Edmund Morgan And Slavery American Freedom Sparknotes

American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund Morgan went into the depth of what was really happening in colonial Virginia's system of labor, economy, and social structure. Virginia was his focus because Virginia was the most central slaveholding state. Beginning in the 1500s, the lives of the black Virginian slaves rested in the hands of the white Virginians due to the major labor problems occurring in Virginia at the time. (You need to elaborate here and give more examples to get more words). The companies (England and Virginia companies) that set up these settlements, intended for them to be product producing. In order for that to work efficiently, they assigned British with specific skill sets, as well as a significant number of elitists to set off for Virginia. Once settled in Virginia, the realization that there just weren’t enough laborers to produce the amount of product expected in order to maintain the colony. On top of that the relationship with the Native Americans was not going well, so supplies were getting scarce. Morgan explains how they had been importing indentured white servants. This helped in some aspects but it still was not enough and the colony suffered the
Slavery was already in existence but it was not the main driving force for the economy until they realize how much they needed them. Once the colonist realized how desperate they were for workers, they actually improved the conditions at which they kept their slaves in order for them to live longer, so you can only imagine how bad it was for the slaves in the sixteenth century. Morgan explains how the growth of slavery and the introduction of racism helped the lower class whites and freed white indentured servant. It helped because there was no longer a population of indentured servants becoming free to fight for land, so they were only able to make profits from