Edmond Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom

In American Slavery, American Freedom, Edmond Morgan explains the development of the paradoxical growth of liberty and bondage by recounting a chronological societal evolution of 17th and early 18th century Virginia. While largely viewed as an economic investment rather than as a home-front, (mostly due to the shortage of marriageable women) Virginia’s political climate maintained the turbulent winds that sparked a rebellion and pushed men closer toward a self-proclaimed separation of Christian versus heathen. The political landscape; reminiscent of the English’s disdain for anything foreign, coupled with the economic need of inexpensive labor, reveals that the labor of one spurred the affluence of another. Indentured servants, England’s unfortunate, ultimately gave way to slaves while the New World countryside remained clad in tobacco leaves. According to Morgan, tobacco, the labor intensive crop of the era, can be seen as one of the leading catalysts for the search of liberty and the pursuit of cheap labor. England offered free land in the new world to citizens whose dreams of grandeur brought to Virginia those seeking opportunity for plenty, and who brought with them their cultural aversion of …show more content…
Miscegenation laws directed toward white women’s affection being solely for white men, as the proportion of women to men remained low lasting well into the 18th century. Specifically viewed as the “blurring of distinction between slave and free, black and white” the unrecognized rise of racism set the stage lasting well into the 20th century, long after the abolition of chattel slavery (336). Raising the lowered status of poor whites, and reducing the rights of people of color shows another layer of flesh on the skeleton; whose rise toward supported slavery settled itself concretely in parallel with the growth of slavery supporting the rise of