Indentured Servitude to Racialized Slavery

Indentured Servitude

Historians

Morgan

Foner

Takaki

Attracting New Laborers in Virginia's profitable tobacco plantations was hard because of news of conflict with Natives and disease spreads.

Indentured Servants are given free passage to America in exchange for 4-7 years of labor.

Nearly 2/3 of new English settlers were Indentured Servants

Way for colonies to become populated

The servants could be beaten for the smallest of infractions, can't marry without master's permission.

Many were promised 50 acres of land by the end of their servitude, not many actually received this.

Only landowners could vote and hold political office.

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Africans were not protected by the rights of America, could be used forever, were not easily lost to outside societies, were relatively accustomed to harsh agriculture and diseases of Europe.

While race was not a concept, the English had long practiced xenophobic ideologies.

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Stereotypes against black people thrived in England, and as opposed to Natives who could easily escape, Africans could not.

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Slavery has often existed but not in the same way as in the colonies.

This slavery was a system with one master and many workers, meaning it must be policed to prevent uprisings, and was racially based. The death rate was higher as well because of the hardcore labor required.

Economic agreement of slavery's viability played a great role in the introduction of the system.

Enslaved populations grew greatly in West Indian islands. Barbados' number of enslaved peoples grew from 20,000 to 80,000.

Sugar was the first mass marketed crop of these plantations.

Spanish laws granted certain freedoms to the enslaved, English law did not.

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Some black people managed to escape slavery after some years, at times managing to own their own land and slaves.

In the 1660's the few rights managed by black people dwindled and the rights for whites increased.

Laws worsened and worsened, with ancestry becoming dependent on the mother's race, rewarding slaver's sexual abuses.

Because of a lack of wealth sharing, lack of stealing all Native land and alliances hoarding wealth, whites not owning landing became poor, unable to vote and close in their depression to that of previous English generations.

Governor William Berkely of Virginia refused to exterminate Native populations and among this and his alliances uprisings including Native killings preceded.

The rebellion burned down Jamestown, leaving the leader, Nathaniel Bacon in power until a squadron of English warships restored the power.

Virginian rulers accelerated the installment of enslaved people, lowered taxes, allowed for voting for non-landowners and encroached more heavily on Native rights in order to please the potential up-risers.

Royal Africa company's monopoly on slavery ended and the death rate began to fall leading to more slavery.

Enslaved people's number rose drastically, from 10 percent of Virginia's population to over 50 percent, along came even less rights and laws making them fully seen as property. Even with different courts.

Much was done to inhibit the enslaved from escaping bondage.

Indentured servants who were the poorest of England were often forced to come to America as well.

The indentured servants and the enslaved were struggling with many common burdens, the elite in this society realize them communing would be an issue.

The running away of indentured peoples with the enslaved is a clear signifier of the economic issue these relationships could have.

Punishments were severely enforced against the people in a relationship of different races, this showed that people would not be tolerated mingling in this way.

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As Africans are shown as items, as property rather than humans more and more, the idea that they are not needing of humane treatment is further pushed.

The existence of slavery in the West Indies served as a base for the ideas brought into existence in the New World. Some Native Americans were even traded for Africans with the traders of the West Indies to be enslaved.

For the people of Virginia, the ideas of race and religion mattered because they were settling into a new life, not just because of economic reasons.

Religion in the early colonies was used as a way to distinguish between and separate the races.

The ideas of slavery and of racial separation, utilizing religion also were important factors in the separating the 'civilized' and 'barbaric', essentially the ideas that gave people perceived allowances for inhumane treatment of those of other races.

Part of the reason that slavery began to gain more traction was there were less British coming the the New World to be servants.

The lives of the enslaved was also increasing, giving their enslavement more economic benefit because the lifespan of all in the New World was beginning to elongate.

From the beginning, the ideas of racial separation were intertwined with class differences.

In the idea of the play, it is shown that class and race are one in the same, at least in their creation.

Because of the class structure of the England that these colonists were coming from, the idea of racial separation as based on social structure is not necessarily that abstract of a concept.

With economic prosperity in the new land came also extended indentured servitude

The servants were in many ways still desolate in the New World just as in England, with many not owning land as of the 1660's.

With unsatisfactory life of the indentured servants it becomes clear that without the changing of rules and social classes there will be an all too powerful disgruntled lower class.

The right for every white man to bear arms also proved dangerous, as the disgruntled were heavily armed.

Bacon's rebellion was greatly fueled by the dissatisfaction of the poor whites and gluttonous hierarchy of rich whites.

Even black peoples were fighting against the governor and his classism, realizing they had more to gain from the rebellion as they were enslaved for life in many cases.

After the death of Bacon and a short lived success, the rebellion was brutally ended with ship reinforcements illustrating the power of the established government.

With these rebellions still posing a great threat if the power structured was continued, the choice to more racialize servitude came as the clearly most economically beneficial solution.

Enslaved people's numbers grew drastically with this new shift.

The fact that the enslaved could be better kept from revolutions because of their lack of rights also added to the shift in the work force.

The white lower class still persisted with these new changes, but new terms made it so these peoples could eventually work their way into economic stability,

Because of these class differences and radicalization, the opportunities of rebellions of the enslaved along with the poor whites greatly diminished.

New laws also worked to greatly prohibit the union of those of different races.

Militias and groups of poor whites were used to ensure no slave revolts.

The abundance of uncultivated land became the clear discerning quality of the greatness of America.

Thomas Jefferson saw land ownership as a way to keep away from class conflicts.

Thomas Jefferson along with his ideas was one of the wealthiest people in Virginia, by 1822 owning 267 enslaved peoples.

The rise of liberty and equality has come hand in hand with slavery and its horrors.

Historians have a hard time seeing how this hypocrisy advanced.

The labor of slaves in a way bought the freedom of Americans.

Many of those most outspoken about the potential rights of Americans were avid slavers.

There is great hypocrisy as well in the fact that Britain, a land of supposed freedom was less free than its colonies.

Jefferson, who owned many slaves said one cannot be free without independence.

Jefferson hated debt, this he said was keeping him captive, this is why he says he enjoyed the profits of slavery.

Only by the freedom of land ownership and without debt can a Republic thrive, and avoid tyranny in Jefferson's ideology.

Jefferson finds the dependance of labor workers very frightening, and takes away their true freedom.

Republicans as a whole mistrusted and truly did not like landless men.

It seems that the upper class was yearning for freedom and happy to have it be at the expense of others.

Andrew Fletcher believed that through a lack of slavery 'idle-men' are created, that no work is bad for those people.

Letting poor people work their land seemed to be a gift in the eyes of the nobles.

Even those potentially opposed to the idea of slavery would not go against this economic opportunity.

Here came also into play the idea of racism, this helped demonstrate why some should be lesser.

The upper class mistrusted and didn't believe in the lower classes.

There was a great population boom in England beginning in 1500. This led to a large number of people unable to work and such. In the eyes of the new colonists, idle men

Richard Hakluyt was authored a book describing ideas of English Empirialism but seemed to do this with empathy.

It seems that a general oppositon to the Spanish brought together people, even if some were slavers and some enslaved.

While Hakluyts vision of an Empire was not fully practiced, he played a part in designing it in Virginia.

It seems that the opposition to Natives was a mistep in the vision of some nobler settlers.

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Through the violence of colonists the potential for communion between Natives and colonists vanished.

The lack of ability to collaborate with the Natives led to a suffering people in the new colonies.

This author claims that at first the African enslaved peoples were treated the same as indentured people.

It seems that some freed people weren't even necessarily keen on being part of the colonial system.

The first waves of people included Africans into their ranks as English had done with other people.

The death rate during the first decades of Virginia was astonishing, some 50 percent perished.

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When the disease which caused much of the death of colonists declined the new-coming rates began to suffocate the colony.

Now there were many freemen who had served their time and now had no opportunity to look forward to.

The influx of people had to be sustained by the rich, but part of the problem was those migrating were often those unwanted by England

There was also a problem in gender diversity, because only male white workers were used only a quarter of people were female.

Another danger of this new population was they were all armed, the harsh conditions in the colony requiring this.

A rebellion sparked by Natives created a rebellion, solidifying the fears of the upper class.

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While the idea of change and equality-was a fair one the lack of structure to demands and fesible requirements led to the rebellion mostly just causing mistrust and fear.

The discontent underclass created great issue and difficulty for the colonies which were ruled by the upper class, the solution met was to restrict the liberties of some in order to supply some with more freedoms and abilities.

The solution here was to in 1670 only allow land and householders to vote, taking away the power of people who were discontent, setting a course for more violent uprisings.

After this became inacted it was clear more had to be done, black peoples rights were taken away to further the rights of whites.

It can also be thought that this was a conclusion not come to but enacted because of the economic opportunity slavery now held with higher life spans.

Only with the African population was it possible to appease the growing immigrant population.

This also created greater fabrications of racist stereotypes and the idea that Africans had to be controlled made it so this inhumane behaviour seemed forgivable.

Although there was greater reason for violence from the Africans, they proved less dangerous a disgruntled class than the armed and dangerous class of lower class people of many races.

With the place of a labor force already filled, there was no more need to compete as a freedman, one became more applicable to a range of other occupations in society.

There were now more people owning land and less of a divide between classes.

This time relieved the jobs and duties of the freemen and gave the oppurtinity for this farmer to look to more lucrative and full-filling professions.

The lack of education given to the poorer classes was a purposeful move to make sure rebellion was muffled, that Republican ides were not generated under Berkeley.

Here, claims the author began this powerful paradox of America, the paradox of rights for some and none for others.