History of the USA Assignment

Submitted by: Arish Isa

Examining the role and contributions of the different forms of labour to the
consolidation of the colonial economy in North America.

Forms of Labour in Colonial America

The primary goal of British expansion and colonization in North America was to acquire land and
resources to produce exports to sell for profit on the growing trans-Atlantic market. Profitable production
demanded significant labour resources. The elite and entrepreneurial Western Europeans who settled in
North America sought labourers to cultivate cash crops, mine for precious metals, tend livestock,
provide domestic service, and work in various artisanal trades. The labour sources they drew from to fill
this demand included European indentured servants and convicts, free and enslaved indigenous people
in the Americas, and enslaved Africans purchased through the developing trans-Atlantic slave trade.
This meant that early colonial labour forces in the Americas were often a mix of Europeans, American
Indians, and Africans. Access to land was an important factor in seventeenth-century colonial America.
Land, English settlers believed, was the basis of liberty and economic freedom. Owning land gave men
control over their labour and, in most colonies, the right to vote. The promise of immediate access to
land lured free settlers, and ‘freedom dues’ that included land persuaded potential immigrants to sign
contracts as indentured servants. Land in America also became a way for the King to reward relatives
and allies. Each colony was launched with a huge grant of land from the crown, either to a company or
to a private individual known as a proprietor. Some such grants, if taken literally, stretched from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Land was a source of wealth and power for colonial officials and their
favourites, who acquired enormous estates. However, without labour, land would have little value and
European emigrants did not come to America intending to work the land of others (except in the case of
indentured servants).

John Smith, one of the first leaders of Jamestown said that the emigrants “preferred the prospect for
gold rather than farm." They “would rather starve than work.” However, the colonists slowly realized that
for the colonies to survive, they would have to abandon the search for gold, grow their own food, and
find a marketable commodity. It would also have to attract more settlers. The spread of tobacco farming
produced a dispersed society with few towns and little social unity.
The early Colonial American society was based on primarily farming, fishing, maritime activities, and a
few small industries. Even as late as 1789 America was a nation of farmers. As the Europeans started
settling in North America, a demand for labour arose for building roads, homes, railway tracks;
cultivating crops; mining, fishing, domestic work, etc. The colonists tried to quell this demand for labour
by adopting three broad forms of labour, chiefly – Native Americans, Indentured White Servants and
African Slaves. The role of these groups in the growth of the colonial economy has been significant.

Small-scale industries that were set up by the colonists required skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Depending on the availability of natural resources, the colonies established glass industries, brick and
tile yards, and potters' kilns; bog ores proved suitable for making castings and hollow ware, and rock
ores fed furnace and forge industries. A flourishing lumber industry supported related activities such as
shipbuilding and the production of naval stores and potash. New England's white pine provided masts,
yards, and spars for the Royal Navy; the white oak of the Middle Colonies supplied valuable stock for
the cooperage industry, and other hardwoods of that area were used in the cabinetmaker's trade; in the
South, yellow pine was the principal source of tar, pitch, and turpentine. Fishing and whaling required
substantial fleets and thousands of sailors.

Indigenous Tribes
Land in North America, of course, was already occupied. The arrival of English settlers presented the
native inhabitants of eastern North America with the greatest crisis in their history. Unlike the Spanish,
English colonists did not call themselves “conquerors.” They wanted land, not dominion over the
existing population. They were chiefly interested in displacing the Indians and settling on their land, not
intermarrying with them, organizing their labour, or making them subjects of the crown.

The English exchanged goods with the native population, who often travelled through colonial
settlements. Fur traders on the frontiers of these settlements sometimes married Indian women, partly
as a way of gaining access to native societies and the kin networks essential to economic relationships.
Most English settlers, however, remained obstinately separate from their Indian neighbours. European
nations justified colonization, in part, with the argument that they were bringing Christianity - without
which true freedom was impossible - to Native Americans.

Many eastern Native Americans initially welcomed the newcomers, or at least their goods, which they
appreciated for their practical advantages. Items like woven cloth, metal kettles, iron axes, fishhooks,
hoes, and guns were quickly integrated into native life. Natives also displayed a great desire for goods
like colourful glass beads and copper ornaments that could be incorporated into their religious
ceremonies.
As Native Americans became more and more integrated into the Atlantic economy, subtle changes took
place in their way of life. European metal goods changed their farming, hunting, and cooking practices.
Men devoted more time to hunting beavers for burgeoning fur trading. Older skills deteriorated as the
use of European products expanded, and alcohol became increasingly common and disruptive. Natives
learned to bargain effectively and to supply items that the Europeans desired. Later observers would
describe this trade as one in which Indians exchanged valuable commodities like furs and animal skins
for worthless European trinkets, this way the European economy profited more than it should have.
The colonists tried to enslave indigenous tribes, many of them were taken as slaves after the tribes lost
battles with the Europeans. However, the colonists quickly discovered that the Native Americans, who
had settled the continent centuries before the Europeans, would not make compliant workers confined
to settled abodes. The alternatives for labour power were thus, to be found.

For a variety of reasons, Africans replaced American Indians as the main population of enslaved people
in the Americas. In some cases, warfare and disease completely wiped out the indigenous populations.
In other cases, such as in South Carolina, Virginia, and New England, the need for alliances with
American Indian tribes, coupled with the availability of enslaved Africans at affordable prices, resulted in
a shift away from American Indian slavery. Moreover, indentured labourers from Europe and African
slaves were skilled and better equipped, than the indigenous tribes, for the various labour requirements
that arose in the colonies.

Indentured Labourers
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 labour. The
earliest settlers soon realized that they had lots of land to care for, but no one to care for it. In this
context, the timing of the Virginia colony was ideal. The Thirty Years' War had left Europe's economy
depressed, and many skilled and unskilled labourers were without work. A new life in the New World
offered a glimmer of hope and thus began the first wave of immigration. Almost one-half to two-thirds of
the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants.

The importation of skilled artisans continued virtually unabated throughout the colonial years, thus, its
source also widened. Swedes came to Delaware, Walloons and Dutch to New Amsterdam. To Virginia
came Polish workers for the naval stores industry, French to cultivate vineyards, Italians to set up
glassworks, and Dutch to erect sawmills. Georgia recruited Italians for silk culture; emigrants from
Germany shipped out in large numbers to become farm workers and ultimately owners, to labour in the
burgeoning iron industry, and to produce naval stores. Irish flax workers developed the linen industry in
New England as well as on Maryland's Eastern shore. The Scotch Irish worked the far reaches of
Pennsylvania and the Shenandoah Valley. In the lower South, sizable forces of Greeks and Italians
were transported to the British-controlled East Florida.

The transportation of convicts from Britain provided another source of bound labour in the colonies. This
practice stepped up in the latter half of the seventeenth century and was spelt out by a Parliamentary
Act in 1718 authorising seven-year terms of servitude for those convicted of lesser crimes and fourteen
years for those guilty of offences punishable by death. An estimated 10,000 convicts were sent from Old
Bailey alone between 1717 and 1775, with double that number entering the single colony of Maryland.
Other convicts were shipped to Virginia and the West Indies.

These servants could be bought and sold, they could not marry without the permission of their owner,
were subject to physical punishment, and their obligation to labour was enforced by the courts. