Seventeenth-Century Southern Colonies Study Notes

Anne Orthwood & the Human Face of Servitude

  • Anne Orthwood (born 1639 in Bristol) • Labeled a “bastard,” illustrating English social stigma.
  • Signed a 4-year indenture (August 1662) to a ship’s surgeon → passage to Virginia.
  • Sold twice: first to William Kendall (wealthy former servant who amassed 25{,}000 acres) then to a tenant farmer to keep her from Kendall’s nephew John.
  • Tavern rendezvous (November 1663) → pregnancy with twins; death of Anne and one child in labor; surviving son Jasper indentured 22 years.
  • Story exemplifies: scarcity of women, vulnerability of servants, upward vs. downward mobility, and demographic realities in the Chesapeake.

Virginia: Founding, Geography & Early Struggles

  • Royal charter to the Virginia Company (1606): >6 million acres; joint-stock model spreads risk/profit.
  • First fleet (Susan Constant, Discovery, Godspeed) brought 144 settlers → founded Jamestown (1607).
    • Built fort to guard against Spanish attack & Powhatan chiefdom.
    • Skirmishes + disease (brackish water, poor sanitation) → “Starving Time” (1607–1610); only 38/104 original settlers alive by Jan. 1608.
  • Powhatan aid: began corn trade Sept 1607; Captain John Smith: settlers “would have sould their soules” for Indian corn.

Algonquian Relations Chronology

  • 1618 Powhatan dies → brother Opechancanough chief.
  • House of Burgesses first meets 1619 (earliest representative assembly).
  • Great Uprising (1622): 347 colonists (~1/3) killed; English counter-campaign of extermination.
  • Consequence: King cancels Company charter 1624 → Virginia becomes royal colony; governor & council crown-appointed, but House of Burgesses retained.

Tobacco: “The Stinkinge Weede”

  • John Rolfe plants West Indian seeds 1612 → first commercial export 1617.
  • Price collapse: 1 unit in 1600 → 0.025 by 1700 because supply ↑ to 35 million lbs/yr.
  • By 1700:
    • Chesapeake pop.~100{,}000; exported >35 million lbs.
    • Avg. per-capita English consumption ↑ >200 imes over century.
  • Agricultural practice: girdling trees, hoe tillage, small cleared plots (only 5–10\% of holdings active at once).
  • Proximity to tidal rivers → easy cask transport; fall line marks navigability limit.

Headright & Servant Labor System

  • Headright: 50-acre bonus/servant transported; land < annual wages for English laborer.
  • 0 of immigrants 1607–1700 arrived as indentured servants ( 4–7 yrs).
  • Economics: planter recovered indenture cost in ≈1 season, then profited remaining term.
  • First Africans in Chesapeake: “20. and odd Negroes” 1619 (captured from Portuguese slaver) → few in region until 1670s.

Servant Demography & Conditions

  • 3⁄4 male, age 15–25; many “miserable wandering” youths like Francis Haires (7-yr indenture).
  • Women scarce; Virginia Company sells bride-servants for 120 lbs leaf tobacco.
  • Laws: no marriage during service; pregnancy → +2 yrs & fine; children of servant women indentured until 21.
  • Punishments extend terms (e.g., killing 3 hogs = +6 yrs for Richard Higby).

Religion, Settlement Pattern & Maryland

  • Anglican monopoly; few clergy → low piety compared with New England.
  • Farms isolated; few towns; waterways = highways.
  • Maryland charter 1632 to Lord Baltimore as Catholic refuge; Ark & Dove land 1634.
    • Protestants soon majority; economy, tobacco culture, and servant system mirror Virginia.

From Frontier Equality to Polarization (1650s–1670s)

  • Early society dominated by yeomen; death rate limited fortunes.
  • 3 forces splinter equality:
    1. Tobacco glut ↓ price \Rightarrow harder for freedmen to buy land.
    2. Death-rate decline \Rightarrow more servants survive & crowd land market.
    3. Planter elite live longer \Rightarrow accumulate estates + slaves.
  • Navigation Acts (1650, 1651, 1660, 1663): mercantilism funnels trade via English ships; 2-penny/lb import duty = \approx grower’s price.
  • House of Burgesses suspends elections (1661–1676); 1670 franchise limited to freeholding householders.

Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)

  • Spark: frontier violence after Opechancanough uprising of 1644 & continued encroachment.
  • Nathaniel Bacon rallies settlers vs. “Darling Indians” & “sponge” grandees.
  • June legislature → Bacon’s Laws (local tax control, anti-fee graft, restored universal white male vote).
  • Civil war: Jamestown burned, plantations raided; rebellion collapses when Bacon dies (dysentery) & royal troops arrive.
  • Aftermath:
    • Royal investigation; Berkeley removed.
    • Export tax funds gov’t (cuts poll tax 75\% 1660–1700).
    • Elites decide Indian wars preferable to class wars; seek stable labor = slavery.

