POD CAST NOTES (2)

ODCAST NOTES

·      Colonists of Virginia come to Jamestown to find gold

·      Did not find gold

·      Starvation, disease, and hostile natives

·      1616 – John Rolfe perfected tobacco which became the cash crop exported to Europe

·      Tobacco is a source of revenue (their gold)

·      Colonists want more land for the tobacco

·      The tobacco increases the demand for people from Europe to come to the New World

·      The colonists have to import their food because they are only planting tobacco

·      Tobacco leads to hostility with the Natives because the colonists are stealing their land for farming grounds

·      Colonists did not know that tobacco was bad for the soil

·      Further depletion f land requires more fertile land

·      Tobacco is not as labor intensive as sugar

·      But it does require labor. 1618 – Head rights system – if you pay your way to Virginia then you get 50 acres of land and 50 additional acres for each person you pay for.

·      Indentured Servitude – agree to work for their sponsor for 7 years in return for payment for their way to the colony, not quite like a slave,

·      Large costal plantations are developing

·      Need More land!

·      By the time indentured servants are freed there is no good lnd left so they have to move westward

·      More conflict with Natives and land is less fertile

·      Many indentured servants (white single men) are becoming more disgruntled because they don’t make a lot of money

·      Indentured servants who are now free resent their former employers and their wealth

·      Governor of Virginia, Berkeley, ran a fur trade with the Natives that was very profitable

·      The Governor did not rebut Natives who attacked “back country settlers”

·      Indentured servants wanted more protection so they unite together under Nathaniel Bacon (Bacon’s Rebellion) to fight the Natives, and then march on Jamestown and knock Berkeley out of his seat of power. A small civil war. Bacon dies and so does the rebellion.

·      Planters become hesitant about using Indentured servants

·      Leads to slavery (they will never be given their own land)

·      Slaves are already established in the West Indies

·      1661- Barbados save code, denies basic rights to slaves and gives planters the slaves lives

·       By 1700 14% of Virginia is African Slaves

·      Sugar planters are forced out of the Caribbean and come to the Americas with their slaves

·      England’s economy boosted which makes it less desirable to travel to America.

·      Middle passage – the voyage from Africa to the Americas

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