to deal with these problems? Colonies! - soak up excess people (Thomas Malthus) - provide natural resources - provide markets

B. Two impediments 1. Financing - poor, cheap, pre-occupied 2. Finding settlers

II. How to start a colony Finance & Labor

A. Financing 1. Joint stock company Virginia Company, Public/private stock 3. Compulsory labor

B. Labor 1. Lie like a dog “new Eden” settlers promised that they could return

2. Indentured servitude 3. Virtual slavery Conflict: lure of wealth v. need for labor [individual v. communal good]

C. Near Disaster 1. Investors want quick profits John Smith 2. Conflict with Indians Wahunsonacock (Powhatan) , “the Starving Time”

3. Bad geography

III. Privatization - there must be incentive to save the colony - combine individualism w/ deferred rewards

A. Colonial reorganization George Yeardley - distributed land for cash crops and food 2. Unequal distribution Headright System *characteristic of southern colonies

3. House of Burgesses - unequal representation - planter supremacy 4. Indentured servants - eventual freedom, bounties, land - frontiersmen [Scots-Irish] African slaves

IV. Origins of Race Slavery

A. Class distinction 1. Prior to 1676, little difference between black & white laborers - socialized w/ each other - coerced by planters

B. Virginia on the edge Indian War 2. Working conditions create scandal in England James I Royal Colony, 1624

C. Why Africans? 1. Traditional: blacks inferior to whites (just rationalization) 2. Real reasons - economic - owned for life - children (compare w/ Mestizo culture) - easier to exploit / distinguish

D. Aristocracy of labor 1. Institutional racism (Jamestown) s black “servants” willed to family no “Negroes” allowed to own guns lifetime “slavery” first mentioned in law baptism will not bring freedom blacks/Indians cannot own white I/Ss blacks cannot congregate in large numbers no mixed-race marriage; separate trials no free “Negroes or Mulattos” in the colony

E. Bacon’s Rebellion, Tidewater v. Backcountry Nathaniel Bacon William Berkeley

2. Last major white / black cooperation (1880s) * Southern society divided by race as well as class * White skin would come to mean better treatment * Racial caste system (racism) invented to preserve economic hierarchy !!!! IDEOLOGY OUTLASTS INSTITUTION!!!

Great Paradox of American Slavery Liberty (for whites) dependent on slavery Leaders of Independence movement from planter class Vested interest in this system (Civil War)