Preview

17th Century Virginia

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
584 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
17th Century Virginia
Transformation of Colonial Virginia
By: Gabby Pyles
Early 17th century Virginia faced many social and economic hardships. Many people came to Virginia in search of treasure and gold, but their miracle turned into somewhat of a disaster and they were in for a ride that they were not expecting. Due to starvation and diseases, the beginning of 17th century Virginia was a suffering colony. Famine seemed to take over colonial Virginia. Indentured servants and slaves are what helped save Virginia during these hardships.
In Virginia, indentured servantry was very common. The indentured servants had to work hard both night and day for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread. Document D is written by an indentured servant. He tells that he would much rather be in England, even without a limb, than to be where he is now. Indentured servants chose to be what they were because of what they got out of it. As Document E says, "..at the end of the said terme, to give him one whole yeeres provision of Corne, and fifty acres of Land, according to the order of the country." Nobody expected that they would be in such misery. During their term, they started to think that they put too much into their work than what they were getting out of it, but they continued to strive on because they wanted land and corn. Indentured servantry affected the economic status of Virginia. The more they made other people work, the less that they had to do to provide for themselves and the rest of the colony of Virginia.
Slavery was also very common in 17th century Virginia. Slavery had a massive effect on the social status of citizens in Virginia. If somebody owned slaves then they were considered higher ranked people than people without slaves. Slaves (blacks, Indians, or mulattos) were on the bottom of the social chain. They were looked down upon and were treated like dogs (very badly). In Document H, it says that if any slave runs away or commits any other crime that they shouldn't have,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In 1606, settlers of the Virginia Company of England embarked on an expedition to the New World, their goal being to found a settlement in the Virginia Colony. After a lengthy journey, the settlers came upon the mouth of the Chesapeake River, making landfall at Cape Henry. Their site would come to be known as Jamestown, widely regarded as the first permanent English settlement in America. However, the momentous task of establishing a society in a new and foreign land did not go without its fair share of tribulations. These settlers faced uncompromising challenges on the road to establishing stability and success, but their efforts produced both economic and social improvements that would eventually culminate to form one of England's most valued North American colonies.…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The search for a viable labor source affected the southern colonies in many ways. Without forced labor the southern colonies wouldn’t have been able to keep their economy up the way they did. The southern colonies developed with a focus on agriculture as the primary economic activity. Unfortunately the technology to decrease the labor demands such as the cotton gin or spinning jenny weren’t invented during the colonial times. Without that technology the southerners instead took advantage of the immigration and came up with the indentured servants. The indentured servants were I guess you can say happy for having the opportunity for acquiring their own land and freedom for a few years of labor. Even though most of the servants were young and healthy men, most of them died before completing their seven years of labor.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    apush DBQ#1

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages

    During the beginning of the Virginia colony the 104 settlers went through some really hard times. A great example of that is document A witch Is a letter written by George Percy. The document talks about how the settlers were destroyed by cruel diseases and famine. Some settlers were so desperate that they eat cats, rats, and myce. So went to extreme measures and started to dig up corpses to eat. There was even one man who killed then ate his own wife. Things got better when the settlers made peace with chief Indian Powhatan and got resources from them.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    From the headright system each servant imported meant another fifty acre of farmland for tobacco. This provided more land for tobacco and more laborers to harvest the tobacco for more profit. The profit from farming, planting, selling, and trading tobacco influenced more people to come to Virginia. One settler made 200 sterling after the good harvest in 1619 which attracted many other planters to be able to earn this much. Hence Virginia became a colony dependent on the servant's’ labor in order to become wealthy.…

    • 85 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery Emerge in Virginia In 1619, the Dutch captured and took the first slave from Africa to America, and planted the seeds of a slavery system that evolved into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that would ultimately make the chaos in the nation. The city Virginia was not an exception. (This map accompanied John Smith's 1624 history of the Virginia colony.) As discussed in the evidence on DHR’s historical web page.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1606, hundreds of settlers embarked on a journey from England to the Virginia colony. They were in search of a new life, and wealth. Early on in their journey, they encountered many hardships, as expressed by George Percy (Doc. A). With the use of the indentured servants and slaves they were able to transform the Virginia colony by basing their economy around tobacco.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Antam Goncalves Captivity

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This created profit for the virginia company as crops increased, profit multiplied, so did the need for laborers, specifically unpaid laborers. As land were captured from the natives, and colonies started to be built, colonists from massachusetts, Virginia, New York, and South Carolina, enslaved not only africans but also native americans. The Native Americans were traded, used for battle and capturing, and controlled over just as the africans did. However, this did not last as the trading diminished due to the concern of retribution from other Indians in the mid 1600’s. In the mid seventeenth century, colonists in Virginia were in desperate need of unpaid labor and solved this issue with adding slavery into the legislation and court rulings.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Economy in 1607 Virginia

    • 789 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Quizzes: For each chapter there will be two quizzes. The first will be on day 3 of the lesson and will be on the chapter vocabulary. The second will be on day 5 of the lesson and will be on the chapter grammar and culture. Quizzes are worth 100 points each; I take the average of the actual points on the quiz to reach that score. If you receive a score of 75 or lower on a quiz, you may make corrections on it for partial points; corrections are…

    • 789 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both the economics and politics greatly differed between Massachusetts and Virginia between 1607 and 1750. The differences in the percentage of classes were unbelievably large and their entire economic structure differed from each other. Virginia had more risky culture and economics where-as Massachusetts had a more stable economy. The economy of Virginia was based solely on the production of tobacco. The plantation owners had to buy slaves to work the fields so the slave trade industry in Virginia was also a huge factor. The plantation owners were in the very rich, elite category and pretty much ran the politics. Virginia had a ridiculously small middle class and they barely had any say in the elections. The poor classes of Virginia were about 80%of the population and were not even allowed to vote. This made the state/colony of Virginia a very un-democratic and un-representative. There was very little cash flow in Virginia because the elite plantation owners flaunted their wealth as a display of power. This was necessary because this display of power kept the slaves and poor people of the community from revolting. The economy of Virginia was very fragile and brittle. All it would have taken was one drought or one bad tobacco year and Virginia would have been severely hurt economically.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1606, hundreds of settlers went on a journey from England to the Virginia colony. They were in search of a new life, and wealth. Early on in their journey, they stumble upon many hardships, as expressed by George Percy (Doc. B). By the use of the indentured servants and slaves they were able to change the Virginia colony by basing their economy around tobacco.…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1775-1830 Apush Paper

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages

    During the early colonial period, indentured servants had filled the role of labor, working primarily in the Chesapeake region in the cultivation of tobacco. However, as the Dutch lost their monopoly on the slave trade, the price of slaves fell, allowing many plantation owners to purchase slaves and encouraging the growth of the slave trade to America. During the Revolutionary War and the decades following, slavery continued to boom, particularly in the South, where the use of slaves in crop cultivation came to dominate the Southern economy. In the North, industry supported the economy, allowing for a decreased need for slave labor. The difference between the economies of the North and South allowed for different levels of importance for slavery in those areas; however, discrimination prevailed throughout the young nation, leading the African-American community of the time to struggle against whites for freedom and civil rights.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Virginia assembly “passed laws that extended the time of indentured servitude for whites and increased the length of service for white runaways” (Takaki 58). They created a hierarchical system because they knew that having white laborers working for longer periods of time will decrease the probability of them becoming landowners and gaining wealth. After the white and black indentured servants and slaves came together to form the giddy multitude, the planter elite realized that the giddy multitude could be a huge threat to the class system that they wanted to build and achieve in Virginia. For example, Isaac Friend assembled a group of indentured servants like himself, to fight for the rights that they claimed to deserve, “He issued the rebellious cry: “Who would be for liberty, and free from bondage” join the revolt…Together they would “go through the Country and kill those that made any opposition” (Takaki 58). Immediately Isaac Friend’s plan was put to a stop by the Virginia authorizers because they knew that having a group rebel would bring chaos and influence other indentured workers and servants to join the fight too.…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tobacco Culture

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This thirsty demand for land left settlers scrambling for plantations in close proximity to water. Patterns of settlement moved away from the traditional compact communities more common in the North, and more towards dispersed plantations accessible by ship. Competition thrived but the new American labor force was insufficient. Planters turned to England for indentured servants, such as William Moraley, but were quick to exploit the African slave trade. The Southern style of plantation life was luxurious for few, but disastrous for many. Prominent men such as William Fitzhugh enjoyed the comforts that Virginia afforded, but the ways in which these comforts were afforded would spark uprisings and revolts in the centuries to come. Servants, Native Americans, and slaves died in alarming numbers from disease, and those who survived faced years of backbreaking…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Indentured servitude was the answer for cheap labor. Settlers realized that they had tons of land to attend to, but they didn’t have anyone to take care of it. The passage to the Colonies affected the poor or lower class, but not the wealthy. The Virginia Company came up with a system called indentured servitude to attract workers for the land. This system became an important aspect of the colonial economy. Because The Thirty Year’s war left Europe in an economic decline, many skilled and unskilled laborers had no work. This system gave these workers a sense of hope. One half to two thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants. They typically worked 4-7 years in exchange for passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues. Although this life was harsh and restrictive, it wasn’t equivalent to slavery. They had laws protecting some of their rights.…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    clipPath(path:[[0,0 360:350] M0,73 L0,73 L0,0 L360,0 L360,350 L0,350X M10,73 L10,73 L10,152 L340,152 L340,73X] SECT BW)…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays