



Slave labor & commercialized agriculture created distinctive social structure
Pyramid
 broad base was composed of slaves
 ascending face comprised freeholders
 apex was crowned by a small planter elite.
Rhetorically at leased white southerners constituted a unified communion
During 18 th C small elite increasingly monopolized wealth and power.






White society developed a protective shield of symbols and institutions
The great house
The courthouse
The church
Created apparent unity of the white community and thereby helped to secure its well-being


The plantation of the average wealthy tidewater planter consisted of some three thousand acres of land that generally were broken up into small tracts called a quarters.



As part of the deterrent process the southern colonies also created elaborate surveillance systems.
Separate judicial process for slaves created in reaction to the growing assertiveness of the
South’s swelling slave populations


Late colonial period saw steady increase in convictions and sentences of execution.







Church, courthouse and plantation house provided overlapping networks of relationships control
These institutions both: reinforced patterns of white domination and control. made it possible for slaves to begin to develop their own Separate culture in the quarters. i.e.
A black cultural world was developing within the contours of the institution of slavery.


Trip to Ghana

”Africa's Calling: Culture in Ghana” (IS 370) under core-curriculum for humanities credit (three credits)
Prof. Barry Bilderbeck bbilder@uidaho.edu

VA Historical Archaeology

Historic Jamestowne


Jefferson’s Montecello
Jefferson’s Poplar Forest



Constant surveillance caused much African heritage to be lost

But not all

Covert ceremonies and actions continued

Passed down from through the generations

 group and culture-building process began in slavery


African-American slaves were, as one scholar has put it,
"functionally members of the same caste”

Social survival involved more than adaptation to the dominant plural pattern


Management styles mattered

Low-country rice slaves
 little contact with whites prior to the Revolution

Black majority of rice coast counties developed a culture strongly influenced by African cultural patterns.





Example 1
Building materials similar to those found in Africa

 leaves of the palmetto tree used in the construction of slave huts in the low country. steeply pitched roofs and the circular form that dispersed the suns rays evenly to keep buildings cool
All had their antecedents in coastal areas of West Africa.






Example 2
In parts of Africa a special language was created that was distinct from that spoken by the master class
Low-country slaves created their own form of communication.
Known as


Gullah in South Carolina
Geechee in the Georgia Sea Islands
Resulted from a fission of African and
English words


Example 3

Entertainment leads to cultural formation and expression

Culture (music, tales, language, magic, religion)




The traditional African domestic organization was severely disrupted by conditions under slavery
But because of
 the growth of the size of quarters after 1740

 the increase in the proportion of slaves in the populations the decrease in the adult sex ratio
Slaves were in a position to begin re-forming families by the mid eighteenth century


Eve of Revolution variety of different kinds of households had emerged.

Slave marriages complex

Slave marriages differed from
African prototypes

But shared more similarity with them than with the Euro-
American family type



John Brickell,
In he 1731 described a common ceremony in North
Carolina:

Their Marriages are generally performed amongst themselves
. . . very little ceremony . . . the
Man makes the Woman a
Present such as a Brass Ring or some other Toy, which if she accepts of becomes his Wife




Mother-headed households and polygyny functionally useful under conditions of slavery

Both survived until the end of slavery
Naming of children for parents, siblings, and blood relatives

Suggests strength of family and kinship ties
Slave practice of passing on economic skills, often the slaves' most valuable possession to sons and daughters.





Most slaves involved in field work,
Tobacco (Virginia),
Rice and Indigo (South
Carolina),
After invention of cotton gin
(1793) cotton becomes most important slave-grown crop



Work began before dawn and ended after dusk
Initially multiple tasks for every slave

“Ploughing, planting, picking cotton, gathering corn, and pulling and burning stalks, occupies the whole four seasons of the year.
Drawing and cutting wood, pressing cotton, fattening and killing hogs, are but incidental labours”
Solomon Northup – former slave


Growth of skills among slaves

Some slaves moved either indoors and became house slaves

Also moved into specialized work such as blacksmiths and carpentry

Industrial type work, especially in ports


Informal economic

Notion of free time


Equal, if not more, important than family for the maintenance and reconstruction of culture was religion




Religious community of necessity paid obeisance to white Christian beliefs and practices
But black Christians proceeded both consciously and unconsciously to reinstate certain traditional values and beliefs
African-American Christianity retained an immutable individual essence
.





Three elements crucial in the creation of a common religious culture:
1) the particular complex of values that were common to traditional religion
2) the relative isolation of black communities from competing values
3) committed efforts of the handful of white planters and missionaries who brought the faith to blacks' together with the work of a larger number of black converts who were the principal carriers of the faith.



What emerged in the end was a religious system that stood alongside the white system rather than within lt.
Protestant Christianity forms a critical chapter in the history of the emerging black community and indeed in the history of slavery.





Master has right of life or death
Important to control large numbers of slaves - deterrent
Ingenuity of methods, need to keep slaves docile and working while punished
Threat of sale, rape, violence.




