Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
1
Brinkley
Transplantations and Borderlands
Chapter 2
3 ships set sail for Virginia in 1607. They reached the American coast in the spring of
1607, sailed into Chesapeake Bay and up a river they named the James
The Founding of Jamestown
The colony was swampy and
bordered the land of local
Powhatan Indians.
Early colonists were susceptible
to malaria. Futile energy was
spent searching for GOLD rather
than building a permanent
settlement. No women were sent.
Jamestown survived largely as a result of Captain John Smith. Smith united the
divided colony, and imposed work and order. He organized raids on Indian villages to
steal food and kidnap natives. By the summer of 1609, the colony was showing
promise of survival.
Within one year of landing, only
38 of the 104 settlers survived.
Exchanges of Agricultural Technology
Jamestown's survival was largely a result of
agricultural technologies developed by the
Indians and borrowed by the English.
Indians grew beans, pumpkins, and maize. The English
quickly recognized the value of corn, which was easier to
cultivate and produced larger yields than any English
grains. They also learned the advantages of growing beans
alongside corn to enrich the soil.
Indians also introduced the canoe to colonists which was much better at navigating
the rivers and streams than large English vessls.
Reorganization and Expansion
As Jamestown struggled to survive, the London Company (renamed the Virginia
Company) obtained a new charter in the spring of 1609 from the king, which
increased its power, territory, and population.
Many who reached Jamestown died
before winter. The winter of 1609-1610
became known as the “starving time”. The
local Indians killed off the livestock in the
woods and kept the colonists barricaded
within their colony. The colonists lived off
what they could find.
When help arrived the colonists tried to flee back to England. As they proceeded down
the James, they met an English ship coming up the river with the colony's first governor,
Lord De La Warr. The departing settlers agreed to return to Jamestown. The effort to
turn a profit in Jamestown resumed.
The Powhatans
Led by Chief Powhatan
Opechancanough -
Brother of Powhatan
Pocahontas -
Daughter
Saw English as potential allies. Provided
them with corn. In return wanted
hatchets, bells, beads, copper, and "two
great guns." He did not get the tribute.
Arranged
marriage to
John Rolfe to
ensure peace
with English.
Bore a son,
Thomas. Died
when she was
21 in England.
Took Captain John Smith
captive.
Saved!
Powhatan realized the English did not come to trade
but "to invade my people and possess my country"
when John Rolfe began to plant tobacco.
Indian War of 1622
The influx of land hungry migrants and conversion-minded ministers sparked conflict
with the Indians. Relations had been relatively calm between the groups since the
marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe in 1614.
By 1618, upon the death of Chief Powhatan, relations soured. Opechancanough, began
to secretly plan the elimination of the English. In 1622, tribesmen called on the colonists
as if to offer goods for sale - then they suddenly attacked.
347 colonists died but ultimately, the Indians had to retreat. Wars would continue for
years between the two groups. In 1624, shocked by the Indian surprise, King James I
revoked the VA Co's charter and made it a royal colony.
The king and his ministers appointed the governor and a small advisory council. The
House of Burgesses remained, but all legislation had to be approved by the King's Privy
Council (group of political advisors). The king also decreed the legal establishment of
the Church of England. Therefore, Virginians had to pay taxes to support the clergy.
VA became a model for future royal colonies in America.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
2
Under the leadership of its first governors, VA survived and expanded. New settlements
emerged. The colonists had military protection against the Indians and discovered a new,
marketable crop: tobacco.
Tobacco in Virginia
1612 - John Rolfe cultivated tobacco in VA
Tobacco planting quickly expanded. Needed large
areas of land to grow b/c it exhausted the soil quickly.
Demand for land increased rapidly. Colonists
established plantations deeper into the interior,
isolating themselves from Jamestown and pushing into
Indian territory.
Tobacco in Virginia
To entice new workers to VA, the VA Co. established the "headright system."
Headrights were 50 acre grants of land. Each new settler received a single headright
for himself or herself.
This encouraged families to migrate
together. More people = more land for
the family. The VA Co also transported
ironworkers and other skilled craftsmen
to VA to diversify the economy.
1619 - VA Co. sent 100 Englishwomen to VA to become wives. It promised male
colonists full rights of Englishmen, an end to arbitrary rule, and even a share in self-
government. By the end of July, delegates from various communities in VA met as
the House of Burgesses - the first elected legislature in the colonies.
First Africans Arrive
Late August 1619 - a Dutch ship brought in "20 and odd Negroes." Colonists 1st
thought of them as indentured servants. Initially, the use of black labor was limited.
Planters preferred European indentured servants until the 1670s.
Africans who labored did so for wealthy plantation owners as indentured servants.
They were not legally enslaved. The English Constitution did not recognize chattel
slavery - the ownership of human beings as property.
Africans were generally socially mobile
until the price of tobacco collapsed in the
1660s. Planters had to find a way to
produce tobacco cheaper - African slavery.
Boom and Bust Cycle
The other event that ushered in the use
of African slaves was Bacon's Rebellion.
Bacon's Rebellion
Falling tobacco prices signaled an imbalanced market
Falling prices also reflected the British Parliament's passage of the Navigation Acts of
1651, 1660, and 1663. Acts allowed only British or colonial ships to enter American
ports. This excluded Dutch merchants who paid the highest price for tobacco.
Acts required colonists to ship tobacco, sugar, and other "enumerated articles" only to
England, where monarchs continually raised import duties, stifiling market demand.
Colonists were forced to find a way to reduce their costs to produce tobacco.
Seeds of Rebellion
Despite low prices, Virginians continued to plant tobacco
because there was no other cash crop. Poor planters could
not afford their own land and became indentures or tenant
farmers.
A planter-merchant aristocracy formed as a result. They
secured grants from the royal governors, particularly from
Sir William Berkeley. Berkeley bestowed large land
grants on members of his council. The councilors
promptly exempted these lands from taxation and
appointed friends as local justices of the peace and county
judges.
To win support in the House of Burgesses, Berkeley bought off legislators with
land grants and lucrative appointments as sheriffs and tax collectors. Social
unrest erupted when Berkeley took voting rights away from landless freemen,
who constituted 1/2 of adult white men. By 1670 political representation
declined to where only free property owners could vote.
Berkeley and the Indians
In 1607 there were 35,000 Indians in the land called Virginia.
By 1675, there were 3,500 Indians left living on the fringes of
the Virginia territory.
Poor landless servants demanded that Berkeley expel or
exterminate the Indians. Aristocratic planters objected because
they wanted to prevent those poor farmers from gaining their own
land - they wanted the cheap labor. Berkeley agreed with the
aristocracy.
Fighting broke out late in 1675, when a small VA militia murdered 30 Occaneechee
Indians. Then, 1,000 militiamen surrounded a fortified Susquehannock (Iroquois) village
and killed 5 chiefs. The Indians retaliated by attacking outlying plantations and killing
300 colonists.
Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy landowner living on the frontier, asked governor Berkeley to
grant him a military commission. Berkeley refused. As a result, Bacon mobilized his
neighbors and attacked any Indians he could find.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
3
Bacon and the Indians
Nathaniel Bacon emerged as the leader of the rebels. Bacon
had a position on the governor's council, but he owned a
frontier estate, & differed with Berkeley on Indian policy.
After Bacon mobilized his neighbors and attacked
Indians, Berkeley expelled Bacon from the council and
had him arrested. But Bacon's army forced the governor
to release Bacon and hold legislative elections.
The newly elected House of Burgesses enacted far-reaching political reforms that
not only curbed the powers of the governor and council but also restored voting
rights to landless freemen. The reforms though, came too late.
Backed by over 400 men, Bacon issued a "Manifesto and Declaration of the
People" that demanded the death or removal of the Indians and an end to the rule of
wealthy planters.
Bacon moved his army to Jamestown and burned the plantations of Berkeley's allies.
Bacon then died suddenly of dysentery in 1676 and Berkeley took revenge. He dispersed
the militia, seized the estates of wealthy men in the militia, and hanged 23 men.
Impact of Bacon's Rebellion
After Bacon's Rebellion, wealthy planters retained
their dominance by curbing corruption and
appointing ambitious young farmers to public office.
They appeased these yeoman and tenants by cutting
taxes and expelling the Susquehannocks,
Piscataways, and other Indian peoples from the
region.
Most important, wealthy planters
forestalled another rebellion by poor
whites by cutting the use of
indentured servants and instead
importing thousands of African
laborers; the Burgesses explicitly
legalized chattel slavery in 1705.
The Founding of Maryland
A 2nd growing tobacco colony
developed in Maryland.
