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Region:
Chesapeake Society and the Carolinas
Immigrant Group: Upper and lower
class English immigrants Over the next two decades the settlement of Jamestown bordered on extinction. In part, this was due to a lack in social stability. Disease and hunger killed many, and Indians killed others. Unlike the settlers in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, most were men. The absence of a family unit caused two difficulties in Virginia. First, increase in population through natural increase did not occur, and second, many of the men exploited the women, who came as indentured servants or who were members of local Indian tribes. The colonists in Virginia tried a number of different enterprises: silk making, glassmaking, lumber, sassafras, pitch and tar, and soap ashes, with no financial success. Despite difficulties, however, those settling in Jamestown discovered a means of survival, and eventually, profits: They could grow the "sot weed" (tobacco) on the region's fertile soil. Though better known for marrying Pocahontas, John Rolfe is credited with the experiment of planting the first tobacco seeds that he obtained from somewhere in the Caribbean, possibly from Trinidad. Despite renewed hopes that the colony might be profitable, the land company was bankrupt by the 1620s. In response James I revoked the charter and transferred to the status of Virginia to a royal colony. At that time, the colony had only about 500 Old World residents --- this group was a mixture of a few elite who had large landholdings and a greater number of indentured servants. At that time, the colony also included a handful of Africans. During the initial years as a royal colony, Virginia prospered. Left alone, its land-holding elite continued to acquire land and wealth --- demand for tobacco in England and a plentiful labor force of indentured servants provided keys to financial success. Yet the financial and political status of this group had diminished by the 1660s for two reasons. First, this group had too few children, so their wealth and status died with them. Second, a new group of migrants arrived from England, who was willing and able to assume power in Virginia. Most members in this new group of migrants were from English merchant families who had traded with Virginia. Consequently, these new immigrant had wealth, education and ambition. Soon they became the elite planter class, and, like their predecessors, they used cheap labor to work the fields of tobacco, rice and cotton. It is interesting to note that the ancestors of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe (four of the first five presidents of the United States) were part of this new wave of immigrants to colonial Virginia. What continued to limit the financial profits of Virginia's land-holding class was being assured of having consistent, compliant and healthy field workers. Though the colonial elite had hoped that indentured servants could supply this labor, they had been wrong. As migrants from England, these men and women lacked he physical stamina to work in the humid, hot climate of Virginia. Warfare with the Native American tribes of the region, along with rampant malnutrition, typhus, and dysentery either killed or incapacitated thousands of the English field workers. Moreover, since the term of servitude was fixed at four to seven years, these indentured servants did not represent a stable or malleable labor force. Therefore, the landowners of Virginia decided to shift from indentured servants to slaves, because they were being "held back." Thus by the mid 1600s the planter class of Virginia began to use enslaved Africans as a field workers. Used successfully by the plantation owners in the Caribbean, Africans had proven they could sustain the humid and hot climate, and, as slaves, they were both permanent and controllable. Virginia's incorporation of slavery gradually evolved in the 17th century. In 1619, when Africans first appeared in Virginia, their status was recorded to be the same as white indentured servants. By the 1640s, however, this "equal" status had shifted: They, along with some Indians, were considered slaves, and their children inherited their status. Finally from 1660 to 1705, Virginia, along with other southern colonies, passed a series of laws and strict legal codes that defined slavery as a lifelong, inheritable status based on color and established social standards for racial etiquette. Thus, within 100 years of initial development, Virginia, along with Maryland and North Carolina, established racial slavery. The causative factor had been a need to have a labor force to support the financial investment in growing tobacco, rice and cotton. Yet, the establishing slavery in British America determined a fundamental part of American identities and a key point of discussion and debate in the emerging nation of the United States. Consequences:
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History Lives
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