The question of why Virginians replaced servitude, the system of locking immigrants from the old world into long contracts of service to pay off their passage, with slavery is an important one to discuss as it gives us an insight into the type of processes that would allow such a morally apprehensible situation to occur and hopefully prevent a similar situation re-occurring in the future. I believe that the primary driver of this process was the development of the tobacco industry and the demographic changes in England of the 17th century. This subsequently caused labour supply problems in Virginia forcing planters to make a long term economic decision, namely to replace indentured servants with slaves. There was other factors such as theology, racism and skill sets but these affected the choice of peoples enslaved, namely West Africans, and worked in combination with the above, as Ira Berlin notes (1998:8), to facilitate a transformation of Virginia from a society with slaves into a slave society by 1705.
After several years of disease, conflict and other hardships the Virginian colony and economy finally stabilised around the mid 1610's with the establishment of tobacco as its main cash crop (Woods 1997:71). At first the settlers recognised that they had two problems to overcome; that of land and labour (1997:72). The first problem, that of land, was easy enough to overcome as they just took what they wanted (1997:72) especially after the 'Massacre of 1622' gave them the necessary justification to expand onto the land of the indigenous population (1997:72). With this out of they way they could turn their attention to the second problem; satisfying the necessary labour requirements of working the tobacco fields.
Initially there was three solutions presented to solve this problem; Indians, Indentured servitude or West Africans (1997:74). First they tried to enslave the indigenous Indians but this proved to be troublesome for two reasons; they would run away and it did not make good business sense to enslave peoples that the colonists where trying to forge trading and commercial links with (1997:75). With the initial experiment with Indians out of the way they turned to the tried and tested English institution of servitude which they developed to suit their own needs (1997:75). This solved the problem and by the mid 1620's servitude was widespread on the plantations of Virginia (1997:76) and the need for slaves was not at this point realised. Unfortunately for the planters indentured servitude contained the seeds of the next problem they would encounter.
To entice people to agree to indentured servitude the colonists had to grant them the one thing they could not achieve back in England, their liberty, mainly through the promise of land grants when they reached the end of their service(1997:76). This meant that the turnover within the labour force was quite high and made the planters reliant on new servants arriving to replace those that had finished their service. Also the high proportion of poor whites from England caused many social problem, from discontented runaway servants (Parent 2003:57) to newly freed servants turning to insurrection such as in the case of Bacons rebellion (Foner 2006:53). These problems resulted from the deteriorating conditions for servants and the finite opportunities available to those newly freed from servitude. When this news reached England the new world did not appear to be as attractive a prospective as it had been in previous years (2003:56). In addition to this changes back in England, namely demographics, also started to hit recruitment to the colonies.
From the 1660s onwards demographics started to have a profound effect on the English economy. Lower birth rates, disease and migration where relieving the pressure on the economy (2003:58). With lower numbers entering the work force there was reduced competition in the 15 – 24 age range, those most likely to venture to the new world, and this was enhanced further with the Great fire of London in 1666 that led to boom within the building sector and the economy as a whole (2003:58-59). The attitude of the elites to the poor subsequently changed and as Parent (2003:59) puts it they where now seen as a natural resource and the key to profit in the newly industrialising economy. This meant for the first time the prospect of staying in England appeared to offer more prospects than emigrating to America. This was reflected in government policy that in 1680 saw the prosecution of merchants involved in the transportation of servants to the colonies and the encouragement of the slave trade from Africa to the colonies (2003:59-60).
The reduction in the numbers of servants made planters look at the economics of the slave trade (2003:60). This became even more crucial in 1681 as the tobacco price fell by 50% meaning that planters had to look to other ways to reduce costs and as Colonel Nicholas Spencer stated in 1683 ''..Blacks can make it cheaper than Whites.'' (2003:60) Fortunately for Virginian planters one factor that had initially made slavery an unattractive economic proposition in Virginia, demand for slaves in the Caribbean and the subsequent inflation of prices due to this, was finally changing. This demand had meant that very few slaves made it to Virginia but with the deterioration of plantations in islands such as Barbados, the dropping of sugar prices, over investment in the slave trade and the Royal Africa Company monopoly we saw an increasing debt crisis from the 1680s onwards (2003:69). With the defaulting of loans from Caribbean planters the slave traders started to consider Virginia and for the first time Virginians now had favourable economic conditions and a supply of slaves that could facilitate the switch from servants to slaves (2003:70). Now while economics and demographics seem to have played a crucial role in this switch there is also the question of how a society that was based around the ideas of freedom from oppression of the old world and liberty could go down this path of enslavement.
