Staples, Slavery, and a Subprime
Aristocracy
The Black Legend
Christian Love in New Spain
• Laws of the Indies (1512, 1542, etc.)
• 1537 – Pope Paul III condemns mistreatment of Indians
• Ban on Indian slavery, but labor still forced
Indians in New Spain inconveniently died out
from disease and overwork
What to do?
Here Come the English
English view of Irish, 1580
Plymouth and London Companies
• “Virginia”=whole
east coast
• Popham colony
(Aug. 13, 1607)
• Jamestown (May
14, 1607)
English settlement in the Chesapeake, ca. 1650
The Chesapeake
• An economic proposition
• For-profit agriculture
• The labor problem
Colony was almost a total disaster until tobacco
was successfully cultivated
John Rolfe and Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of
the Powhatan Confederacy
The only portrait of Pocahontas
Powhatan, the most prominent Indian leader in the
original area of English settlement in Virginia
Life in the Chesapeake
• Mostly men
• Mostly indentured servants, at least at first
• One of the long term results of enclosure
movement in England
William Hogarth’s well-known engraving Gin Lane
A pamphlet published in 1609 promoting
emigration to Virginia.
“Freedom” in the Chesapeake
•
•
•
•
From free to unfree
Serfs vs. servants vs. slaves
“Liberties”
Short life expectancy
• 1607 and 1670
• 15,000 Indians in the Chesapeake area reduced to
2,000
The Elusive Promise
• Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
• Rage over lack of land, corruption
• Gov. William Berkeley
The Looming Danger
• Perennial threat of border warfare
• Longer life expectancies
• Stimulus for slavery
Slavery in the Chesapeake and
Carolinas
• Problem of Indian slavery
• Benefits of exploiting Africans
• Tobacco in Virginia
• Rice and indigo in Carolina
• Tobacco, timber, and tar in NC
• Yamassee War (1715-1717)
The Big Number
• 300,000 slaves to
North America in
1700s
• More than ½ of all
“migration” to
English colonies
1700-1775
• Up to 20 million Africans brought to New
World
• Many died in Africa, before departure
The Middle Passage
• Estimates of up to 4 millions deaths, between 1500-1900
• 15% of slaves died in transit
• Triangular trade
• “Atlantic World”
The variety of slave experience
• Large plantations in Chesapeake
– Exposure to English language, religion
The variety of slave experience
• Huge plantations in SC low-country
– Disease
– Greater persistence of African culture
– Gullah
The variety of slave experience
• Elsewhere:
– Small farms, isolation
– Esp. in New England
The variety of slave experience
• Urban slavery
– New York
– Work in trades
– Greater autonomy
– “Mulatto” class emerges in Charleston, Savannah,
New Orleans
An advertisement for tobacco includes images of slaves with
agricultural implements.
Processing tobacco was labor-intensive
Life Goes On in the 18th Century
• “Anglicization”
• Consumer Revolution
• Diversity vs. homogenization
• Anglican Church dominant in South,
Congregationalists in New England
• French and Indian War (1763)
• Enduring hostility between coast and frontier
Avarice & Exploitation: What Could Go
Wrong?
•
•
•
•
•
Planters in the South aspired to be aristocrats
Instability of cash crop production
Risk of debt in commercial agriculture
Classic boom/bust in 1760s
Bitterness of indebted planters fuels
radicalism?