1. Chapter Objectives
• Who were the peoples of colonial North
America?
• How did black servitude develop in the
Chesapeake?
• What were the characteristics of plantation
slavery from 1700 to 1750?
2. • How did the experience of African
Americans under French and Spanish rule
in North America compare to that in the
British colonies?
• How did slavery affect black women in
colonial America?
• How did African Americans resist slavery?
3. • By fourteenth century diverse American
Indian cultures
• American Indian, African relationship
complicated
– American Indians lived harmoniously with
nature, influenced Africans
– Indians sometimes slaveholders
– Africans helped defend against Indian attacks
– Africans, Indians similarly oppressed in
American colonies
8. The British and Jamestown
• Jamestown first permanent British colony
in North America
– Located in Chesapeake region, called Virginia
– No gold, climate unsuitable for crops
• Tobacco became mainstay of Virginia
• White laborers produced most tobacco in
Chesapeake colonies
9. Africans Arrive in Chesapeake
• 1619, 32 people of African descent at
Jamestown
– Dutch bring 20 Angolans to Jamestown
– New arrivals regarded as unfree not slaves
• England had no slave laws
• Some Angolans Christian, Christians could not be
enslaved
10. • First black person born in English America
– Parents baptized in Church of England
– Born free
• Africans remained small minority in
expanding Virginia colony
11. English Colonization
The Charter of the Virginia Company:
Guaranteed to
colonists the same
rights as Englishmen
as if they had stayed
in England.
This provision was
incorporated into
future colonists’
documents.
Colonists felt that, even in the
Americas, they had the rights of
Englishmen!
12. England Plants the
Jamestown “Seedling”
Late 1606 VA Co. sends out 3 ships
Spring 1607 land at mouth of
Chesapeake Bay.
Attacked by Indians and move on.
May 24, 1607 about 100 colonists [all
men] land at Jamestown, along banks of
James River
Easily defended, but swarming with
disease-causing mosquitoes.
19. The Jamestown Nightmare
1606-1607 40 people died on the
voyage to the New World.
1609 another ship from England lost
its leaders and supplies in a shipwreck
off Bermuda.
Settlers died by the dozens!
―Gentlemen‖ colonists would not work
themselves.
Game in forests & fish in river uncaught.
Settlers wasted time looking for gold
instead of hunting or farming.
20. Captain John Smith:
The Right Man for the Job??
There was no talk…but dig gold, wash
gold, refine gold, load gold…
24. River Settlement
Pattern
Large plantations [>100 acres].
Widely spread apart [>5 miles].
Social/Economic
PROBLEMS???
25. High Mortality Rates
The ―Starving Time‖:
1607: 104 colonists
By spring, 1608: 38 survived
1609: 300 more immigrants
By spring, 1610: 60 survived
1610 – 1624: 10,000
immigrants
1624 population: 1,200
Adult life expectancy: 40 years
Death of children before age 5: 80%
26. Chief Powhatan
Powhatan Confederacy
Powhatan dominated a
few dozen small tribes
in the James River
area when the English
arrived.
The English called all
Indians in the area
Powhatans.
Powhatan probably saw
the English as allies in his struggles to
control other Indian tribes in the region.
27. Culture Clash in the
Chesapeake
Relations between Indians & settlers
grew worse.
General mistrust because of different
cultures & languages.
English raided Indian food supplies
during the starving times.
1610-1614 First Anglo-Powhatan War
De La Warr had orders to make war on
the Indians.
Raided villages, burned houses, took
supplies, burned cornfields.
31. Early Colonial Tobacco
1618 — Virginia produces 20,000 pounds of
tobacco.
1622 — Despite losing nearly one-third of
its colonists in an Indian attack,
Virginia produces 60,000 pounds of
tobacco.
1627 — Virginia produces
500,000 pounds
of tobacco.
1629 — Virginia produces
1,500,000 pounds
of tobacco.
32. Back Servitude in Chesapeake
• Demand for tobacco expanded, indentured
servitude grew
– Blacks, whites sold freedom for set time
– Could expect to live as free people
– Free black men became landowners
• British assumed Africans were alien
• British make slaves property of masters
• Chattel Slavery
– A form of slavery in which the enslaved are
treated legally as property
33.
34. Indentured
Servitude
Headright
System
Indentured Contract, 1746
35. Indentured Servitude
Headright System:
Each Virginian got 50 acres for
each person whose passage they
paid.
Indenture Contract:
5-7 years.
Promised ―freedom dues‖ [land, £]
Forbidden to marry.
1610-1614: only 1 in 10 outlived their
indentured contracts!
36. Richard Frethorne’s
1623 Letter
In-Class Activity:
1. Describe the life of the indentured
servant as presented in this letter.
2. What are some of the problems he and
the other servants experienced?
3. What are their biggest fears?
4. What does a historian learn about life
in the 17c Chesapeake colony?
37. Why was 1619 a pivotal year
for the Chesapeake
settlement?
39. Growing Political Power
The House of Burgesses established
in 1619 & began to assume the role of
the House of Commons in England
Control over finances, militia, etc.
By the end of the 17c, H of B was able
to initiate legislation.
A Council appointed by royal governor
Mainly leading planters.
Functions like House of Lords.
High death rates ensured rapid
turnover of members.
40. Virginia Becomes a Royal
Colony
James I grew hostile to Virginia
He hated tobacco.
He distrusted the House of
Burgesses which he called a seminary
of sedition.
1624 he revoked the charter of
the bankrupt VA Company.
Thus, VA became a royal colony,
under the king’s direct control!
41. English Tobacco Label
First Africans arrived in Jamestown in
1619.
Their status was not clear perhaps
slaves, perhaps indentured servants.
Slavery not that important until the end of
the 17c.
42. 17c Population
in the Chesapeake
100000
80000
60000
White
40000
Black
20000
0
1607 1630 1650 1670 1690
WHY this large increase in black popul.??
43. Colonial Slavery
As the number of slaves
increased, white colonists reacted to
put down perceived racial threat.
Slavery transformed from economic
to economic and racial institution.
Early 1600s differences between
slave and servant were unclear.
By the mid-1680s, black slaves
outnumbered white indentured
servants.
44. Colonial Slavery
Beginning in 1662 ―Slave Codes‖
Made blacks [and their children]
property, or chattel for life of white
masters.
In some colonies, it was a crime to teach
a slave to read or write.
Conversion to
Christianity did
not qualify the
slave for
freedom.
45. Frustrated Freemen
Late 1600s large numbers of
young, poor, discontented men in the
Chesapeake area.
Little access to land or women for
marriage.
1670 The Virginia Assembly
disenfranchised most landless men!
46. Nathaniel Bacon’s
Rebellion: 1676
Led 1,000 Virginians in
a rebellion against
Governor Berkeley
Rebels resented
Berkeley’s close
relations with Indians.
Nathaniel
Bacon Berkeley monopolized
the fur trade with
the Indians in the
area.
Governor Berkley refused to
William retaliate for Indian
Berkeley attacks on frontier
settlements.
47. Bacon’s Rebellion
Rebels attacked Indians, whether
they were friendly or not to whites.
Governor Berkeley driven from
Jamestown.
They burned the capital.
Rebels went on a rampage of
plundering.
Bacon suddenly died of fever.
Berkeley brutally crushed the rebellion
and hanged 20 rebels.
48. Results of Bacon’s
Rebellion
It exposed resentments between
inland frontiersmen and landless
former servants against gentry on
coastal plantations.
Socio-economic class
differences/clashes between rural and
urban communities would continue
throughout American history.
Upper class planters searched for
laborers less likely to rebel BLACK
SLAVES!!
