Colonial Society PT 2

Overview of Slavery in the Colonies (mid-1700s)

  • By the mid-1700s slavery was legal in every British mainland colony.
  • Practice, severity, and social embedding of slavery varied according to:
    • Economics (cash-crop vs. mixed economy)
    • Demographics (percentage of Africans vs. Europeans)
    • Culture & founding charters (explicit vs. implicit protection of bondage).

Virginia: “The OG Colony”

  • British Social Replication
    • Adopted primogeniture—all land passes to the eldest male heir.
    • Result: inter-marriage & contracts cause progressive land consolidation in a handful of planter families.
  • Labor Philosophy
    • Goal = maximum extraction of labor to maximize tobacco profits.
    • Enslaved Africans ≈ 40\% of population (≈ 100{,}000 people).
  • Gang Labor System (most brutal)
    • Overseer (white, armed) continuously drives enslaved field hands “dawn-to-dusk.”
    • High supervision → constant threat/use of physical violence.
  • Legal Codification of Brutality — “Virginia Act Concerning Servants & Slaves”
    • Killing a resisting slave “not accounted a felony.”
    • Status inherited matrilineally; baptism or conversion does NOT end bondage.
    • Creates a legal gulf: slaves occupy a category outside ordinary homicide law & Christian ethics (“Thou shalt not kill”).

South Carolina: A Planned Slave Society

  • Foundational Charter explicitly legalizes slavery; colony established later than VA with intentional design for plantation profits.
  • Planter Class Ties to Caribbean Sugar Islands → imports methods of extreme discipline.
  • Rice Cultivation
    • Requires flooded, swampy fields; standing water → malaria & other tropical diseases.
    • Planters request captives from Senegambia & other West-African tropical regions presumed more malaria-resistant—pseudo-scientific rationale for targeted enslavement.
  • Task System (contrast to Virginia)
    • Each enslaved worker assigned a checklist of tasks; upon completion, remaining time is “free.”
    • Lower daily oversight → opportunities for:
    • Growing provision crops & small trade
    • Practicing West-African cultural rituals
    • Visiting neighboring plantations & forging communities.
  • Stono Rebellion (Sept. 1739)
    • Early large-scale pro-liberty uprising; rebels burn plantations & kill slaveholders.
    • Suppressed by colonial militia; many insurgents aimed to reach Spanish Florida (promised freedom).
    • Planters cite rebellion as proof that autonomy breeds revolt → ideological support for harsher gang labor elsewhere.

Northern Colonies Without Large-Scale Slave Labor

  • Colonies such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania lacked climatic suitability for labor-intensive cash crops → limited domestic slavery.
  • Economic Complicity
    • Northern ports, shipbuilders, and merchants form integral nodes of the Atlantic slave trade.
    • Export manufactured goods & foodstuffs to plantation zones; import slave-grown commodities.
  • Quaker Opposition (Pennsylvania)
    • Believe in fundamental equality & pacifism; war-captive justification for slavery is rejected.
    • Quakers owning slaves were expelled & banned—one of the earliest organized abolitionist stances.

Pathways to Freedom & Political Participation

  • Suffrage
    • Compared to Britain, a larger share of white males could vote (women excluded until 1920).
  • Colonial Government Framework
    • Every colony displays a three-branch skeleton:
    1. Governor
      • Provincial (crown-appointed): Virginia, New York, South Carolina.
      • Proprietary (appointed by lord proprietor): Maryland, Pennsylvania.
      • Charter (elected by property-holding males): Massachusetts, Connecticut.
    2. Council – governor-appointed, elite advisers.
    3. Assembly – elected; controls taxation & budget, checks governor’s power.
  • Civic duties framed within a social contract: pay taxes, vote, serve in militia ↔ enjoy protection & representation.

Family, Marriage, & Gender Shifts

  • Sentimentalism Rise
    • Marriage evolves from pragmatic contract → emotionally fulfilling union.
    • Women exercise more bodily autonomy → family size declines.
  • Republican Womanhood
    • Female behavior seen as mirror of male virtue; women expected to model “republican” morals for children.
  • Legal Constraints – Doctrine of Coverture
    • Upon marriage, a woman’s legal identity merges with husband’s; she cannot own property or sign contracts.
  • Higher Divorce Rates signal both marital disharmony and growing legal mechanisms for exit.
  • Public courting & relational “performance” (love letters, public declarations) become socially visible.

Religious Revivals (First Great Awakening)

  • Context: grandchildren of original settlers felt spiritually adrift; materialism rising.
  • Revival Themes
    • Return to piety & reduction of worldly consumption.
    • Forge personal relationship with God (less mediated by formal clergy).
    • Reject religious apathy.
  • George Whitefield (Anglican itinerant preacher) spearheads mass outdoor gatherings—accessible, emotional, dramatic.
  • Evolution of Revivals
    • Initial enthusiasm → competitive spectacle (visions, trances) as preachers vie for crowds.
    • Movement loses credibility among moderates but leaves deep intellectual residue.
  • Long-Term Effects
    • Encourages colonists to question authority—ecclesiastical, then political.
    • Fosters individualism & ideological groundwork for republican independence.

Ethical, Philosophical, & Practical Implications

  • Legalized dehumanization in VA highlights contradictions between Christian doctrine & economic greed.
  • Targeted African sourcing in SC shows early intersection of race, pseudo-science, and capitalism.
  • Northern complicity underscores that moral stances can coexist with profitable exploitation of oppressive systems.
  • Revivalist questioning of church hierarchy foreshadows later questioning of imperial hierarchy—ideological bridge to the American Revolution.