King Charles I, successor of James I, was secretly
sympathetic to Catholics. In 1632 he granted the land
known as Maryland to Catholic aristocrat Cecilius
Calvert, who carried the title Lord Baltimore.
As the territorial lord (or proprietor) of Maryland, Calvert could sell, lease, or give away
the land as he pleased. He also had the authority to appoint public officials and to found
churches.
Quickly after settling, the colonists demanded a representative government. To prevent
rebellion, a legislative assembly was created, which passed the Toleration Act of 1649.
This was designed to minimize religious confrontations as it allowed all Christians the
right to follow their beliefs and hold church services.
Lord Baltimore wanted Maryland to become a refuge for Catholics. Led by Leonard
Calvert, the founders of Maryland established a colony at St. Mary's City at the point
where the Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay.
Tobacco in Maryland
Like VA, tobacco quickly became the main crop. Europeans
began to crave the nicotine in tobacco.
European demand for tobacco set off a 40 year economic
boom in the Chesapeake. Exports rose from 3 million pounds
in 1640 to 10 million pounds in 1660.
Initially, most plantations were small freeholds, owned and
farmed by families. After 1650, wealthy migrants from gentry
or noble families established large estates along the rivers.
Indentured servants and eventually African slave labor were
used to cultivate the crop.
Life in the Chesapeake
For both the rich and poor, life was harsh. The scarcity of towns deprived settlers of
community.
There were few women and marriages often ended quickly by the death of the child
bearing mother.
The Pilgrims
Pilgrims - Separatists who broke from the Church of England.
They felt the Church of England was beyond reform. They
demanded the formation of new, separate church congregations.
Pilgrims sailed to America in 1620 on the Mayflower, led by
William Bradford. They settled in Plymouth, near Cape Cod in
southern MA. Only half of the Pilgrims who landed survived
the first winter. Thereafter, the colony thrived. Religious
discipline encouraged a strong work ethic.
They faced few threats from the Wampanoag Indians as
small pox killed many of them. They built solid houses
and planted ample crops.
To ensure political stability, they issued a written legal
code (Mayflower Compact) providing for representative
self-government, broad political rights, property
ownership, and religious freedom of conscience.
The Puritans
Puritans - English Protestants who believed the English Reformation did not go
far enough - there was too much Catholic presence left in the Anglican Church.
Because they opposed the Church, they also opposed the King.
In 1630, they set sail for America. Their goal
was to use the Anglican Church values as the
basis of their Protestant religion in America, but
they were going to reform the church further.
They believed they were liberated by God from
oppression & bound to him by a covenant. They
believed God chose them to fulfill a special role - to
establish a new, pure Christian Commonwealth. A
"City Upon a Hill."
They set sail on the
Arabella, led by John
Winthrop. They established
the Massachusetts Bay
Colony in a town they
named Boston.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
4
Massachusetts Bay Colony
John Winthrop became the 1st governor of the MA Bay Colony.
"We must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill. The
eyes of all people are upon us."
If they created a genuinely "New" England, they could inspire
religious reform throughout Christendom.
Winthrop and his associates (shareholders) transformed their
joint-stock corporation into a representative political system with
a governor, council, and assembly.
Rejected Plymouth colony's policy of religious toleration. Established
Puritanism as the state-supported religion. Bible was the legal guide.
Placed power in the congregation of members - hence the name
Congregationalist for their churches.
THEOCRACY
Faith was the key to salvation. The spiritual health and welfare of a community as a
whole was paramount. The integrity of the community demanded religious
conformity.
To ensure rule by the godly, the Puritans limited the right to vote and hold office to
men who were church members.
Roger Williams
MA Bay officials purged their society of religious dissidents. Roger Williams, a
minister in Salem, opposed the decision to establish Congregationalism as the official
religion and praised the Pilgrims' separation of church and state.
He advocated toleration, arguing that
political magistrates had authority over only
the outward lives of men - not their spiritual
lives. He also questioned the Puritans'
seizure of Indian lands.
The magistrates banished him from the
colony in 1636. Williams and his followers
settled south of Boston, founding the town
of Providence on land purchased from the
Narragansett Indians.
In 1644 they obtained a corporate charter from Parliament for a new colony called
Rhode Island. They had full authority to rule themselves. There was no legally
established church and individuals could worship God as they pleased.
Anne Hutchinson
The MA Bay magistrates saw a second threat to their authority in
Anne Hutchinson. Hutchinson held weekly prayer meetings for
women and accused various clergymen of placing undue emphasis
on good behavior.
She believed in antinomianism - She denied that salvation could
be earned only through good deeds. She believed God revealed
divine truth directly to individual believers. She insisted that
faith alone was enough to achieve salvation.
Hutchinson moved often after settling in Rhode Island due to constant threats from
the MA Bay Colony. Her final settlement was in New Netherland. She and her
family were massacred by Siwanoy Indians (Narranganset) in Kieft's War in August
1646.
Puritan magistrates denounced her as heretical upon trial and banished her to Rhode
Island.
Thomas Hooker
Strict religious policies led others to leave the MA Bay
colony. Thomas Hooker and his congregation established the
town of Hartford.
In 1660, they secured a charter from King Charles II for
the self-governing colony of Connecticut.
Like MA, Connecticut had a
legally established church and
an elected governor and
assembly. However, it granted
voting rights to most property-
owing men, not just to church
members.
Puritans and Witchcraft
Puritans believed that they physical world was full of
supernatural forces.
Devout Puritans saw signs of God and Satan's power in stars,
birth defects, and other unusual events. These unexplained events
often led to accusations of witchcraft.
The most dramatic episode of witch-hunting occurred in
Salem, MA in 1692. Several girls who had experienced
strange seizures accused neighbors of bewitching them.
When judges at the accused witches' trial used "spectral"
evidence - visions of evil beings and marks seen only by
the girls - the accusations spun out of control.
MA Bay officials tried 175 people for witchcraft and
executed 19 of them. As a result of the number of deaths,
government officials now discouraged legal prosecutions
for witchcraft. Moreover, many influential people
embraced the outlook of the European Enlightenment.
The Puritans and the Pequot Indians
Believing they were God's chosen people, the Puritans often treated Native
Americans with a brutality equal to that of the Spanish conquistadors and Nathaniel
Bacon's frontiersmen.
When Pequot warriors resisted English
encroachment onto their Connecticut River Valley
lands in 1636, a Puritan militia attacked a Pequot
Village and massacred 500 people.
English Puritans saw the Indians as
"savages" who were culturally, though not
racially, inferior. Some Puritans tried to
convert the Indians to Christianity. Very
few Indians converted.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
5
Metacom's War
The Wampanoag Indians could never gain favor with the Puritans. To the Wampanoag
Chief, Metacom, prospects for coexistence looked dim.
When the Indians copied English ways, raised hogs and sold the pork in Boston, they
were accused of undercutting prices and restricted their trade. When Indians killed
wandering hogs that devastated their cornfields, Puritan authorities prosecuted them for
violating English property rights.
As a result, Metacom concluded that the Europeans had to be expelled. In 1675,
Metacom forged a military alliance with the Narragansetts and Nipmucks and attacked
white settlements throughout New England.
Bitter fighting continued into 1676 as the Indians exploited their strategic control of
large tracts of territory and most of the rivers. It ended only when the Indian warriors ran
short of gunpowder and the MA Bay government hired Mohegan and Mohawk warriors
who killed Metacom.
Metacom's War (King Philip's War) was deadly. The Indians destroyed 1/5 of the English
towns in MA and RI and killed 1,000 settlers. But the natives' losses - from famine and
disease, death in battle, and sale into slavery - were much larger. About 4,500 died.
The Carolinas
King Charles II initiated new outposts in America by
authorizing 8 loyal noblemen to settle Carolina, an area
that had long been claimed by Spain and populated by
thousands of Indians.
Subsequently, he awarded the just-conquered Dutch
colony of New Netherland to his brother James, the
Duke of York (who renamed the colony New York).
The Duke of York and his fellow aristocrats in Carolina owned all the land and could
rule their colonies as they wished, provided that their laws conformed broadly to those
of England. The Carolina proprietors envisioned a traditional European society.
The Restoration colonies (Carolinas, NY, NJ, PA) were proprietorships. Proprietary
colonies were lands granted by the monarchy to one or more proprietors who had full
governing rights.
The Carolinas
The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669) legally established the Church of
England and prescribed a manorial system, with a mass of serfs governed by a handful
of nobles.
It was a disaster. North Carolina settlers were a mix of poor families and runaway
servants from Virginia and English Quakers who saw no difference between a
"gentlemen and a laborer"
By resisting a series of governors, they forced the proprietors to abandon their dreams of
a feudal society.
In South Carolina, the colonists also went their own way. The leading white settlers there
were migrants from the overcrowded sugar-producing island of Barbados, and wanted to
re-create that island's hierarchical slave society.
They used enslaved workers - both Africans and Indians - to raise cattle and food crops
for export to the West Indies. Carolina merchants opened a lucrative trade in deerskins
with neighboring Indian peoples. In exchange for rum and guns, the Carolinians' Indian
trading partners also provided slaves - captives from other Native American peoples.
Pennsylvania
The Quakers who settled Pennsylvania were pacifists & sought
peace with the Indians. The colony quickly prospered.
1681, Charles II bestowed PA on William Penn as payment for a
large debt owed to Penn's father. Penn, wealthy but also a
Quaker (condemned excessive wealth), designed PA as a refuge
for fellow persecuted Quakers.
Quakers sought to restore Christianity to its early simple spirituality. They rejected the
Puritans' pessimistic Calvinist doctrines, restricting salvation to a small elect. Quakers
believed God infused both men and women with an inner light of grace or
understanding. Quakers did not believe in gender inequality.
Women could serve as ministers. Penn ensured religious freedom by prohibiting a
legally established church & promoted political equality by allowing all property-
owing men to vote and hold office.
To attract European Protestants, Penn published pamphlets in Germany promising cheap
land and religious toleration. Ethnic diversity, pacifism, and freedom of conscience
made PA the most open and democratic of the Restoration Colonies.
The Navigation Acts
England wanted the colonies to produce agricultural goods and raw materials for English
merchants to carry to England. Some products would be exported to Europe and others
would be manufactured into finished products in England and exported.
The Nav. Act, 1651 tried to keep colonial
trade in English hands by excluding
Dutch and French ships from
American ports.
The Act also
required
that goods be carried only on ships owned
by the English or colonial merchants.
New acts in 1660 & 1663
strengthened the ban on foreign
traders, requiring colonists to export
sugar and tobacco only to England,
and mandating that colonists import
European goods only through
England.
Outraged, England denied the claim of MA
Bay to New Hampshire and eventually
established a separate royal colony there.
Many colonists ignored the
mercantilist laws and traded with the
Dutch. They also imported sugar and
molasses from the French West Indies.
Dominion of New England
The Puritans' troubles worsened with the ascension of
James II to the throne. He was aggressive and inflexible.
He imposed strict royal control on the colonies.
In 1686, he revoked the corporate charters of CT &
RI and merged them with MA Bay and Plymouth
colonies to to form a new royal province, the
Dominion of New England. He appointed Sir
Edmund Andros as governor of the Dominion.
The Dominion extended to America the authoritarian
model of colonial rule that the English government
imposed on Catholic Ireland. James ordered Andros to
abolish any existing legislative assemblies.
In MA, Andros banned town meetings, angering villagers who prized local self-rule;
and advocated worship in the Church of England, offending Puritan
Congregationalists.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
6
The Glorious Revolution
James II also angered English political leaders. The king revoked the charters of
English towns, rejected the advice of Parliament, and aroused popular opposition by
openly practicing Roman Catholicism.
In 1688, James' wife gave birth to a son, raising the prospect of a Catholic heir to the
throne. To forestall that outcome, Protestant bishops and parliamentary leaders in the
Whig Party led a quick bloodless coup known as the Glorious Revolution.
The bishops and Whigs forced James into exile and in 1689 enthroned Mary, his
Protestant daughter by his first wife, and her Dutch Protestant husband, William of
Orange. Whig politicians forced King William and Queen Mary to accept the
Declaration of Rights, creating a constitutional monarchy that enhanced the powers of
the House of Commons at the expense of the crown.
The Whigs wanted political power, especially the power to levy taxes. To justify their
coup, the members of Parliament relied on political philosopher John Locke. In his Two
Treatises on Government (1690), Locke rejected divine right, arguing that the legitimacy
of government rests on the consent of the governed and that individuals have inalienable
natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
Rebellions in America
The Glorious Revolution sparked rebellions by
Protestant colonists in MA, MD, and NY.
When news of the coup reached Boston in April
1689, Puritan leaders and 2,000 militiamen seized
Governor Andros, accused him of Catholic
sympathies, and shipped him back to England.
The new monarchs dissolved
the Dominion. However,
they refused to restore the
old Puritan-dominated
government of MA Bay,
instead creating in 1692 a
new royal colony, which
included Plymouth and
Maine.
The Glorious Revolution of
1688-1689 began a new, non-
authoritarian political era in
both England and America.
England imposed only a few laws
and taxes on the North American
settlements, allowed rule by local
elites, and encouraged English
merchants to develop them as
sources of trade.
Rebellions in America
In NY, Jacob Leisler led the rebellion against the Dominion
of New England. Leisler was the leader of the Dutch
Protestant artisans in New York City, who welcomed the
succession of Queen Mary and her Dutch husband.
Led by Leisler, the Dutch militia ousted Lieutenant Governor
Nicholson, an Andros appointee and an alleged Catholic
sympathizer. Initially, Leisler had vast support. However,
Leisler's denunciations of political rivals alienated many
English speaking New Yorkers.
The newly appointed governor Colonel Henry Sloughter had Leisler arrested and
tried for treason. He was convicted and hanged.
When Leisler imprisoned 40 of his politcal opponents, imposed new taxes, and
championed the artisans' cause, the prominent Dutch merchants who had
traditionally controlled the city's government condemned his rule.
The Imperial Slave Economy
The South Atlantic System had its center
in Brazil and the West Indies, and
sugar
was its primary product.
Between 1520-1650, the Portuguese
dominated the slave trade, then the Dutch
until 1700 and the British until 1800.
Sugar transformed Barbados and other
Caribbean islands into slave-based
plantation societies.
By 1680, an elite group of planters
dominated the Barbados's economy. They
owned more than 1/2 of the island and 1/2
of the 50,000 slaves. As social inequality
and racial conflict increased, hundreds of
English farmers fled to South Carolina.
Sugar was a rich man's crop b/c it
was produced most efficiently on
large plantations. Slaves planted and
cut the sugarcane, which was then
processed by expensive equipment
into raw sugar, molasses, and rum.
The South Atlantic System brought wealth to
the entire European economy and helped
Europeans achieve world economic leadership.
The Navigation Acts kept the British sugar trade
in the hands of British merchants, who exported
it to foreign markets. Enormous profits also
flowed into Britain from the slave trade.
Africans and the Slave Trade
Hundreds of thousands of young Africans died and millions more endured a brutal
life in the Americas.
Torn from their villages, they were marched in
chains to coastal ports, their first passage in
slavery. Then, they endured the perilous "Middle
Passage" to the New World in hideously
overcrowded ships. The captives had little to eat or
drink and some died from from dehydration.
About 14% died from illness or
starvation on the passage. Life on
the sugar plantations in Brazil and
the West Indies was one of
relentless exploitation. With sugar
prices high & cost of slaves low,
many planters simply worked their
slaves to death & then bought more.
Slavery in the Chesapeake and South Carolina
After Bacon's rebellion, wealthy planters took advantage of the expansion of Britain's
slave trade and bought more Africans putting these slaves to work on even larger
plantations.
By 1720, Africans made up 20% of the Chesapeake population. Slavery had become a
core institution, no longer just one of several forms of unfree labor. Moreover, slavery
was now defined in racial terms. The VA legislators defined virtually all resident
Africans as slaves.
Slaves in the Chesapeake had much better conditions that those in the West Indies.
Tobacco was less labor intensive than sugar, the climate was more temperate, diseases
did not spread as rapid, and profits from tobacco were less than sugar and slaves were
not treated as harsh as a result.
Slaves in SC labored under more oppressive conditions. The colony grew slowly until
planters began to grow rice. Most rice plantations lay in inland swamps, and cultivation
was dangerous and exhausting. Mosquitos transmitted diseases. Many died from the
spread of disease and exhaustion.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
7
Resistance and Accommodation
Most slaves were denied opportunities to gain an education, accumulate material
possessions, or create associations.
Slaves who challenged these boundaries did so at
their own peril. The extent of white violence often
depended on the size and density of the slave
population. The larger the labor force, the more
cruel the master was.
Slaves were prohibited from leaving the
plantation without special passes. Masters
called on poor whites to patrol the area at night.
Slaves often passively resisted by working slowly or stealing small items from the
owner. Rarely did revolts occur but when they did, they sent a shockwave through the
white community.
Stono Rebellion
SC witnessed the largest slave uprising to 1739. The Catholic governor of Florida
instigated the revolt by promising freedom to fugitive slaves.
By February, 1739, at least 70 slaves escaped to St. Augustine and rumors circulated
that a conspiracy of slaves were to rise and flee to Florida.
When war between England and Spain broke out in September 1739, 75 Africans
rose in revolt & killed many whites near the Stono river. They then marched to FL.
White militia killed many of the Stono rebels, preventing a general uprising. After this,
frightened whites cut slave imports and tightened plantation discipline.
Rise of the Southern Gentry
Wealthy elite plantation owners were never accepted into the English aristocracy
Feeling inferior, they used their wealth to rule over white yeomen families and tenant
farmers but also relied on violence to exploit slaves. To prevent uprisings like Bacon's
Rebellion, the Chesapeake gentry found ways to assist middling and poor whites.
They gradually lowered taxes and encouraged small
landowners to improve their lot by using slave labor.
By 1770, 60% of English families in the Chesapeake
owned at least one slave.
Planters now allowed poor yeomen and some tenants to
vote. The strategy of the leading wealthy families was to
bribe these voters with rum, money, and the promise of
minor offices in county governments.
In return, they expected the yeomen and the tenants to elect them to office and defer
to their rule. This solidified the power of the planter elite, which used its control of
the House of Burgesses to limit the power of the royal governor.
Rise of the Southern Gentry
As time passed, planters began to model themselves after the English aristocracy - to
act like a gentlemen.
Cultivating gentility - a refined but elaborate lifestyle - they replaced their wooden
houses with mansions of brick and mortar. They filled their homes with furniture and
rugs.
They educated their sons in London as lawyers and gentlemen. They expected their sons
to return to America, marry local heiresses, and assume their fathers' roles: managing
plantations, socializing with fellow gentry, and running the political system.
Wealthy southern women likewise emulated the English elite. They read English
newspapers and fashion magazines, wore the finest English clothes, dined in English
fashions, and drank elaborate afternoon tea.
To enhance their daughters' gentility and improve their marriage prospects, parents hired
English tutors. Once married, planter women deferred to their husbands, reared pious
children, and maintained elaborate social networks, in time creating a new ideal: the
southern gentlewoman. Using the profits of slave labor, wealthy planters formed an
increasingly well-educated, refined, and stable ruling class.
The Northern Maritime Economy
The sugar economy linked Britain's entire Atlantic empire. In return for the sugar they sent to
England, West Indian planters received credit - in the form of bills of exchange - from London
merchants.
The planters used the bills to buy slaves from
Africa & to pay North American farmers and
merchants for their provisions and shipping
services. The mainland colonists then
exchanged the bills for British manufactures,
primarily textiles and iron goods.
West Indian trade created the first
American merchant fortunes and the first
urban industries. Merchants in Boston,
Philadelphia, and New York invested their
profits in new ships; some set up
manufacturing enterprises, including
refineries that produced raw sugar into
finished loaves. Some distilleries turned
molasses into rum.
Merchants in Salem and other small ports built a
major fishing industry by selling salted mackerel
and cod to the sugar islands and to southern Europe.
Sawmills in New Hampshire provided low-cost
wood for homes, warehouses, and shipbuilding.
Rise of Colonial Assemblies
After the Glorious Revolution in England of 1688-1689 representative assemblies
in America copied the English Whigs and limited the powers of crown officials.
The legislatures gradually took control taxation
and appointments. Leading the assemblies were
the colonial elite. Although most property-
owing white men could vote, only men of
wealth and status stood for election.
Yet, purposeful crowd actions were a fact of colonial life. Mobs closed
prostitution houses and ran people with infectious diseases out of town. Popular
discontent combined with growing authority of the colonial assemblies created a
political system that was broadly responsive to popular pressure and increasingly
resistant to British control.
Brinkley, Chapter 2 Notes
8
Salutary Neglect
British colonial policy during the reigns of King George I (1714-1727) and
George II (1727-1760) allowed the rise of American self-government.
Royal bureaucrats, pleased by growing trade and
import duties, relaxed their supervision of internal
colonial affairs.
In 1775, British political philosopher Edmund Burke
would praise this strategy as salutary neglect.
By allowing the colonists to have a larger stake in political, social, and economic
matters, the British system of mercantilism, and the British empire as a whole was
becoming weakened.
The seeds of revolution were being planted.