49. Bacon’s Rebellion
• Black slaves, white indentured servants
unite against elite
– Bacon dies before rebellion can occur
• Elite realize danger of freed, white
indentured servants
– Planters switch to enslaved black labor force
• Whites freedom, prosperity rest on
denying blacks freedom
• Master class
– Slaveholders
52. Tobacco Colonies
• Tobacco, rice colonies’ economies
dependent on black slaves
• Black laborers’ living conditions varied
– Some masters worked together with slaves
– Some masters divided slaves among many
holdings
– Before mid-eighteenth century nearly all
slaves were fieldworkers
53. • Masters wanted slaves to work
harder, faster
– After 1750 some black men had skilled
occupations
– Black women worked in fields, homes
54. Low Country Slaves
• West Indian plantation system strong in
Carolina, Georgia
– British settlers were Barbados
slaveholders, brought slaves
• Black people chattel from start
– Also center of Indian slave trade
– Cultivated rice on large plantations, similar to
West Indies
• 1750s, rice cultivation, slavery spread to Georgia
55. Miscegenation and Creolization
• Interracial sexual contacts between
blacks, whites, Indians
– White assemblies feared creation of mixed-
race class
• Creolization led African parents to produce
African-American children
• Miscegenation, creolization together
caused physical, cultural change
57. The Great Awakening
• Evangelical ministers preach spiritual
equality
• Africans
– Africans link spiritual equality to earthly
equality
– General African conversion
– Africans influence church services
58. Development of distinct African-American
church
Blacks segregated in white churches
Masters used church to teach
obedience
African-American Christianity blended
West African, European elements
59. • Development of distinct African-American
church
– Blacks segregated in white churches
– Masters used church to teach obedience
• African-American Christianity blended
West African, European elements
60. Language, Music, and Folk
Literature(cont'd)
• Pidgens
– Simplified mixtures of two or more languages
used to communicate between people who
speak different languages
• Black English (or African-American
Vernacular English)
– A variety of American English that is
influenced by West African
grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation
61.
62.
63. The African-American Impact on
Colonial Culture (cont'd)
• African-American imprint on southern
diction
– Black women raised white children
– White children acquired African-American
speech patterns
• Blacks influenced white notions of
remedies, cooking
64. The African-American Impact on
Colonial Culture
• West African culture shaped work in
American South
– African styles influenced southern southern
colonial architecture
– Slaves worked harder in groups
65. AFRICANS AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL POPULATION OF
THE BRITISH AMERICAN COLONIES 1650–1770
66. The African-American Impact on
Colonial Culture (cont'd)
• Gang system
– A mode of organizing labor that had West
African antecedents. In this system American
slaves worked in groups under the direction of
a slave driver
68. Slavery in the Northern
Colonies
• Slavery less extensive in north than south
– Small numbers, close to masters, isolation
– Northern slaves had fewer opportunities to
preserve African heritage
• In Middle colonies curfews kept slaves
isolated
69. Slavery in the Northern Colonies
(cont'd)
• In New England Puritanical beliefs, few
slaves
– Puritans converted Africans
– Slaves could inherit, own property
71. Slavery in Spanish Florida
and French Louisiana
• Numbers small, needed as soldiers more
than fieldworkers
– British takeover caused slaves to grow
• Louisiana imported about 6,000 slaves
– Blacks outnumbered whites
– Slaves became artisans, gained freedom
– Sexual exploitation of black women created
mixed-race
73. African Americans in New Spain’s
Northern Borderlands
• Few black people than British colonies
– Some slaves, some with limited freedom
– Worked as domestics, laborers or in Mexican
mines
• Racial Purity
– Spanish top; Blacks, Indians bottom
– Most Spaniards mixed race
– Blacks, Indians had more status
74. This detail of a mural located in the Arizona capitol building shows, on
its extreme right, the former slave Esteban, who wears a blue turban.
76. Black Women in Colonial
America
• Black men valued higher than black
women
– Worked in fields until giving birth
• Suffered complications giving birth
• Changed from fieldworkers to house
servants
– Subjected to sexual exploitation
77. In this painting African Americans await sale to slave traders, who stand
at the doorway on the left.
78. Class Discussion
• Work with a group of 3 to four students and
write down everything you know about the
similarities and difference between the slaves
throughout the Americas. You have
northern, Chesapeake Area, Southern Florida
and Louisiana and New Spain.
This detail of a mural located in the Arizona capitol building shows, on its extreme right, the former slave Esteban, who wears a blue turban. During the early 1500s, shipwrecked Esteban traveled through Texas to Mexico. Later he joined Spanish expeditions that explored what are now New Mexico and Arizona.
In this painting African Americans await sale to slave traders, who stand at the doorway on the left.
