Virginia Colony Essay

Improved Essays
The development of the Virginia colony was incisive of the how labor and racial relations would be in American. Many facts led the colony to adopt a system of slavery such as Indenture Service was one of these reasons, followed by the Civil war in England, and the decrease of death rates in the colony. Also, the large number of Africans brought to the colony helped to establish this system. Lastly, Bacon’s Rebellion played a strong role on the change of race relations in the colony. After establish the first permanent English colony. The people living in Jamestown faced difficulties because of its low resources and need of labor. John Smith, member of the council, believed that the solution was to establish a military based work of labor in which everyone needed to work in order to eat. At that time England was over …show more content…
First, was the Civil war that took place in England from 1642 to 1649 and made many people died. However, with the life conditions in England after the war became a little better, because now the country was not over populated, and people did not want to go to try a new life in the colony. Second, the quality of life in the colony improved and the death rates went low, which made landowners not happy, because that means that more of the indenture servants would live through their contracts and the landowner would need to give land. Lastly, the African population in the colony increased, due to Jamestown trading slaves with the Dutch, which collaborated to the changes on race relation making a shift from Indenture Service to establish the slavery system, which was not legal and assumed by the government. This shift in the race relations brought a lot changes in the society such as, free Africans moved out of the city, children born with a black mother was treated as slave living in the same status of his mother, and landowner Africans could not have a white

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    This issue created a vacuum that slave traders were sucked into. Slaves were coming in by the thousands to keep up with the speed of England’s endeavors in business and the exchange of commodities. To reiterate the fact that slaves were coming to the colonies (especially to the south) in droves, and what that effected, it is required that it be explained precisely ‘why?’ With the sudden spike in business in the Tobacco and sugar trade, it initiated the absolute need for slaves.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Dbq 10 Precolumbian-1700

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Precolumbian-1700 Test Corrections: #7: For planters, a slave labor system had important advantages over a servant labor system because slaves: A(cost less than indentured servants) B(could be controlled politically) The answer is B, as slaves could not rebel like Nathaniel Bacon and other Yeoman Farmers and indentured servants for a variety of reasons mainly, small population or the population being spread out across colonies, as well as no access to the ability to vote(originally black landowning males could vote, but this liberty was soon rescinded when slavery became quite common among plantations). Foner explains this in Give Me Liberty, “Virginia’s shift from white indentured servants to African slaves as the main plantation labor force was accelerated by Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676... Which frightened Virginia's ruling elite, who took dramatic steps to consolidate their power… To avertt the further rise of a rebellious population of landless former indentured servants, Virginia's authorities accelerated the shift to slaves on the tobacco…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With there being not that many workers there would only be Captain John Smith was the leader for them to work. He inspired some of the colonists to work for the colony to survive. Then after a while Captain Smith was sent back to England. The Early Jamestown: Why Did So Many Colonists Die? Document it states, “Captain John Smith who provided much needed leadership was sent back to England” with Captain John Smith not being able to lead them, and work hard for their food so they could have enough food to survive the harsh Winter.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The large amount of indentured servants in the seventeenth and eighteenth century was caused by many factors which led to many consequences. The Triangular Trade route had established a global desire for commodities such as sugar. With the increased want for sugar brought about a need for workers on sugar plantations. This need for more workers was “solved,” by hiring indentured servants. The need for more labor, not only sugar plantation labor was the main reasoning for the increase in indentured servitude {Documents, two, five and seven}.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    English settlers constructed their labor systems in the Chesapeake from the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 by using propaganda and head rights: which is a legal grant of land to settlers in exchange for service. The head right system was introduced in Virginia it gave each superior of the household the right to fifty acres of land for himself and another additional fifty acres for each grown family member in exchange for service. Virginia and Maryland both appointed the “head right” system to encourage the import of servant workers under their terms, whoever paid the passage of a worker received the right to acquire fifty acres of land; extremity therefore collected the benefits of landownership from the system. Servants that were brought to America experienced many months at sea, a small troop of soldiers, recruits, and nobles from England completed a 3000-mile journey across the Atlantic and stepped off their ship to greet an unknown new land. In 1607 the land they chose to live on became the first permanent settlement of the British in North America.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As England began to take interest in the "New World", colonization by Englishmen began to spread drastically in the 1600's. English colonies took place on the eastern coast of the United States. Two early settlements established were in the New England and Chesapeake region. Although both were settled largely by people of English origin, by 1700 these two regions had evolved into two distinct societies, due mainly to reasons involving the reasons for settlement, geographical differences leading to different economics, religion and politics.…