Rise of Racial Slavery (1670-1700)

  • Economic logic: slave costs ×3–5 servant but lifetime service + inheritable.
  • Supply shift: Royal African Company monopoly, declining servant pool (English wages ↑).
  • By 1700, blacks = \approx12\% of Chesapeake population; transition essentially complete by early 18th c.
  • Legal codification: slavery = lifelong, matrilineal, racial; white freedom universalizes (jury, vote, property, mobility).
  • Social consequence: interracial servant solidarity replaced by racial solidarity among whites; class tensions muted.

Ideology of Superiority & Language

  • Terms adopted from Spanish: Indian, Negro (generic, homogenizing).
  • Colonists’ descriptors: Indians = “savages,” “tawny”; Africans = “black” (synonymous with “foul,” “baneful”).
  • Post-1680: colonists self-identify as white & free; blacks triply marked (un-English, un-white, un-free).
  • Example case: Irish Nell Butler (white servant) married slave Charles (1681 Maryland) → court testimony 1767 debates descendants’ status; demonstrates law linking mixed marriage to enslavement, intersection of race/gender.

Spanish Northern Frontier: Mission, Revolt, Retrenchment

  • Sparse colonies: Florida (~1{,}500 Spaniards), New Mexico (~3{,}000).
    • Economy dependent on royal subsidy; missionaries press forced tribute & labor.
  • Pueblo Revolt 1680 led by Popé → 2/3 missionaries killed; Spaniards retreat to El Paso; reconquest late 1690s with reduced coercion.
  • Florida Indians sporadic revolts, conversion stalled (“law of God… ceased”).

West Indies: Sugar & the Template for Slavery

  • Barbados colonized 1630s → sugar boom 1640s.
    • 1680 average planter wealth ×4 Chesapeake grandees; owned ≈115 slaves each.
  • Demography: Africans majority by 1650s; >75\% island population by 1700.
  • Sugar labor: high mortality, skewed sex ratio (2 ♂ : 1 ♀) → constant import demand.

Carolina: A Barbadian Outpost

  • Charter 1663 to eight proprietors incl. John Colleton; Fundamental Constitutions (John Locke) envision landed aristocracy + religious liberty.
  • Charles Towne founded 1670; headright up to 150 acres/settler – diffuses land broadly.
  • Early population: >25\% enslaved Africans; by 1700 ≈50\%.
    • Exports: cattle, timber, Indian slaves, later rice (tech & seeds from Africans) + indigo.
  • Close cultural/commercial link to Barbados; officials call colony “Carolina in ye West Indies.”

Migration & the Atlantic World (1492-1700)

  • Cumulative migrants 1492–1700: enslaved Africans outnumber Europeans.
    • Pre-1640: Spain/Portugal = 80\% of Europeans.
    • 1640–1700: English ≈ Spanish + Portuguese combined.
  • Figure 3.1: visualizes flows; note shift of African landings toward English & French sugar islands by late C17.

Ethical, Philosophical & Real-World Connections

  • Mercantilism drives Navigation Acts: colonial economy exists for metropolitan benefit; tobacco import tax = \frac{1}{4} of crown customs 1660s.
  • Servant vs. slave labor debates illustrate ethics of coerced labor and the calculus of profit vs. human freedom.
  • Racial ideology becomes self-reinforcing justification for economic exploitation, planting seeds for future American racial caste.
  • Bacon’s Rebellion foreshadows later populist uprisings when elites ignore broad welfare; demonstrates link between frontier security & class politics.

Quick-Reference Chronology (selected)

  • 1606 Virginia Company charter • 1607 Jamestown • 1612 Rolfe’s tobacco
  • 1619 House of Burgesses & first Africans • 1622 & 1644 Powhatan uprisings
  • 1624 Virginia royal colony • 1632/1634 Maryland charter/settlement
  • 1650–1663 Navigation Acts series • 1663 Carolina charter
  • 1670 Charles Towne; vote restricted in VA • 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion
  • 1680 Pueblo Revolt; Barbados planters average 115 slaves
  • 1681 Irish Nell marriage • 1680s-1690s servant inflow declines, slavery accelerates
  • 1700 Chesapeake exports >35 million lbs tobacco; blacks ≈12\% population; Carolina slaves ≈50\%.

Key Terms & Concepts

  • Virginia Company · Jamestown · Algonquian · Headright · Indentured Servant · House of Burgesses · Royal Colony · Navigation Acts · Mercantilism · Yeoman · Bacon’s Laws · Slavery · Pueblo Revolt · Barbados · Rice Plantation