USHISTORY Chapter 3

indentured servants vs slaves

Ordeals facing the first generation of Virginia settlers

Food shortages, disease, native attacks, labor shortages; depended on Natives for survival; focused on surviving more than profit.

Importance of tobacco

Made Virginia profitable; though not as high quality as Spanish tobacco, it sold well in England.

Indentured servants

Voluntary laborers who worked for a set number of years in exchange for passage to Virginia.

Unfree labor & racial order in early 1600s

Mix of European indentured servants and African laborers; racial lines were not yet rigid but became stricter within a generation.

New World expectations vs. reality

Expected land, wealth, and opportunity; reality was native attacks, starvation, and disease.

Bermuda

Shipwreck led to another English colony being established.

Role of tobacco

Profitable crop that drove Virginia’s economy and labor demands.

Reasons for becoming indentured servants

To gain land and opportunity after service ended.

Conditions servants faced

Harsh labor, high mortality rates, poor treatment.

What happened if they survived their contract term

Often granted land or “freedom dues,” sometimes joined the emerging gentry class.

Emerging gentry class

Wealthy landowners who dominated politics and society in Virginia.

Nathaniel Bacon & Bacon’s Rebellion & William Berkeley

Bacon led rebellion against Berkeley over frontier policy and access to land.

History/characteristics of early slavery

Initially fluid; Africans could sometimes earn freedom; gradually hardened into a system of racial slavery.

Why Virginia planters were slow to adopt Atlantic slave trade

High cost of enslaved labor; indentured servants were cheaper.

Royal African Company & King Charles II

Helped Virginia planters access enslaved Africans, accelerating shift to slavery.

Race as a socially constructed idea

Race is not biological but a social concept used to justify inequality and power structures.

Evidence from laws and numbers

Shows society shifting from mixed unfree labor to dependence on African slavery; racial laws solidified hierarchy.

Lifestyle of Virginia planters

Wealthy, plantation

Shift from class to racial distinctions

Initially based on class (poor vs. rich), later focused on race (white vs. Black).

Paradox of planters’ ideology

Advocated liberty while maintaining slavery.

Edmund S. Morgan’s ideas

American freedom was built on slavery; liberty for whites depended on enslaving Africans.