| LaborTrouble/IndenturedServants In The U.S.
Indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade
following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607.
The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap
labor. The earliest settlers soon realized that they had lots of land to care
for, but no one to care fo rit. With passage to the Colonies expensive for all
but the wealthy, the Virginia Company developed the system of indentured
servitude to attract workers. Indentured servants became vital to the colonial
economy.
The timing of the Virginia colony was ideal. The Thirty Year's
War had left Europe's economy depressed, and many skilled and unskilled
laborers were without work. A new life in the New World offered a glimmer of hope;
this explains how one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the
American colonies arrived as indentured servants.
Servants typically worked four to seven years in exchange for
passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues. While the life of an
indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, it wasn't slavery. There were
laws that protected some of their rights. But their life was not an easy one,
and the punishments meted out to people who wronged were harsher than those
for non-servants. An indentured servant's contract could be extended as
punishment for breaking a law, such as running away, or in the case of female
servants, becoming pregnant.
For those that survived the work and received their freedom
package, many historians argue that they were better off than those new
immigrants who came freely to the country. Their contract may have included at
least 25 acres of land, a year's worth of corn, arms, a cow and new clothes.
Some servants did rise to become part of the colonial elite, but for the
majority of indentured servants that survived the treacherous journey by sea
and the harsh conditions of life in the New World, satisfaction was a modest
life as a freeman in a burgeoning colonial economy.
In 1619 the first black Africans came to Virginia. With no slave
laws in place, they were initially treated as indentured servants, and given
the same opportunities for freedom dues as whites. However, slave laws were
soon passed – in Massachusetts in 1641 and Virginia in 1661 –and any small
freedoms that might have existed for blacks were taken away.
As demands for labor grew, so did the cost of indentured
servants. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand
for land. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude. Landowners
turned to African slaves as amore profitable and ever-renewable source of
labor and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun.
The following is a short reading on the French and Indian War...
Remember, this war is important because it starts to divide the
colonists from theEnglish living in England. This become a challenge to
British authority in thecolonies, as colonists begin to see themselves as
slightly more autonomous, able, and alone.
French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, 1754-63
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that
was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known
as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended
with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.The war provided Great Britain enormous
territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier
policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and
ultimately to the American revolution.
The French and Indian War resulted from ongoing frontier tensions
in North America as both French and British imperial officials and colonists
sought to extend each country's sphere of influence in frontier regions. In
North America, the war pitted France, French colonists, and their Native
allies against Great Britain, the Anglo-American colonists and the Iroquois
Confederacy, which controlled most of upstate New York and parts of northern
Pennsylvania. In 1753, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Great Britain
controlled the 13 colonies up to the Appalachian Mountains, but beyond lay New
France, a very large, sparsely settled colony that stretched from Louisiana
through the Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes to Canada. (See Incidents
Leading up to the French and Indian War and Albany Plan)
The border between French and British possessions was not well
defined, and one disputed territory was the upper Ohio River valley. The
French had constructed a number of forts in this region in an attempt to
strengthen their claim on the territory. British colonial forces, led by
lieutenant colonel George Washington, attempted to expel the French in 1754,
but were outnumbered and defeated by the French. When news of Washington's
failure reached British Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of
Newcastle, he called for a quick undeclared retaliatory strike. However, his
adversaries in the Cabinet outmaneuvered him by making the plans public, thus
alerting the French Government and escalating a distant frontier skirmish into
a full-scale war.
The war did not begin well for the British. The British
Government sent General Edward Braddock to the colonies as commander in chief
of British North American forces, but he alienated potential Indian allies and
colonial leaders failed to cooperate with him. On July 13, 1755 Braddock
himself died while on a failed expedition to capture Fort Duquesne in
present-day Pittsburgh, after being mortally wounded in an ambush. The war in
North America settled into a stalemate for the next several years, while in
Europe the French scored an important naval victory and captured the British
possession of Minorca in the Mediterranean in 1756.However, after 1757 the war
began to turn in favor of Great Britain. British forces defeated French forces
in India, and in 1759 British armies invaded and conquered Canada.
Facing defeat in North America and a tenuous position in Europe,
the French Government attempted to engage the British in peace negotiations,
but British minister William Pitt (the elder), Secretary for Southern Affairs,
sought not only the French cession of Canada but also commercial concessions
that the French Government found unacceptable. After these negotiations
failed, Spanish King Charles III offered to come to the aid of his cousin,
French King Louis XV, and their representatives signed an alliance known as
the Family Compact on August15, 1761. The terms of the agreement stated that
Spain would declare war on Great Britain if the war did not end before May 1,
1762. Originally intended to pressure the British into a peace agreement, the
Family Compact ultimately reinvigorated the French will to continue the war,
and caused the British Government to declare war on Spain on January 4, 1762
after bitter in fighting between King George III's ministers.
Despite facing such a formidable alliance, British naval strength
and Spanish ineffectiveness led to British success. British forces seized
French Caribbean islands, Spanish Cuba, and the Philippines. Fighting in
Europe ended after a failed Spanish invasion of British ally Portugal. By
1763, French and Spanish diplomats began to seek peace. In the resulting
Treaty of Paris (1763), Great Britain secured significant territorial gains, including
all French territory east of the Mississippi river, as well as Spanish
Florida, although the treaty returned Cuba to Spain.
Unfortunately for the British, the fruits of victory brought
seeds of future trouble with Great Britain's American colonies. The war had
been enormously expensive, and the British government's attempts to impose
taxes on colonists to help cover these expenses resulted in increasing
colonial resentment of British attempts to expand imperial authority in the
colonies. British attempts to limit western expansion by colonists and
inadvertent provocation of a major Indian war further angered the British
subjects living in the American colonies. These disputes would ultimately spur
colonial rebellion that eventually developed into a full-scale war for
independence.
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WEEK TWO READING…ALSO START READING THE FRANKLIN BOOK.
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