Essay 1
Organizational value of the slavery was an essential part of the Virginia and Chesapeake during the eighteenth century. The social practices and attitudes that accompanied the skin color based slavery system affected fundamentally all the fields of life. The slave system originated in early seventeen century and slowly prospers with increasing family based servitude system in African Blacks. Over the period of hundred years this slavery system became the critical component of the Virginia society due to obstructive legal system and social practices. The basic reasons of progression in slavery system in Chesapeake are fast growing agriculture system and need of extensive labor in this proliferating endeavor. The initial purpose of using slaves is the increasing demand of tobacco for export purposes but with time as slavery system entrenched in the society; the African slaves were used extensively in expanding farming and agriculture industry.
The Chesapeake and the Virginia were the center of interest for many colonists as this region provide high yield of tobacco whose demand start increasing globally. The Chesapeake provided a significant portion of financial gain through the export of tobacco. In the early seventeen century, the land of Chesapeake started to offer number of opportunities and ventures for different nations. Due to this reason number of English men migrated from different regions to Chesapeake and started working on different agriculture farms and
The Chesapeake was shaped economically by tobacco, Bacons rebellion, by John Smith. The tobacco dominated in this particular region since 1618 it was very profitable and people grew it best on leveled grounds with 80% of Chesapeake homes laying ½ of a riverbank and most 600 feet of the shoreline, bottom line is tobacco was their destiny it was their money for food and other essentials. This shaped Chesapeake since it made up pretty much its entire economy so when tobacco falls, the world falls for them. The Bacon's Rebellion was a popular revolt in colonial Virginia in 1676, led by Nathaniel Bacon because of high taxes, low prices for tobacco, Sir William Berkeley the governor, provided the background for the uprising, which was precipitated by Berkeley's failure to defend the frontier against attacks by Native Americans. This shaped the region since we gained land, furs, and harvest. John smith was young, 28, but had experience fighting Turks and Spanish, and had enough experience to assume control in Virginia, he organized work bands, and ensured sufficient food and shelter for winter; he also became the colony's best Indian negotiator, and when he was captured by Indians in late 1607, he showed bravery and courage, and the chief's daughter, Pocahontas saved Smith's life. This shaped Chesapeake since he provided help for the colony and when he left for England the colonies went on a
Now for the economic reasons. The Chesapeake region developed a tobacco economy, everything they did was to grow or sell tobacco. Document H states that the poor were unhappy. In a society the poor are sometimes unhappy, but in this case the rich did nothing to make the poor feel any better. In New England the economy was not extremely important, but the average person here was wealthier than the average person in England.
While both colonies were settled in Eastern America, the regional geography had a hand in influencing this expansion. New England was known for its harsh climate, forcing its inhabitants to endure brutal winters, and miserably hot summers. Because many European immigrants sought arable land, the unyielding soil of New England impeded the immigrants agriculturally and forced them to depend on livestock. They criticized the Indians for “wasting” the land-not using what little arable land they had to its full potential. As a result, the New Englanders used up as much land as they could to make sure “[t]hat everyone shall have a share of the meadow or planting ground…” (Doc D). They felt it was their duty to clear woodlands and establish a settlement. Additionally, they turned to the coastline and built harbors to fish rather than farm, unlike their Southern counterparts. Geography had a different impact on the people of the Chesapeake region. The people of Chesapeake capitalized on their good soil, and, unlike the New Englanders, they grew tobacco. Tobacco proved very profitable and
Because of the hot climate and fertile land in the Chesapeake region, its economy was more agricultural, rather than industrial. The settlers in this region sought to discover a cash crop, which John Rolfe succeeded in doing; he found that tobacco
The limitation of this book is that this book could only dedicate about 10 pages in the slavery in Virginia. Since it covered so much time period, some details were overlooked.
When the first nineteen slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, an institution that would last more than two hundred years was created. These first slaves were treated more like how the indentured servants that came to the New World from England were. However, as time passed and the colonies grew larger, so did the institution of slavery. Even after the importing slaves internationally was banned in 1807 by Congress, the internal slave trade expanded exponentially. The growth and durability of slavery persisted until the end of the Civil War, a time period greater than the entire existence of the United States. The institution of slavery was not only able to endure through two hundred fifty of turbulent change in America, but it was able to advance. This is due to the mindsets of slavery as a “necessary evil” and a “positive good” coupled with the dependence on them for such a large portion of the economy. These factors can be observed in the narratives written by Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.
