#7 Development of the Chesapeake

Argument of lecture #7 Development of the Chesapeake

During the 17th century, the Virginia colony transformed from a society of relative social mobility into a slave society divided along racial lines. This transformation spurred the creation of a legal system that equated "blackness" with slavery, and "whiteness" with freedom.

Tobacco

•First exported in 1612, quickly became a lucrative export

•Highly addictive quality guaranteed an eager market in Europe

•A new planter class emerged on the back of tobacco's export

•High mortality rate kept the demand for land in check

William Berkley

•Royal Governor of Virginia during the 1670s, from an elite family

•Unpopular, especially among landless freemen for his peace policy with Native tribes

•In 1675, to head off conflict with Doeg people, he enacted a defensive strategy

•It did not go well: western colonists grew furious with him

Nathaniel Bacon

•Arrived in 1674, a wealthy and ambitious aristocrat

•Grew frustrated that men he saw as his social inferiors were prospering more than he was (not a man of the people)

•In 1676, and against Berkley's orders, he organized a group of angry, landless men to fight Native neighbors

The Slave Code

Emergence in late 17th century Chesapeake, A body of laws established by colonial governments to regulate the lives of enslaved people, defining them as property and severely restricting their rights and freedoms while granting extensive power to their owners and white people.

What were the troubles in Virginia

•Colony's population passed 25k in 1660

•Pop growth facilitated emergence of new class of landless freemen

•These landless men brought colony into conflict w/surrounding Native tribes

Bacon's Rebellion

•Less an organized military campaign than a collection of local grievances & personal rivalries

•Revealed fury within colony's large population of landless men

•They hated Native people, but also hated eastern planters

•Bacon lead his army east to Jamestown twice

•Slaves and servants joined the conflict on both sides

•Rebellion fizzled out when Bacon died of Typhus in Autumn

The response of the Bacon's Rebellion and VA legislature

Gave poor landless white men more rights and stripped whatever rights black men once had

What did the VA legislature do to create "Whiteness"

i. life improved for indentured servants, gained new rights

ii. mostly Virginia moved away from indentured servitude

iii. to be free in Virginia by 1700 meant, above all, to be white