Here another line of thought crops up; one that suggests that there was a certain predisposition that the colonist held that led to the choice of West Africans as the peoples enslaved (1997:6). Authors like Wood suggest that this predisposition was a combination of views that the colonist brought with them from the old world. These
views and ideals where a combination of theology, that allowed bondage of those of different religions (1997:10), and previous held racist ideas of West Africans as strangers who were as Foner (2006:50) states ''...savage, pagan and uncivilized'' (Foner 2006:50). This combination of ideals fitted in with the aspirations of planters who increasing saw slavery as an institution that was becoming indispensable to them in preserving their liberty, I.E. profit (1997:8), and so they set forth enshrining these beliefs into law.
In the early days of the colony black’s legal status was rather unambiguous. So planters tried to incorporate their rights over slaves into law and by 1669 had achieved some of their goals, such as the right to do as they pleased with them (1997:89). From here they still had to clarify two things; what rights slaves retained and on what grounds they could appeal for freedom. To achieve this final eradication of black’s rights planters turned to Christian theology. There had been for a long time a link between bondage and those of different religions dating back to the crusades (1997:8). At the same time to prevent slaves using the same theology to convert to Christianity as a way to achieve freedom, the planters codified the link between Christianity and bondage into law putting a stop to this practise (1997:90). While the planters where convinced in their justification of slavery as necessary, they had a vested interest in this institution as it protected their interests, but this was not true of the rest of colonial society. Planters still needed to enlist the support of working class whites to fortify their hold over colonial society.
With the status of blacks now starting to be enshrined in law, based around old world concepts of slavery, they now started to infuse the debate with language of racism in an attempt as Woods (1997:90) puts it to dehumanises Africans. This allowed planters to evolve old ideas of religious hatred through the latter half of the 17th century into one based on race in an attempt to co-opt working class whites into alliances against the slave population (1997:91). While they may not have been totally successful in this operation, the lack of opportunities for poor whites led to them moving to parts of the colonies where advancement was better. This made it easier to bring the small groups of whites left into an arrangement where they became part of policing mechanisms over slaves (1997:90). With this hardening of racist views and solidifying of alliances of whites against blacks the planters finally codified in to law,
in 1705, Virginia's slave laws (1997:92) and the transformation into a slave society was now complete.
While the evidence seems to support the thesis that a complex mix of economics, demographics and racist ideology made the switch from indentured servitude to slavery possible. There are those who suggest that it was purely economics and demographics and not that of race (1997:81). They point to the fact that the experiences of early slaves shows that there was no predisposition to racism. One of the most famous examples is that of Anthony Johnson. Johnson was a slave who arrived in Virginia in 1621 and managed to obtain his freedom and land and was rather successful suggesting that racism and enslavement of West Africans was not conclusively on the cards at his point (1997:81). But as Woods (1997:82) counters, while slavery of West Africans may not have been at this point certain, there was racist overtones present in elite Virginian society. Here she points to Rolfe's references to blacks as 'Negars' as evidence of whites seeing themselves as different to blacks. While Ira Berlin also refutes this argument by pointing to the ambiguity of blacks status in law (Berlin 1998:44) and their initial equality with working class whites within Virginia's economy that allowed them this measure of freedom (1998:33)
In conclusion the switch from indentured servitude to slavery primarily took place due to economic and demographic necessities. But as the evidence show these factors took place within a society that had many other complex factors at work. These factors included ideas imported from England especially in the sphere of theology and previously held racist ideas of West Africans. So while the enslavement of blacks does appear to not have been pre-determined. When it became a viable way for planter elites to fortify their positions and hold over colonial society it certainly did not take them long to revert to racial stereotypes as a means of securing their liberty at the expense of others. Even today the divisions created in this period still reverberate. The zeal that the planter elites went about codifying these notions into law and the schisms they created between whites and blacks, which produced views of the latter as second class people in American society, in this period have had long lasting effects that we saw come to the fore in the recent US election. On many occasions we saw American whites refer to President elect Oboma as an Arab and someone that could not be trusted (BBC 2008) drawing parallels to the views that colonists held of those that where religiously and ethnically different to them in the 17th century.
Bibliography:
BBC, 2008. Obama outlines economic package. [online] (updated 13 Oct 2008)
Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7667772.stm
[Accessed 25 Nov 2008]
Berlin, I., 1998. Many thousand gone: the first two centuries of slavery in North America. Cambridge (MASS), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Foner, E., 2006. Give me liberty: An American history. New York, W.W. Norton
Wood, B., 1997. The origins of American slavery: Freedom and bondage in the English colonies. New York, Hill and Wang
Parent, A., 2003. Foul Means: The Formation of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1660-1740. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press
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