Bowling for Jamestown

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Bowling for Jamestown
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• (90) Throughout the colonial period, economic
  concerns had more to do with the settling of
  British North America than did religious
  concerns. Assess the validity of this statement
  with specific reference to economic and religious
  concerns.
• (72) What role did unfree labor play in colonial
  American society?
• (75) Although many Northerners and Southerners
  came later to think of themselves as having
  separate civilizations, the Northern and Southern
  colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth
  centuries were in fact more similar than
  different. Assess the validity of this
  statement.

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I. What a Waste Jamestown, 1607

• A. The Virginia Company
• Nov. 1606 3 small ships of joint stock Virginia
  Company sail from London
• (company pooled resources small investors by
  sell stocks)
• 144 men on board 104 survive the trip

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• Only 38 survived 1st year 50 of replacements
  died in 1st three years
• Safer in Europe during Black Death
• Why so deadly?

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B. Dysentery and Starvation

• 1) James River a tidal estuary drought (lowers
  water levels) salt contaminated (5x above modern
  standards) tide doesnt sweep away human wastes
  swamp? malaria

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• 2) Famine (Starving Time, 1609-10) dogs, cats,
  rats, snakes, corpses (man killed wife for food)
• Irony English considered all natives cannibals
  and partly justified conquest on this basis
• Why starving?

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C. English Conquistadores

• Settlers refused to plant corn thought of
  themselves as conquistadores? John Smith finds
  them bowling in the street rather than working
  (Doc F)
• Gov. Thomas Dales martial law counter-productive
• Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the
  New Found Land of Virginia, 1588
• Refused to give up expectations
• 1) early recon showed VA land of abundance? no
  work for food
• 2) searching gold silver
• 3) Northwest Passage
• 4) Expect natives easily enslaved
• Attempt terror to control kill and destroy crops

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D. Powhatan Confederacy

• Settled in area of strongest Indian
  political/military alliance on coast Powhatan
  Confederacy
• Powhatan first viewed as possible allies? trade
  corn for goods
• Settlers take Pocahontas hostage after Indians
  seize several settlers (marries John Rolfe)
• 1622 uprising nearly destroys Jamestown
• 1646 Confederacy signs treaty, alliance crumbles

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II. The Jovial Weed Tobacco Boom

• Despite efforts to terrorize the settlers through
  martial law (nail through tongue and tied to tree
  for stealing food), the settlers needed a
  profitable commodity to succeed? tobacco

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• Sir Francis Drake first introduced West Indian
  tobacco to English in 1586? medicinal value, then
  jovial weed
• VA tobacco bitter? John Rolfe creates hybrid
  (1611)
• 1620 VA exports 40,000 lbs? all of VA plants
  tobacco
• Settlers move out of Jamestown fort, plantations
  5 miles apart

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B. Boomtown

• Jamestown becomes a boomtown rough and tumble,
  populated by men, scramble for profits, profits
  spent on liquor
• English ships use liquor as ballast
• Most want get rich and get home
• Still think of selves as conquistadores dont
  want to work
• Tobacco labor intensive (8-10 months nasty work)

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III. I Need a Better Travel Agent Indentured
Servants

• A. English Labor System
• Initial labor system traditional Eng. system of
  white indenture
• Indenture (contract) 4-7 years in exchange for
  passage, room board, freedom dues (clothes,
  tools, start-up at end of contract)
• Subset of system of apprenticeship

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• Price theoretically cost of voyage, but bidding?
  6x cost
• Headright system 1617 VA grants 50 acres for
  those paying own way or bring in others
• On 50 acres w/servants, a tobacco planter could
  earn more in 1 year than several in England

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B. Who Were They?

• 70-85 of all emigrant to Chesapeake arrived as
  indentures? single most formative institution in
  early VA
• Came in response to ads (streets paved w/gold
  stuff)

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• 1) primarily men, 15-24
• 2) little stake in Eng. society no land,
  unmarried
• 3) middle and lower levels of society (commons)
• 4) victims of economic/demographic crisis in
  England (pop growth (potato) enclosure? urban
  growth? crime, unemployment
• Surplus population major motive colonization
• (Doc C)

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C. New World Labor System

• Came in search of work land, but disappointed
• Traditional Eng. constraints broke down in face
  profit motive
• 1) Owners abused servants despite value
  (worked/starved to death)
• 40 died w/in 4 years of arrival
• 2) Women put into fields alongside men
• 3) Sexual abuse
• Punishment for pregnancy extension of indenture,
  sell child into indenture (profit motive for
  abuse as well as lack of women)

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• 4) Servants bought sold, put up as stakes in
  gambling
• White Englishmen treated as commodities? major
  step toward black chattel slavery
• And Bacons Rebellion Doc G

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IV. Family Life in 17th Century Chesapeake

• A. Demography and Disrupted Families
• 1) shortage of women 41 or 61 throughout 17th?
  men stay single
• (1620, 21, 22 VA Co sends boatloads of women)
• 2) Late age of marriage indenture? Women
  mid-20s, men late 20s
• 3) Late marriage? small families avg. 2-3 (New
  England 6-8)
• 4) High mortality rates 1650-1700 in Maryland,
  50 marriages broken w/in 7 years by death
• Silver lining empowerment of women (widows)

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B. Attitudes

• 1) very lax about getting married in the first
  place
• Bridal pregnancy 1 in 3
• Easy divorce, desertion, bigamy (unofficial)
• 2) Parent-child relations troubled mortality?
  remarriage? step-parents
• Orphans in real trouble? orphans courts
  established to deal w/problems

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• Family life in VA was a destablizing force that
  reflected and fed the general social disorder

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V. Dispersed Plantations and the Competitive Ethos

• Planters spread out because tobacco requires lots
  of land (nutrient hog)
• Even after boom (post-1620s) VA still haphazard,
  impermanent settlement
• Even richest in shacks
• Fields inefficiently used
• Constant movement to new lands
• Settlement focused around rivers? poor forced to
  the interior (remember when read about Bacons
  Rebellion Docs G and H)

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• Not building towns
• No urban merchant class (planters do their own
  marketing)
• No incentive for schools
• No printing press, few places for
  social/political community
• 1662 48 churches in all of VA, only 10 pastors

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Slavery would eventually bring order to this
society