Mexican Plantation Memo

The acclaimed book begins with Georgia beginning as a dry and modest colony. As the years pass, these ideals and morals are changed to desiring more than a hardworking farmer. The people of Georgia desired to have slaves. Therefore, Georgia changed and started a path to become identical to South Carolina. However, as the amount of plantations sky-rocketed, so did the need for more slaves. It is a marvel to imagine that I live in the city of Savannah that was a beacon for the selling and exchanging of human beings.

Before reading the Willie Lynch letter, my assumption was that he was a black man. Then realizing his last name, “Lynch”, I knew he was white. Although The Willie Lynch’s letter wasn’t a real letter made centuries ago and it was made based off todays time, it gives a clear view of how black people are controlled today. In Lynch’s letter he gives advice to his people about how to control black people. The number one thing that caught my attention was when he began to list off the methods of controlling slaves, and blacks.

* How would tens of thousands of settlers immigrating to New England with this image of their own purpose shape the development of that colony?

Chapter one, titled “The Georgia Plan” describes how Georgia was colonized so those in the overcrowded debtor’s prisons in England had a place to go and work. Chapter one also talks about the influence of the Native Americans in Georgia the Spanish around them. Chapter two, “The Inhabited Landscape”, outlines the various techniques the settlers used for farming and growing food and their failures along the way. Chapter two also tells about the settler’s disappointment in the land because it was not the type of soil or climate they

Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th cent., the Araucanians had long been in control of the land in the southern part of the region; in the north, the inhabitants were ruled by the Inca empire. Diego de Almagro, who was sent by Francisco Pizarro from Peru to explore the southern region, led a party of men through the Andes into the central lowlands of Chile but was unsuccessful (1536) in establishing a foothold there. In 1540, Pedro de Valdivia marched into Chile and, despite stout resistance from the Araucanians, founded Santiago (1541) and later established La Serena, Concepción, and Valdivia. After an initial period of incessant warfare with the natives, the Spanish

Scattered along many of Louisiana’s rivers and bayous are majestic, historical homes built during a time of Southern prosperity. In the South, these homes and surrounding property often called plantations, were the product of middle to upper class slave-owning planters. Central Louisiana is home to a plantation that is “the oldest standing structure” in this area. During a recent visit to Kent House Plantation, I learned of the history, operations, and current events that help to keep the past alive.

A group of Jews arrived at the colony in 1733 and James Oglethorpe allowed them to stay despite the what the charter said as well as what the other trustees said (Locks, p.38). The ease smuggling of smuggling rum into the colony soon nullified the prohibition set by the trustees, however the land and slavery prohibition were harder to sneak around. The colonists were meant to be planters as well as soldiers, and the colonists were given small land plots to serve both the colony’s defensive needs as well as their luxurious mercantile needs; the small plots were meant to create a compact society fit for war rather than a sparsely settled plantation economy. The 50 acres that were given to the colonists sometimes spread over swamps and areas of infertility which rendered the land useless; the colonists also had to pay rent on their land as well as cultivate the entirety of their land within a specified time or else the land would result in forfeiture back to the trustees (Document #6). The trustees banned the use of slavery for fear that they would lose control of the land to the colonists, and many of the colonists weren’t prepared for frontier life which led them to flee north for better opportunity. The trustees hoped to create a labor force from white indentured servants rather than black slaves, however, the white labor force was so

Through out the entire time period of slavery, religion remained a high priority and a way in which to label different social groups. The lack or complete non-existence of religion among Africans led to them being viewed as somewhat inferior. Later in the second chapter Jordan talks about how during the slave era religion distinguished whites from blacks. Also how classification changed once Africans began to enter the Christian church. He himself viewed this type of labeling somewhat ridiculous, in that many of the Africans were baptized before the came to the New World. Thus they in many circles would be identified as Christians. This important information helps show the reader how the justifications for slavery evolved. Jordan captures the utter and blatant hypocrisy that the colonies exuded with regards to the slave situation. Jordan also sees religious injustice within the treatment of Indians and Africans. The English made attempts to convert the Indians and had little desire or intention to do the same for Africans. This again shows to what lengths early Americans went in creating a subculture for the purpose of slavery.

White and his men dropped anchor off the Outer Banks of North Carolina and rowed toward the island. Crewman sounded familiar tunes on trumpets to alert the colonists, but not a single human figure was seen. The landing party made its way through the woods to the settlement at the island’s northern end. Bracing himself for the worst, White entered the clearing where he had parted from the colonists, including his daughter, Eleanor Dare and his granddaughter, the first child born in the colonies, Virginia Dare (Davis, 2009). He found the settlement deserted, weeds and vines sprouting where houses had once stood. The houses themselves had been carefully dismantled and removed. Gone, too, were the fort’s small cannon; buried chests were found, containing some of the colonists’ possessions. All the evidence suggested a planned and orderly withdrawal (McGill, 2009).

There has been many historians and theorists who have tackled colonial slavery. One of them is Ira Berlin whose book Many Thousands Gone is his take on slavery diversity in American history and how slavery is at the epicenter of economic production, amongst other things. He separates the book into three generations: charter, plantation and revolutionary, across four geographic areas: Chesapeake, New England, the Lower country and the lower Mississippi valley. In this paper, I will discuss the differences between the charter and plantation generations, the changes in work and living conditions, resistance, free blacks and changes in manumission.

The political issue of slavery in the United States intensified with the Mexican-American War. The United States gained a large area of territory with their victory over Mexico in 1848. Arguments over free versus slave states in the United States had already been around. The Southern states believed the Northern states wanted to eliminate slavery from the United States, while the free Northern states believed that the slave Southern states wanted slavery to spread throughout the continent. The new states brought up the issue of free versus slave, which created even more conflict in the United States. In 1845, Texas became a slave state. California became a state under the Great Compromise of 1850. The North gained California, making it a free

African slavery started at the 16th century and ended in the 19th century. Slave life was the most brutal and disrespected period of America. When Africans first stepped foot on the slave ships coming to America things were bad. The white man beat, raped, and treated the black men like animals. Life on the plantation wasn’t any better. The slaves didn’t work for a paycheck, they worked for their lives. The black man had difficulties adapting to the environment, learning another language, and being a monogamous.

The Mexican Revolution was one of the great revolutionary upheavals of the twentieth century and had a profound impact on the development of Mexico well into the modern day. The revolutionary period itself can be split into three distinct stages: First, several factions united behind Francisco Madero in order to overthrow the dictatorial government of Porfirio Diaz. When Madero’s government appeared to maintain the status quo set forth during the Porfiriato period, however, the same forces that brought Madero to power rose up once again to remove him. Finally, the remaining factions, no longer possessing a common goal to unite them, turned on one another in a fight to establish dominance. At the end of this bloody period emerged a new triumvirate:

In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family In The Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger outlines a very unique African American family living in Nashville, TN accounting tales of the trials and tribulations that Sally Thomas, the mother, and her sons had to go through; and how in the end she accomplished her goal. The authors excellently executed the life of this family in an informational and intriguing text by explaining and comparing the different lives and classes of slaves back in that century through Sally and her son’s stories.The detail and the historical pictures in the text help give life and a sense of “realness” and credibility to the situations given to help breathe life into the story, making the story easier to understand and believe.

Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.