The Chesapeake Bay Colonies' Rise to Slavery

The Chesapeake Bay Colonies' Rise to Slavery The West Indies was where indentured servitude gave way to slavery as the primary source of labor for various English colonies. English planters originally planted tobacco as their primary export crop on the little island of Barbados, which they colonized in the 1620s. However, in the 1640s, they switched to sugarcane and started to depend more and more on African slaves. After seizing Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, England swiftly developed it into a prosperous sugar island that used slave labor to support its growing empire. Although it took longer for slavery to spread across the Chesapeake provinces, by the end of the seventeenth century, chattel slavery—which recognized Africans as property rather than people—had become the primary kind of labor used to harvest tobacco in both Virginia and Maryland. Indians were also sold into slavery by Chesapeake colonists. Slavery had not yet established itself as an institution in colonial America when the first African immigrants arrived in Virginia in 1619. Slavery did not exist in England. Like their White counterparts, many Africans were employed as servants and were able to buy their own land. Following their conversion to Christianity, some Africans acquired free land and employed White servants. During the last decades of the seventeenth century, Africans in the Chesapeake changed from being free citizens to being slaves. The move to African slavery in the Chesapeake colonies was accelerated by Bacon's Rebellion, a rebellion by both White and Black people who felt that the Virginia government was preventing them from obtaining land and money and was not doing anything to rid the area of Native Americans. The rich young Englishman Nathaniel Bacon, who landed in Virginia in 1674, is the inspiration for the name of the insurrection. Although Bacon had an early acquaintance with William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia, he was not included in the governor's inner circle of powerful friends and advisors. He desired property on the boundary of Virginia, but the governor prohibited further growth out of concern for conflict with nearby Indians. Others were rallied by Bacon, particularly former indentured slaves who felt the governor was depriving them the opportunity to buy tobacco plantations and restricting their economic options. The supporters of Bacon felt that English settlers were not sufficiently protected by Berkeley's frontier strategy. Even worse in their opinion, Governor Berkeley signed treaties with many local Native American tribes in an effort to maintain peace in Virginia. Bacon and his supporters adopted an extermination campaign because they believed that all Native Americans stood in the way of their ability to obtain land. Open warfare resulted from tensions between the Native Americans and the English in the Chesapeake colonies. When Susquehannock warriors raided frontier communities in Virginia in 1675, they killed English planters and destroyed English plantations, including one held by Bacon. This resulted in the outbreak of war. Without the governor's consent, Bacon and other Virginians invaded the Susquehannock in 1676. Following Berkeley's order to have Bacon arrested, Bacon led his supporters to Jamestown, where he set fire to the city and drove the governor to the safety of Virginia's eastern coast. Thereafter there was a bloody conflict between the governor's followers and those who backed Bacon, which became known as Bacon's Rebellion. Charles II sent royal soldiers and English commissioners to the tobacco colonies to restore order when word of the uprising made its way back to England. By the end of 1676, the governor's loyal Virginians had taken control and executed a number of the rebel leaders. Bacon managed to escape the noose and died of dysentery instead. The uprising was put down in 1676, but the complaints of Bacon's followers about Native land access caused division among Virginians. The establishment of a system of racial slavery in the Chesapeake colonies was aided by Bacon's Rebellion. The bulk of workers in the area at the time of the insurrection were indentured servants. Affluent White individuals were concerned about the existence of this sizable work class, their relative independence, and the bond that Black and White servants had developed during the uprising. By reducing dependence on White indentured servants, who were often unsatisfactory and disruptive, and establishing a caste of ethnically defined workers whose movements were closely regulated, Black slavery replaced indentured service, therefore lowering these hazards. Additionally, it reduced the likelihood of future coalitions including Black and White laborers. Because they could now come together as members of a "superior" racial group, affluent and poor White people's divides were even somewhat healed by racial slavery. Before Bacon's Rebellion, slavery was declared lawful in the tobacco colonies by colonial rules; nevertheless, new laws enacted in the aftermath of the uprising severely restricted Black freedom and established the basis for racial slavery. A rule that was issued in Virginia in 1680 forbade Black people, both enslaved and free, from carrying weapons, forbade Black people from gathering in large groups, and set severe penalties for enslaved individuals who attacked Christians or sought freedom. A second Virginia statute, passed two years later, declared that any Africans imported to the colony would be held as lifelong slaves. So, in addition to helping planters satisfy labor needs, the growing dependence on enslaved people in the tobacco colonies—and the harsh rules put in place to govern them—also helped to ease class tensions between wealthy and poor White people and allay English worries of future uprisings.