Too many of the new Virginians were gentlemen. For them, work remained a disturbing activity or only for those from the lower strata. In England, they had grown used to not working much at all. The absence of labor combined with an abundance of land placed a premium on real workers. Thereby, when tobacco emerged as the colony’s saving grace the importation of indentured servants rose quickly.
The settlers had a hard time making life there due to long winters and rocky soil making the land poor for farming. Native Americans had helped the colonists of New England survive by assisting them with the techniques to survive. Furthermore, the growing seasons in New England were shorter compared to the ones in Chesapeake. Not only were New England’s colonies struggling with poor land but they couldn’t even make good use of fishing or collecting furs, making it a struggle to start a life there. Chesapeake however was established more for economical reasons.
Bacon’s Rebellion was the most influential period in the American government because it helped transform the labor force by replacing the indentured servants with slaves, leading to the development of race which transformed the social equality class system and contributed to the economic and political solidarity. Bacon’s rebellion caused the establishment of labor force from Indentured servants to slaves. Before Bacon’s rebellion, indentured servants were the primary source of labor and African Slaves were very rare in the Chesapeake Colony. Due to the economic disaster Bacon managed to unite indentured servants, poor whites and some African Americans in the war against the leaders of the colony who demanded an end to their servitude. (Ref: Give me Liberty).
This took place during the age of the Enlightenment and people began to think more scientifically. Slavery was not as accepted as it once was. Slaves have always been a part of history, however as people began to expand their thoughts and become more intellectual, slavery became less popular. The Billy brothers, Guillaume and Francois, understood the risk they were taking, for the sake of profit not the slaves that is. Two months after the Diligent left Vannes, they reached the Gold Coast.
Most likely Clocker was working on a tobacco plantation for Cornwaleys in Maryland; tobacco was the main cash crop of the early colonies. Clocker’s laborer’s life was not easy; and his contract could be sold without
Before colonialism came to Africa, the continent was thriving. As Boahen says, “the most surprising aspects of the imposition of colonialism on Africa were its suddenness and its unpredictability.” Because prior to this, there was growing independence of many African nations. The slave trade had a major impact on Africa and its ability to grow economically. It also hindered family structures due to the massive amounts of men between ages 18 and 30 who were taken for slaves. African cities and towns did not have
Slavery was established in the British colonies of the Americas to provide a cheap abundant work source, which would reproduce ensuring many years of hard labor. The continent of Africa provided an abundance of peoples to be forced into subjugation, and Africa’s political conditions made the slave trade more important to the domestic commerce and international influence. (Pg. 49) Political leaders and merchants of the slave trade in both Europe and Africa recognized the enormous monetary gain and political advantages, encouraged by the slave trade. The slave trade was no longer monopolized by the Royal African Co., therefore opening up a new market of human trade to fuel the growth of the American colonies which was dependent on the cheap forced labor to oversee the cultivation of corps like tobacco in the United States, and Sugar cane in the Caribbean Islands and its Lesser Antilles.
In the early days of southern settlement, slaves were few, but were considered more efficient workers in the rice paddies than white indentured or hired laborers. Their African heritage gave the slaves better immunity than the white workers had, against the malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases that plagued the south’s tidewater area. Cotton initially was not a great cash crop, but the rise of the northern textile mills greatly increased the demand for cotton. The cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney also made cotton growing more profitable. This machine was operated by one person and could clean far more cotton in an hour than several workers could clean by hand.
Economic profit was a primary driving force in the colonization of Virginia. By the late seventeenth century, once settlers realized that cash crops such as tobacco could be highly profitable, most of labor force relied upon the importation indentured servants from England. However, planters had to find alternative cheaper and reliable labor supply because of the shortage of English indentured servants. As plantation-based and cash-crop-oriented economy had continued for several decades, planters in Virginia imported a large amount of slaves. In fact, Virginia developed into a slave society where slavery was the foundation of the economic and social order in the late seventh century.
Gary Nash discusses the impact of black people in a white peoples colony. The first negro people to come to America in Virginia were probably indentured servants who would receive some type of reward after their time of service was over, until 1660. After 1660 though many of the “Negros” that came to America were slaves, purchased as property. By the 1800’s every colony in America had “slave codes” which stripped black people of every right they had and made them property. His biggest claim was his stating of, “More than anything else it was sugar that transformed the African slave trade.” The slave trade became an extremely profitable enterprise for European nations once the sugar plantations reached the New World.