What Were The Factors That Occur In Jamestown?

When many rich investors prepared to colonize Jamestown, wealth was the contributing factor. The belief of taking vulnerable people to work was the original goal in the colony. Primarily, investors looked at using criminals as a source of generating capital, but these short term structures would lead to a large lower class with little political voice, and this would become a fear in the upper class. This fear of civil unrest is seen as a shift in the working structure of the government. Overall, racism was a major factor in how slavery became the standard for labor in Jamestown; However, social stability was the primary factor in shifting from indentured servants to racialized slavery. Jamestown’s original purpose was to make money for the
These people included “convicts, ‘rogues, vagabonds, whores, cheats, and rabble of all descriptions, raked from the gutter,’ ‘decoyed, deceived, seduced, inveigled, or forcibly kidnapped and carried as servants to the plantations.’ They were regarded as the ‘surplus inhabitants’ of England.” By founding a colony with the belief of “surplus inhabitants”, Jamestown was destined to become a society structured on class. These “surplus inhabitants” were expected to help support an “enterprise for all... men to work upon”. These “surplus inhabitants” would become known as indentured servants, a group that entered a temporary contract which allowed the newly formed tobacco industry to
Primarily, his ability to unite poor laborers to fight in his militia. This is seen because “Bacon returned to Jamestown, he brought along fifty armed men...later the same month, [he was] accompanied by five hundred men”. This is significant because in a month, he was able multiply his following by ten in less than a month. This ability to unite the poor laborer class was a massive threat to the plantation owners, who were nervous of this sign of strength. As a result “[plantation owners] turned increasingly to the use of slaves, who were regarded as a safer source of labor and were less expensive.” Because of this shift, it made indentured servants and slaves less unified against the rich, which led to a more stabile society for plantation