In the beginning of the 1600’s, the colonization of the United States was going fairly well. The colonists had begun to unearth the territories that they now called home and were cultivating crops and generating incomes. At this time, the labor system relied heavily on indentured servants; people who were looking to come to the new world but could not afford it. Landowners benefited greatly from the misfortune of the indentured servants, but were never able to hold onto them for a very lengthy period of time. The number of indentured servants was sufficient enough to fulfill the needs of the landowners until the end of the sixteenth century. Due to the lack of indentured servitude, colonists turned to other sources as a way to find labor and
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In Myne Owne Ground, Breen and Innes argue that racism did in fact exist before the arrival of slaves, but it took a backseat to more pressing matters like colonization, crops and class divisions. Breen and Innes believe that if racism had not surfaced, people of all races would have been living equally in the time period and most likely would be living the same way today. Unfortunately this did not turn out to be true and racial issues made themselves present over time in the colonies. Myne Owne Ground, stresses that blacks and whites did live peacefully together for many years, as in the case of Anthony Johnson and because of this, it gives hope for the future in eliminating all racial …show more content…
Hatfield calls into question how Virginia transitioned from a plantation based economy heavily dependent on white indentured servitude to one that relied almost entirely on African slavery. Hatfield chooses to study this in a different way by looking at how “Virginia’s slave society developed within an Atlantic context,” and how other countries influenced the colonies use of slaves. One of the main countries that Hatfield studies in this essay is Barbados because they influenced the Americas the most. “Between 1648 and 1658 twenty four hundred Europeans left Barbados for Virginia and Surinam” and because those numbers are quite large, it calls into question were the colonies forced into becoming a place of slavery or did they choose
In Myne Owne Ground, Breen and Innes argue that racism did in fact exist before the arrival of slaves, but it took a backseat to more pressing matters like colonization, crops and class divisions. Breen and Innes believe that if racism had not surfaced, people of all races would have been living equally in the time period and most likely would be living the same way today. Unfortunately this did not turn out to be true and racial issues made themselves present over time in the colonies. Myne Owne Ground, stresses that blacks and whites did live peacefully together for many years, as in the case of Anthony Johnson and because of this, it gives hope for the future in eliminating all racial …show more content…
Hatfield calls into question how Virginia transitioned from a plantation based economy heavily dependent on white indentured servitude to one that relied almost entirely on African slavery. Hatfield chooses to study this in a different way by looking at how “Virginia’s slave society developed within an Atlantic context,” and how other countries influenced the colonies use of slaves. One of the main countries that Hatfield studies in this essay is Barbados because they influenced the Americas the most. “Between 1648 and 1658 twenty four hundred Europeans left Barbados for Virginia and Surinam” and because those numbers are quite large, it calls into question were the colonies forced into becoming a place of slavery or did they choose