Episode 1: Chesapeake and Southern Colonies MD, VA, NC, SC, GA 1607-1753

Virginia Company of London

Joint Stock company that founded a colony in Jamestown, VA in 1607 for profit

Tobacco

Virginia’s Gold and Silver

Lord De la Warr

Virginia Governor who introduced capitalism through private land distribution to incentivize profit for VA Co.

Commercial/Price Revolution

Spanish gold flooded Euro market causing inflation leading to increased commerce, merchants and power to the House of Commons in England

Enclosure laws

passed in House of Commons to encourage sheep grazing (to fuel the textile industry) displacing majority agriculture worker who will seek opportunity as indentured servant in New World

Indentured Servant

European slave labor for a certain amount of time in exchange for passage to Chesapeake and Southern colonies

Headright System

Incentive program by VA Co to encourage colonists to sponsor English into servitude by giving 50 acres per person

Virginia House of Burgesses

America’s first representative colonial legislature

Powhatan Uprising

Chesapeake colony war between English colonists and natives leading to bankruptcy of VA Co.

Anglicanization

Process of becoming culturally, politically, religiously English

Royal Colony

Colony in the Americas that is controlled by the monarchy of England

chattel slavery

Based on English law where slaves were property and a heritable condition

Bacon’s Rebellion

Uprising by farmers (former indentured) in Virginia against the VA government (William Berkeley) because the government would not protect them against native attacks; Tidewater vs. Backcountry

African Slave Trade

Triangular Trade including the Middle Passage (carrying slaves across Atlantic)

Olaudah Equiano

A former slave, wrote a book about his life in slavery and Middle Passage led to end of slave trade in England

South Carolina

Profitable proprietary colony of 8 landowners from Barbados that cultivate rice and indigo and est. Charles Town

Georgia

Proprietary colony established as a buffer to Spanish FL and overcrowded English debtor prison

Maryland

Proprietary colony established as a Catholic haven – passed MD Toleration Act

Stono County Rebellion

Slave rebellion in South Carolina

VA Slave Codes

Strict laws prohibiting slaves

Slave culture

On plantations to protect dignity included extended kinship networks and Gullah