What Was The Giddy Multitude

In the late seventeenth century, the “giddy multitude” caused the importation of the Africans to rise due to the actions and decisions the Virginia colonizers agreed upon. When indentured servants got together to rebel for their rights that were being violated, the elite class of Virginia did not take a liking to this. From start the white and black workers and servants were perceived as, “rogues, vagabonds, whores, cheats, and rabble of all descriptions, raked from the gutter” (Takaki 53). They were called a variety of insults because of their social class even though they were the only group of people that were working hard and helping to restore Virginia back to a livable colony. Both races were being treated indifferently by Virginia’s
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. The more that the giddy multitude gained power, the more threat they became to the upper-class of Virginia. When the law that every white male had to have ownership over a gun, the elite class began to question the harm and danger the lower class could bring, “The landed elite distrusted the class of armed poor whites so much that they were even afraid to organize them for military services” (Takaki 59). All white males now possessed weapons but the white lower class were still perceived as more harmful and dangerous because of their difference in social