Jamestown and the Colonial World
Colonial World – Characteristics
• Land, labor, water
– Land abundant, at least on paper
• Land the most traded commodity
• Big business in real estate speculation
• Largely ignored Native claims
– Labor scarce = two options to increase it:
1. Recruit more with higher wages, benefits
2. Coerce more people
Colonists did both
Colonial World – Characteristics
• Land, labor, water
– Water transport the best, easiest
Cost: 10 miles by land = 100 miles by river =
1000 miles by ocean
Colonial “good road” = bad dirt road today
– Easiest to live on coast, on rivers
– East coast of North America unusual
• Large numbers of navigable rivers
• Large numbers of natural bays, harbors
• Earliest English settlements followed rivers
The Thirteen Colonies in 1763
Colonial World – Characteristics
• Social rank – freedom, labor
– Small minority of colonists with full legal rights
• By global standards, large percentage
• Wide spectrum of freedom
– Most work done by “unfree” labor
• Apprentices, servants, slaves
• Women, children
– More manual labor = lower on the social ladder
– Jamestown and other Chesapeake colonies
• Intended to reproduce English class system
(Think Downton Abbey)
Colonial World -- Characteristics
• Preindustrial agriculture
– Food crops = mostly subsistence farming
• Local food market
• Self-sufficiency  plant diversity
• Cash very rare
– Cash crops = commercial farming
• High demand
• Grown for long-range export
• Monoculture = dominated by one crop
Jamestown: Bad Investment
False assumptions about New World
(Perpetuated by exaggerated sales pitches)
• Gold and silver everywhere
• Abundant food, friendly natives
• Originally, Va. Co. brought goldsmiths, miners,
managers
–But almost no farmers
Location, location, location
• Built on swampy land
• Great spot for defensive fortification
• Terrible spot for farming, health
Jamestown: Bad Investment
“The Starving Time” in first few years
• Unreliable resupply ships
• Most of population died from disease and
malnutrition
• Solution: military dictatorship
–Death penalty for missing church twice
• Relied on charity from Native neighbors
–Also, raided Native neighbors
• John Smith: "One amongst the rest did kill his
wife, powdered [breaded] her, and had eaten
part of her before it was known, for which he
was executed, as he well deserved. Now
whether she was better roasted, boiled or
carbonado'd [barbecued], I know not, but of
such a dish as powdered wife I never heard.”
Another case:
skull of “Jane of Jamestown,”
age 14, with evidence of postmortem slicing frequently
associated with cannibalism
Virginia
What saved Jamestown? tobacco
– Increasing European demand by 1600
– Trickle-down consumption:
• At first, a rare and expensive habit
• Elites set fashion trends
• Addiction: luxury becomes necessity
By late 1500’s, Catholic Church banned
priests from smoking while conducting Mass
By Shakespeare’s death (1616), already antismoking laws in London theaters
Virginia
What saved Jamestown? immigration
• Greater chance at land ownership in colonies
–Meant economic independence
• Headright system
–Free land if you pay for your voyage
–50 acres of land (no matter what quality)
–Extra land if man brings wife and/or servants
• Promise of political power, rights, prestige
–House of Burgesses, like House of Lords
–Membership for all who invest over a certain level
Virginia and tobacco
Virginia becomes model for rest of South:
• Monoculture cash crop
–Tobacco, rice, indigo; (later, cotton)
• Export to Europe
• Increasing demand for manual labor
• Increasing reliance on slaves
• Powerful landowner elite
Makes South very much like Caribbean colonies
• Colonial South Carolina more similar to Cuba
than to Pennsylvania
Indentured servitude
• Strict labor contract for 4, 7, or 10 years
– In return for others’ paying for your voyage
– Owner of the contract owns your time and labor
• Need permission to travel, marry, or switch jobs
– Payoff at the end: land, tools, cash
• Many fail to survive, especially in Virginia
• High risk (death) for high reward (land ownership)
• Still, often better chances than back in Europe
– In earliest colonies, only slight differences with slaves
• Less racial distinction than what comes later
• Gradually, more laws creating racial hierarchy
Indentured servants
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Demographic factor: life expectancy
Living longer  social change
More servants survive terms, demand land
In Virginia:
– Less and less useful farmland available
– White settlers further and further from capital
– More clashes with Native neighbors
– Growing discontent among landless and those
with poor land
Land, labor, and conflict
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676
– Civil war within Virginia colony = colonist vs. colonist
• Landed elite, coastal settlements, led by Berkeley
• “Backcountry” settlers, led by Bacon
• Both claimed they spoke for the King
• Native Americans largely on Berkeley’s side
– Jamestown burned to the ground; widespread disease
– Rebellion squashed with military force
• Planters’ lesson: use more restricted labor
– Shift to using more African slaves
– Increased emphasis on racial hierarchy