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Virginia Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony were not meritocracies. The definition of meritocracy is an elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class privilege or wealth. This system of meritocracy only existed for an elite few in the colonies of Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay, those that were white, wealthy males. While the colonies had slightly different ways of going about it, they each had ways they prevented the people in the lower class from being successful. The Virginia Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony were run by landowning men who were elected by fellow landowners, who used business tactics and religious beliefs to continue to exclusively benefit people who had the same…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The patterns of American colonial life, specifically in the Massachusetts Bay colony, encapsulated the massive social, political, and economic shifts of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Factors including freedom of religious expression and increased opportunity for wealth or opportunity led many Europeans to immigrate to New England. Prominent figures and experiences of the entire Colonial Massachusetts Bay population as a whole are often times generalized onto those of the average colonist. Apart from diaries, letters, and other personal artifacts, historians have been able to construct newer theories about the lives of the average individual upon analyzing public and governmental records. This includes but is not limited…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the 17th century, many Europeans, especially the English came over to America in search of a life better than the one they had in England. In the early to mid 1600s, two different groups of people, the participants from the Virginia Company and the Puritans. Despite this similarity, both the participants and the Puritans had other intentions of moving to America and with this, many other differences. Taking all the advantages and disadvantages the two groups had into consideration, the state of Rhode Island in the New England colonies would have been in the best condition to live in.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The slavery system and indentured servants helped to put the American colonies in a better economic situation in the years leading up to the American revolution. Indentured servitude began in the seventeenth century when many Europeans wanted to start a life in the colonies. In many European nations the colonies were heavily advertised and families were encouraged to move to America. The problem with the Colonies’ new popularity was the expenses: most families could not afford the trip over to America, and if they could, most would not have enough money to then purchase land and support their family. Still, many people still wanted to come…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In general, slavery played a major part in American colonization and became the standard for all colonies and the African American slaves were heavily populated in the Northern and Southern colonies because of the Southern colonies had tobacco plantations and they needed laborers to work their land so, they can make a profit. In short, the Atlantic Slave Trade was established by the Spanish colonists in the Sixteenth century to help solve a need and because they were the most experience sea mariners during that time (Robin, Kelley, Lewis, 2005, p. 7). Therefore, slaves became the cheapest laborers in the colonies and this forced labor continue for centuries and some people of the colonies began to believe that this was the way of life. The…

    • 1778 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jamestown and Massachusetts Bay Colony both had great impacts for the thirteen colonies. Jamestown was the first surviving settlement for the English in the Americas. Jamestown’s survival caused more settlers to come to the Americas in the belief that they too could survive. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay colony believed only Puritans should have a “voice” over the colony. Non-puritans left Massachusetts to start a new colony because they didn’t want to be pressured to follow the beliefs of the Puritans.…

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Lost Colony Essay

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Over five hundred years ago, 118 settlers disappeared out of thin air. The Roanoke Colony was a bunch of settlers that wanted to make the new world (America) repopulated and successful. John White was the leader of the colony right before it disappeared. Virginia Dare was the first English child to be born in the new world. Some of the main theories sounds correct, but there are no evidence to back them up.…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Comparison of the New England and Southern Colonies The colonies were first developed in the 1600’s, however the New England colonies and Southern Colonies were very different despite them both having similar reasons for coming to the new world. The southern colonies, consisting of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, were centered on making money and agriculture, whereas the New England colonies, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, were centered on religious freedom from the Church of England. What makes them similar is that they both came to America to start a new life with hopes of being prosperous and healthy. Southern Colonies…

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The book, “American Slavery: 1619-1877” written by Peter Kolchin and published first in 1993 and then published with revisions in 2003, takes an in depth look at American slavery throughout the country’s early history, from the pre-Revolutionary War period to the post-Civil War period. The first chapter deals with the origins of slavery within the United States. It discusses the introduction of slavery to the nation even before it was officially a nation. The colonies in the United States were agricultural and the cultivation of crops required labor.…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays