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Bowling for Jamestown

Bowling for Jamestown. (’90) Throughout the colonial period, economic concerns had more to do with the settling of British North America than did religious concerns. Assess the validity of this statement with specific reference to economic and religious concerns.

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Bowling for Jamestown

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  1. Bowling for Jamestown

  2. (’90) Throughout the colonial period, economic concerns had more to do with the settling of British North America than did religious concerns. Assess the validity of this statement with specific reference to economic and religious concerns. • (’72) What role did unfree labor play in colonial American society? • (’75) Although many Northerners and Southerners came later to think of themselves as having separate civilizations, the Northern and Southern colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were in fact more similar than different. Assess the validity of this statement.

  3. I. What a Waste: Jamestown, 1607 A. The Virginia Company • Nov. 1606: 3 small ships of joint stock Virginia Company sail from London • (company pooled resources small investors by sell stocks) • 144 men on board; 104 survive the trip

  4. Only 38 survived 1st year; 50% of replacements died in 1st three years • Safer in Europe during Black Death • Why so deadly?

  5. B. Dysentery and Starvation • 1) James River a tidal estuary + drought (lowers water levels)= salt contaminated (5x above modern standards) + tide doesn’t sweep away human wastes + swamp malaria

  6. 2) Famine (Starving Time, 1609-10): dogs, cats, rats, snakes, corpses (man killed wife for food) • Irony: English considered all natives cannibals and partly justified conquest on this basis • Why starving?

  7. C. English Conquistadores • Settlers refused to plant corn: thought of themselves as conquistadores John Smith finds them bowling in the street rather than working (Doc F) • Gov. Thomas Dale’s martial law counter-productive • Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1588 • Refused to give up expectations: • 1) early recon showed VA land of abundance no work for food • 2) searching gold + silver • 3) Northwest Passage • 4) Expect natives easily enslaved • Attempt terror to control: kill and destroy crops

  8. D. Powhatan Confederacy • Settled in area of strongest Indian political/military alliance on coast: Powhatan Confederacy • Powhatan first viewed as possible allies trade corn for goods • Settlers take Pocahontas hostage after Indians seize several settlers (marries John Rolfe) • 1622 uprising nearly destroys Jamestown • 1646: Confederacy signs treaty, alliance crumbles

  9. II. The “Jovial Weed”: Tobacco Boom • Despite efforts to terrorize the settlers through martial law (nail through tongue and tied to tree for stealing food), the settlers needed a profitable commodity to succeed tobacco

  10. Sir Francis Drake first introduced West Indian tobacco to English in 1586 medicinal value, then “jovial weed” • VA tobacco bitter John Rolfe creates hybrid (1611) • 1620: VA exports 40,000 lbs all of VA plants tobacco • Settlers move out of Jamestown fort, plantations 5 miles apart

  11. B. Boomtown • Jamestown becomes a “boomtown”: rough and tumble, populated by men, scramble for profits, profits spent on liquor • English ships use liquor as ballast • Most want get rich and get home • Still think of selves as conquistadores: don’t want to work • Tobacco labor intensive (8-10 months nasty work)

  12. III. I Need a Better Travel Agent: Indentured Servants A. English Labor System • Initial labor system traditional Eng. system of white indenture • Indenture (contract): 4-7 years in exchange for passage, room + board, freedom dues (clothes, tools, start-up at end of contract) • Subset of system of apprenticeship

  13. Price theoretically cost of voyage, but bidding 6x cost • Headright system: 1617 VA grants 50 acres for those paying own way or bring in others • On 50 acres w/servants, a tobacco planter could earn more $ in 1 year than several in England

  14. B. Who Were They? • 70-85% of all emigrant to Chesapeake arrived as indentures single most formative institution in early VA • Came in response to ads (“streets paved w/gold” stuff)

  15. 1) primarily men, 15-24 • 2) little stake in Eng. society: no land, unmarried • 3) middle and lower levels of society (“commons”) • 4) victims of economic/demographic crisis in England (pop growth (potato) + enclosure urban growth crime, unemployment • “Surplus population”: major motive colonization • (Doc C)

  16. C. New World Labor System • Came in search of work + land, but disappointed • Traditional Eng. constraints broke down in face profit motive 1) Owners abused servants despite value (worked/starved to death) • 40% died w/in 4 years of arrival 2) Women put into fields alongside men 3) Sexual abuse • Punishment for pregnancy: extension of indenture, sell child into indenture (profit motive for abuse as well as lack of women)

  17. 4) Servants bought + sold, put up as stakes in gambling • White Englishmen treated as commodities major step toward black chattel slavery • And Bacon’s Rebellion: Doc G

  18. IV. Family Life in 17th Century Chesapeake A. Demography and Disrupted Families • 1) shortage of women: 4:1 or 6:1 throughout 17th men stay single • (1620, 21, 22: VA Co sends boatloads of women) • 2) Late age of marriage: indenture Women mid-20s, men late 20s • 3) Late marriage small families: avg. 2-3 (New England 6-8) • 4) High mortality rates: 1650-1700 in Maryland, 50% marriages broken w/in 7 years by death • Silver lining: empowerment of women (widows)

  19. B. Attitudes • 1) very lax about getting married in the first place • Bridal pregnancy 1 in 3 • Easy divorce, desertion, bigamy (unofficial) • 2) Parent-child relations troubled: mortality remarriage step-parents • Orphans in real trouble orphans’ courts established to deal w/problems

  20. Family life in VA was a destablizing force that reflected and fed the general social disorder

  21. V. Dispersed Plantations and the Competitive Ethos • Planters spread out because tobacco requires lots of land (nutrient hog) • Even after boom (post-1620s) VA still haphazard, impermanent settlement • Even richest in shacks • Fields inefficiently used • Constant movement to new lands • Settlement focused around rivers poor forced to the interior (remember when read about Bacon’s Rebellion: Docs G and H)

  22. Not building towns • No urban merchant class (planters do their own marketing) • No incentive for schools • No printing press, few places for social/political community • 1662: 48 churches in all of VA, only 10 pastors

  23. Slavery would eventually bring order to this society

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