Violent rebellions rare


New York 1712 & 1741
South Carolina 1739
1800 Virginia

Personal resistance vs masters and overseers more common - could be violent or passive
Effectiveness of running away
(groups most likely to flee,outcomes)

Internal Change



“What do we mean by the revolution?
The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it.
The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to
1775”







For Wood the problem of American politics was not
Imperial
Constitutional
But social
By looking at the
“transformations in the relationship that bound people together”
We see the true radical nature of the revolution




The location with the weakest level of royal control in the Americas
Yet it was also one of the most factionridden locations in the
Americas
A location where, as in the rest of the colonies, the social structure of colonial society was beginning to buckle

In the 1760s ¾ of all farmland in England was owned by gentry and noble landlords
400 families owned one fifth of all land in England
Out of a population of 7-8 million

In contrast most
American farmers by now owned their own land
One aspect of
American society which challenged the hierarchical structure of dependency and paternalism





Georgia plantation owner William Knox who son Henry fought at Bunker hill
Wrote that freehold tenure
“excluded all ideas of subordination and dependence”


Population boom in the late colonial period

Challenged relations with
Native Americans

But also challenged colonial social structure





During the colonial period, at a time, when everyone had a fixed place
A vagrant who arrived and stayed in a town for a fixed period of time


3 months in New
Hampshire
1 year in Massachusetts
They were considered to be part of the town
“warning out laws” in place to push people back to their original place





Increase in population and the ownership of land
Movement became a major factor in
White American life
Farms now thought of less as patrimonies
 something to hand down and use as a tool of control
But more as a commodity

Something to be bought and sold





 A British official
Led to the gradual collapse of the
“warning out laws”
People could no longer be tied to a physical place
Another sign of the collapsing societal structure


1740s and 1750s saw a massive increase in exports and imports



This led to increased wealth
But more important was the effect on social structure
Increase wealth led to desire for a rise in individual standard of living



Luxury goods


Latest fashions
Tea and tea sets


Silk handkerchiefs
Feather mattresses


A new carriage
Glass windows
Items like this had traditionally been for those at the top of the hierarchy




“Every tradesman is a
Merchant, every Merchant is a gentleman, and every
Gentleman is one of the
Noblese”



 had two long term effects


1) improvement of transportation and communication
 led to new and better roads

Better communication

2) a shift in producers

We see wide-spread “protoindustrialization”




Increase in trade goods came not from top
But from farmers becoming part-time manufactures and entrepreneurs

Spinning cloth

Weaving hats

Making hoops and barrels

Distilling rum
Economic development spread across society


To facilitate growth

New structure of credit and debt

Traditional loans
 way of tying together different rungs of the hierarchical ladder

Intra-American trade
 shifted loans to more impersonal business transactions

Again weakened social structure


Expanding trade challenged the traditional method of exchange

Bartering




Goods shipped over greater distances between people who did not know each other paper money became more important
Allowed people to participate independently and impersonally in the economy





Traditionally
Consignment system
Small planter would sell their crops through the elite planters
Elite planters could translate their access to
English Merchants to prestige and social patronage




1730 onwards
Scottish merchants set up stores all over the
Chesapeake
These merchants purchased tobacco directly of small farmers
This cut out the elite planters and created greater independence and equality





Changing relationship with God
Traditionally church controlled by elite
 who defined the process of worship
Great Awakening 1730s
– 1740s
Jonathan Edwards
 emphasized the importance and power of immediate, personal religious experience





Model for society, was also changing
Sons and daughters leaving home straining if not breaking traditional bonds
Those who remained more likely to marry someone of their own choosing
 from outside the local region, a different nationally, or a different religion


“revolution against patriarchy”

Fathers quarreled with sons

American youngsters had a reputation for being unruly

Also

Wives quarreled with husbands

Servants with masters

Slaves with masters


By 175O most of the colonies had virtually all the requisites of self-governing states.

Effective local elite that dominated political and social life.

Autonomous local center of administration and political authority
.


Particularly important were the popularly elected lower houses of assembly in each colony.

In the century before the Revolution colonial
Americans participated in the political process much more extensively than did the British




Additionally the colonies played a critical part in
English trade
Accounted for 36 % of the total volume of English imports
37 % of the total volume of English exports.


Far from the colonies being weak and dependent subsidiaries
The British economy was fast becoming dependent on the colonies.






After Seven Years war English officials saw
1) rapid growth and development of colonial economic and political institutions
2) importance of colonies for the prosperity and power of England.
Fearful of consequences of a loss of control over colonies
British government sought to maintain, and intensify, authority




In order to finance the Seven Years' War, the government had borrowed money from



 the Dutch
Merchant bankers
The Bank of England (established in 1694)
Private companies and individuals,
All at high rates of interest.
George Grenville, installed as PM, on 16 April
1763,

Had problem of what to do and how to pay off the debt.




Grenville
Left the land tax at 4 shillings in the pound, which was not popular.

Under peacetime conditions, was usually 3 shillings
Cut expenditure in army and navy after peace concluded.

