The Legal System Of Colonial Virginia

Throughout the book, The Origins of Slavery, the author, Betty Woods, depicts how religion and race along with social, economic, and political factors were the key factors in determining the exact timing that the colonist’s labor bases of indentured Europeans would change to involuntary West African servitude. These religion and racial differences along with the economic demand for more labor played the key roles in the formation of slavery in the English colonies. When the Europeans first arrived to the Americas in the late sixteenth century, at the colony of Roanoke, the thought of chattel slavery had neither a clear law nor economic practice with the English. However by the end of that following century, the demand for slaves in the

In a quick observation, it may be easy to observe that the Constitution of Virginia is much larger in length and detail than the United States Constitution. There are many differences between these two constitutions besides the authors or contributors being that James Madison contributed to both, however, he was not the complete author of the Constitution of Virginia (Constitutions of Virginia). Both Constitutions have the same idea in which it holds three separate branches of government, however, differences include the detail and content brought amongst the articles. Differences include, but are not limited to, division of the three branches, extra articles and policies, and the amendments. They

First Generations: Women in Colonial America delivers a broad analysis over American women in the colonial period. It is evident that married women in colonial America were not considered equal to their husbands or to society in general. The rights of American women have come a long way in regards to civil rights. The control a woman in early Colonial America had over her own life was linked to race, religion, and class. Berkin organizes the first chapters according to race and region. Other chapters are organized by African American women, New England, and the middle colonies, Native American Women, and white women in the Chesapeake. Within each chapter, Berkin gives details about one woman from the region. European, Indian, and African women of seventeenth and eighteenth-century America were protectors of their native land, pioneers on the frontier, like-minded immigrants, and courageous slaves. They were also, as most scholars tend to leave out, just as important as men in shaping American culture and history.

I was walking towards the South East corner of the city where the founder of the Virginia lives. His name is Captain John Smith. While I was walking I passed Felicia and Bubby. They told me that they loved that they were safe from the Spanish. They told me a quick story about how dangerous Spanish boats and the sailors on them were. I nodded and kept walking. Then I passed by Bubby’s and Felicia’s ill parents. They told me that when they settled the water seemed almost perfect, but the colonists ruined it and contaminated it. They said that they were sick because of the contaminated water. I got them some biscuits, wished them well and went on my way. I then peered over my shoulder to see what was happening. There was a new ship coming in with new supplies. Effortlessly people hauled the cargo off the ship standing on the dock and into the town center. I looked forward again and now jogging because the night was coming, I continued on to John Smith’s house. When I first got there I knocked on the solid wood door of the small cabin like structure. John Smith answered the door and I asked him my question. He walked out of his house and sat on the ground next to me. I then sat next to him. He told me that there were three main reasons he chose to settle in this area in Virginia. He said that the sea provided protection against the Spanish. “Hmm, coincidence” I thought, remembering when Bubby and Felicia had told me about the Spanish and their boats. Then John Smith said the second reason wass because they thought they had a fresh supply of water near the settlement. Although this proved to be wrong after the colonists contaminated the water. And once again a coincidence had happened. Bubby and Felicia's mother and father had been talking about how they got sick, by the contaminated water. Then John Smith told me that the last reason wa

Sir William Berkeley arrived in Virginia in 1642 to act as the Colonial Governor of Virginia. He was the King’s envoy in Virginia, though he was a selfish royalist who believed in himself before the King. He brought together some

For example, the authors used, among other materials, the minutes of Council and General Court of colonial Virginia, which reveals laws passed such as one relating to the “punishment of runaway servants”, where following a multi-racial escape, the law drew little distinction between co-conspirators of different races (McIlwaine, 466). It is a very effective research strategy. The authors imply strongly that if we were to look at this culture objectively, without our presupposed notions of race relations in 17th century Virginia, we would assume that wealth, mainly property, was the dividing social characteristic, and not race, as it would be for the next couple centuries. Breen’s and Innes’ research strategy is compelling. By relying more on original source materials, as opposed to others’ summaries and compilations, they are able to achieve that objectivity. Any attempt to find facts or narratives counter to the most recognized ones can only hope to do so by using original sources.

As Martha Ballard writes in her diary, "A womans work is never Done as the Song says and Happy is shee [sp] whose strength holds out to the end of the rais [race]." Women, like Ballard, contributed useful and skilled labor, though it was often derided, mocked, or overlooked. However, the work of women varied greatly, due to location, social class, race, time-period, and more. This essay will focus on two very different groups of women, early female settlers of the Chesapeake area during the seventeenth century and the Native American women of the Iroquois Confederacy, spread across northeastern New York and Ontario during the same time period. Through the analysis, the necessity of the study of women 's work will become evident; it aids historians in understanding women 's past: including gender perceptions, the myriad of experiences faced by different women, and the changes over that occurred over time.

In the colonial American time period during the seventeenth century there were many important sources that have come up missing. Some are just missing and others destroyed. The modern- day historians have the task of trying to find this lost information to determine the facts about

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 social interactions that the New England and Chesapeake colonies had between Indians and their own people were very different due to alternate motives. Documents A and H each show the steps taken in order to achieve social unity. It is obvious that the two colonies didn’t have the best relationship with the Indians, but both colonies had different approaches when it came to mending relationships. Bacon’s Rebellion was a revolt against Governor Berkeley of Virginia in 1676 that started due to Berkeley's resistance of not fighting against the Indians because of the fur trade. This showed that the Chesapeake colony would rather take a better economy as opposed to stable social interactions,

James Horn, a historian at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation writes the story of Roanoke colony onto paper in this intriguing book, “ A Kingdom Strange The Brief And Tragic History Of The Lost Colony Of Roanoke ” Horn presents a persuasive hypothesis for what he believes must have happened to the settlers that were said to have vanished. Using accessible information and resources Horn concluded that the settlers did not in fact vanish or die, but rather just intermingle with the natives of the land. Horn proves his theories in his book by introducing a new perspective on how the settlers intermixed with the natives and were discovered centuries later by returning colonists.

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

Breen, T. H., and Stephen Innes. Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia 's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. Print.

The Phases of Conversion: A New Chronology for the Rise of Slavery in Early Virginia by John C. Coombs is a scholarly article published in Williams and Mary quarterly, which is a historical magazine dedicated to publishing studies of slavery in the Americas. The purpose of this document was to offer a new

Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia by John Ruston Pagan highlights the paradoxical nature of life in the colonial times and how it aided the creation of American law. The four cases that resulted from the fornication between Anne Orthwood and John Kendall gave present historians a vivid image of how English settlers modified English traditions and began to create customs of their own. Furthermore, it was able to reveal some of the cultural, economical and political values in the colony of Virginia such as tobacco and unfree labor. They helped reveal the reasons why legal systems were created in the first place by documenting the prolongation of social order as well as the preservation of self interest. Anne Orthwood’s Bastard critically examines the role of unfree labor, women, and law in colonial life which perfectly aligns with the deeper question of what values helped shape the nation’s founding in the 17th century Chesapeake.