How Did Colonialism Affect Virginia

2. Africans were considered better slaves than Indians in Virginia because the whites were outnumbered by Indians and faced retaliation if they were enslaved. Slaves were also resourceful on their indigenous lands while whites were not benefited at all.

In reviewing the book American Slavery, American Freedom, historian and author Edmund S. Morgan provides a chronological approach to the growth of slavery in North America. Morgan starts his journey with the first settlements in Virginia and continues until the start of the American Revolution. Morgan gives explanation of how ideals of freedom and English sense of superiority came to be a major stepping stone for independence and racism. Morgan’s question of how a country that proclaims liberty, equality and religious virtue can at the same time foster the opposing ideals of slavery and subjugation is the underlying question throughout the book. Morgan puts the critical issue on display, broken down into four areas or books, to guide our understanding of colonial Virginia, the development of slavery, and the link between racism and equality.

During the 17th and 18th century, English residents felt that England was over-crowded and intolerable. They wanted to lessen these problems that rose up because of the large population increase and to establish more religious freedom (Horn). The English believed that the best way to go about this was to colonize the New World. Subsequently, many colonies began to develop, and of these colonies, Massachusetts Bay and Virginia were the most well-known. The early settlements of Massachusetts and Virginia were both established by similar groups of people at the same time; furthermore, their contrasting beginnings as a colony, views on religion, and method of economic stability all contributed to our American heritage today.

These statements suggest that the English didn't come to the Americas simply to plunder gold and riches from the native Indians. As stated in A People and a Nation, "Unlike the Spanish, other European nations did not immediately start to colonize the coasts their sailors had explored. They were interested in exploiting the natural wealth of the region, not in conquering territories."# However, the English did, at times, exploit the Indians for their profit. Actually, they came to America for a number of reasons, but mainly to escape religious persecution and seek a new start in the world. People whom were mere peasants in England, and possessed no land, would soon become owners of many acres of their very own property.

In the New World, various resources, climates, and considerable amounts of land allowed numerous opportunities for settlers. Those who once yearned to climb the social ladder or gain the freedoms bestowed from land ownership flocked toward the newfound settlements. Colonization proved to be a grueling task; however, success was found after adapting to the new environment and facing many hardships. Two colonies established early in the seventeenth century included Virginia and New England. Both Virginia and New England were forerunning settlements that differed in the following senses: political, social, and economical.

After the defeat of the Spanish Armada the English, invigorated by their victory, began to colonize Americas in 1607. The English envied the wealth the Spanish acquired from the new world. The English created joint stock company such as the Virginia Company to issue propaganda promising land that was “Earth's only paradise” (DOC 1). Of course, they were motivated by settling the colony

The Chesapeake area in the seventeenth century was a unique community that was almost absent of racism. In this community, at this time, property was the central and primary definition of one’s place in society. The color of one’s skin was not a fundamental factor in being a well respected and valued member of the community. Virginia’s Eastern Shore represented a very small fellowship of people that were not typical of the Southern ideals during this time period and gave free blacks owning property a great deal of respect and merit usually equal to that of any white man around.

In the beginning of 17 century a group of merchants established first permanent English colonies in North America at Jamestown, Virginia. Englishmen expected to find gold. Moreover, Virginia Company offered 50 acres of land everyone who journeying to Virginia. They wanted to attract many people to expand their possessions in colony. Determinant factor in the

Breen and Innes do a great job suggesting that a person’s conduct, not necessarily their race, played the major role in early Virginia. They make an inadvertent argument that dominance and submission were the real issue when it came to owning property at the time, not race. The large plantation owners intimidated the smaller farmers and landowners. Blacks were on the same playing field when compared along with the small farmers and landowners. Sadly, this did not last with the entrance of racial mindsets as aforementioned. There is also an argument that even though the hardest working blacks could work their way out of slavery and into freedom, they could maintain the wealth it took to perpetuate that freedom. The growing plantation system and the growing black population is what brought an end to the equal status of the free, black

Edmund S. Morgan's book, American Slavery, American Freedom, is a book focused on the Virginian colonists and how their hatred for Indians, their lust for money, power, and freedom led to slavery. The Virginian society had formed into, as Morgan put it, a republican society towards the end of the 18th century. This society believed in a certain view of freedom and liberty that would define America, through the realization of how this republican freedom depended on its opposite, slavery. How had the Virginia, a society that originally never incorporated slaves into their workforce, become so dependent on them to the point that they feared them? This question and the republican belief of

The seventeenth century marked the start of great colonization and immigration to the New World that was North America. Mainly in on the eastern coast of what is now the United States, England established colonies on this new land to thrive socially and economically. The English government readily sent its citizens to America to exploit its abundant source of raw materials and the English people exponentially came to the colonies to start a new life for themselves and to thrive socially. In Virginia during the seventeenth century, the geographical attributes in this region allowed the establishment of the cash crop tobacco to rapidly transform the colony socially and economically. Particularly in the Chesapeake Bay, the goal of social and

The value of this book is that the book gives various evidence of how Africans were treated in the colonial period in Virginia. The book offered evidence from primary sources about how Africans were treated in the colonial period, which proved to be valuable in this essay in disproving the Handlins.

This is especially true for the way that the history of Virginian women, Native Americans, and African Americans is taught in schools across the state. First let’s look at the way Virginian elementary school students are thought about the Virginian Indian societies and compare that to reality. Students are introduced to the history of the Virginia’s native tribes beginning in the

Inequality has been a major issue in the Colonial Virginia and it was originated within a hierarchy of race, gender, and social class that already existed in the mother country of England.

In 1619 when the Dutch ship the ‘White Lion’ landed in Jamestown Virginia carrying ten African slaves there was a change in the world that is still felt today. The beginning of slavery wasn’t what they had planned those first slaves thought that they were to receive the same rights as indentured slaves until the productivity of the farming industry in the new world. The only difference was that the indentured slaves were European