Seen as weakness on the part of the government


Grenville believed

Britain defending the Empire
 colonies should help meet costs.



British most heavily taxed country in Europe
Colonies 2-4 shillings per person

1.5% of per capita income
Britain 12 -18 shillings per person

7.5% of per capita income





Britain
Efficient State apparatus
Solid system of public finance able to impose taxes without creating great political instability





Colonies
Power of state weakened

 distance traditions of lax
Government
Benign Neglect
People used to low taxes
Colonial assemblies demanded the right to consent to their taxation


1764 new ‘Act of Trade’

Known as “Sugar Act”

Affected import of molasses from West
Indies




Massachusetts
Rum


West Indies
Molasses


Africa
Slaves


Before 1764 Sugar Act

Duty on foreign- produced molasses was


After the Act


Therefore costs lower than before act





Problem not specifically about the tax
What made this moment different was implementation
Smuggling had always occurred in the colonies
After war Grenville decided
 rather than stop the smugglers
 he would reorganize the system and gain income


July 1763

Ordered all Custom collectors to report to their posts

Most living in Britain, collecting big salaries
 their assistants were in the colonies collecting bribes from smugglers





Collectors who remained were dedicated
To the surprise of the colonials

They were not open to bribes
In the past British imposed laws had been either ignored or circumvented

Not so now
In addition they were often people without local ties, setting them outside of the communities
 i.e. unresponsive to public/personal pressure


Form of prosecutions changed

In the past prosecutions had taken place in the colonial courts

Family and friends of the accused in the jury

Custom Collectors now had option of trying the crime in Vice-
Admiralty courts





1763 eleven in operation in British
America.
Did not use a jury system
Judge heard all evidence and testimony and handed down a ruling.
Traditionally these courts were occupied only with commercial matters.



With Sugar Act authority expanded to include enforcement of customs and criminal charges for smuggling.
Within the Vice-Admiralty courts

Defendant was assumed guilty until he proved himself innocent.

Failure to appear as commanded resulted in an automatic guilty verdict

No friendly jury






Sugar Act could not have come at a worse time
End of the war had left not only Britain but also the colonies in financial difficulty
 i.e. without an army to feed, clothe, and supply a huge part of the market was taken away
Beginning in 1760 a depression had begun to hit the colonies
By 1763 it was severe
Act therefore easy target to blame for financial woes


September 1, 1764

Additional economic pressure

Parliament passed the
Currency Act

British Government effectively assumed control of the colonial currency system.




Act prohibited issue of new bills
 and reissue of existing currency
Parliament favored a "hard currency" system based on pound sterling
 simply abolished colonial currency colonies protested vehemently against this
 generally ignored this act





Primarily came from merchants
 main group who would have to pay the tax tended to be in the form of broadsides and pamphlets denouncing the Act


Reasons Against the Renewal of the Sugar Act
(Boston 1764)
An Essay on the Trade of the Northern Colonies
of Great Britain in North America (Rhode
Island 1764)
9 of the 13 colonial legislatures complained
Popular protests were limited, they would wait for later British actions


Duties in American
Colonies Act 1765; 5
George III, c. 12


The Sugar Act did not affect general population

But, they did have reason to worry


For in the same speech that introduced the Sugar Act Grenville also said
“it may be proper to charge certain
Stamp Duties in the said Colonies and Plantations”




Originated in Holland in the 17 th
C
First introduced in England in
1694
An act for granting to Their
Majesties several duties on Vellum,
Parchment and Paper for 10 years, towards carrying on the war against
France.




Between 1 penny to several shillings on a number of different legal documents including
 insurance policies
 documents used as evidence in courts
 grants of probate
Raised around £50,000 a year
Adjusted and expanded over the years



On August 1, 1712 the first stamp tax on British newspapers appeared
In a true history
Geek moment I have a page from a August 1712 copy of the
Spectator which bears a stamp




After Sugar Act Grenville asked the colonial representatives for ideas to help rise money
However, he wouldn’t accept any suggestions that challenged
Parliaments rights to act
Like any good parliament man he found it intolerable to be told that
Parliament lacked the right to do what it wanted to do





February 6, 1765 Grenville brings
Stamp Act before parliament for the 1 st of three readings
Anger against the colonials is so strong that it quickly passes through
Parliament
There were a few people who attempted to prevent the Act
But most supported people like M.P.
Charles Townshend who made the following statement



“And now will Americans,
Children planted by our
Care, nourished up by our
Indulgence until they are grown to a Degree of
Strength and Opulence, and Protected by our Arms, with they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy burden of that weight which we lie under?”
The Act received approval on March 22, 1765




News of Stamp Act reached colonies during first two weeks of April 1765
Initially no one sure how to respond
Then on May 31 the house of Burgess approved a set of resolves proposed by Patrick Henry






Henry, a lawyer of 25, was new to the house having been elected only ten days earlier
However he had been involved in several high profile court cases
He had also chosen his timing with intent
The House of Burgess only needed 205 of its members present to constitute a quorum
It was the end of the session and on 39 out of 116 members were left in town