The demand of tobacco cultivation in the Chesapeake resulted in an increase of the slave trade. Unlike indentured servants, Africans was not protected by English law, and was accustomed to intensive labor as well as resistant to many diseases. And because the Native Americans were more familiar with the land which in turn made running away easier, it was hard to keep Indians as slaves. Authorities wanted to improve the status of white servants thus taking away the perception that Virginia was a death trap. In the 1660s, Virginia and Maryland laws referred explicitly to slavery. As Tobacco cultivation continued to increase so did the condition of black and white servants divided. The laws became more stricter and freedom for blacks became nonexistent,
The economy of the Chesapeake and New England were both directly affected by their geographical locations and surroundings. The Chesapeake colonies were very rich and fertile in soil, which allowed them to develop an agricultural-based economy; whereas, the New England colonies were
A plantation economy, an economy founded on an agricultural mass production like tobacco, sustained the source of income of the Chesapeake regions, consisting Virginia, Maryland, and northern North Carolina. The early settlers soon realized the urgent need for labor in the New World. Due to the fact that many potential immigrants could not afford an expensive trip across the Atlantic, the Virginia Company developed the system of indentured servitude to attract common laborers. Since tobacco required intensive hand labor all year round, indentured servants have become vital to the colonial economy. "Virginia Servant and Slave Laws" represent the elaborate efforts of masters' to profit from indentured servants and slaves against runaway and
Chesapeake and the other Southern colonies were agrarian societies. The main crop in Chesapeake and North Virginia was tobacco, while in the Deep South, mainly in Georgia and South Carolina, the main crops were rice and cotton. The expansion of these crops led to an increased demand of a large force labor. At the first they hired indentured servants. These were young people who paid for their passage to the American Colonies by working for an employer from five to seven years. Unlike slaves, Indentured servants could look forward to receiving payment known as "freedom dues" upon their release (Foner 2005). These freedom dues included things like new clothes and perhaps a bit of land. However, many died before the end of the.ir terms, and freedom dues were so meager that did not enable recipients to acquire land (Ibid.). Despite the hard conditions of work, a high death rate and
Slavery has always been a part of human history. Therefore on cannot talk about when slavery began in North America. Soon after the American colonies were established in North America, slaves were brought in to meet the growing labor need on plantations. Although the importation of slaves continued to grow as new plantations were developed, it was the industrial revolution that would have the most profound impact on the slave industry. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the effect of slavery in the 13 colonies due to the industrial revolution.
These sources help us understand slavery and its centrality to American history and capitalism by teaching us that plantation owners hired overseers to watch over slaves to make sure they were doing what they were told, otherwise they were whipped until they got back to it. Any slaves that did not work hard enough, refused to do something, or did something they were not supposed to had punishments to come. Owners could do what they wanted, because slaves were thought of as property and nothing more. Although slave owners tried to destroy the salves hope, they never gave up their fight for freedom. The slaves were actually pretty clever with some of the things they would do to resist the control that was placed over them. We can learn that the
Was slavery an economic engine for the Southern economy before the Civil War? Men like Senator and businessman James Henry Hammond would say yes immediately without a second thought. People like Hammond believed that slavery in these times were critical to the growth of the southern economy. They made points such as that agricultural sales were a main percentage of business in the south and with the large area of fertile land that slave ownership was a necessary evil. Along with those, the decades preceding the civil war, the north began to industrialize, which in turn created a large demand for cotton, which was heavily supported by slavery. Not only was slavery a supporting crutch for the immense cotton market, but also slave trade proved to be a highly profitable market of his own. Finally, from the perspective of a plantation owner as a business enterprise, owning slaves proved to be most effective by implementing business strategies, much like Henry James Hammond’s. Without slavery, small planters would have been unable to make a steadfast profit, leaving the cotton industry to rely on large plantation owners who would mainly invest their fortune in British luxurious imports, instead of diversifying and reinvesting in schooling or infrastructure. I personally believe that James Henry Hammond and others were correct, with exception to my ethical beliefs, that slavery was a key factor in the growth and preservation of
Slavery in its very nature has a number of perspectives which it can be analyzed through. From its existence many can argue about slavery from a political perspective, the economic perspective and the social perspective. Slavery was very prevalent in the South of the country despite it being a national institution. In actual sense slavery transcended national barriers. The economic perspective of slavery considers what economic benefits the institution of slavery brought to the south, the economic impact during its existence and subsequent abolition and what void if any was left to be filled with its abolishment.
Slaves were not treated as human beings and so slavery had a huge impact in our history. Since we have civilization in the U.S. slavery is part of our hierarchy system. Slavery was dehumiliating and unfortunately back in the era legal. In “The Act Prohibiting the Teaching of Slaves to Read” we can learn more about the law what prohibits everyone to teach a slave reading and writing. The punishment against a free individual was different and this was based on their skin color, white people’s punishment when caught teaching a slave was in paying a fine between $100-200 or imprisoned and the black people’s punishment was between 20 to 39 lashes or imprisoned. As students we know, while reading new material and information’s out from books, newspapers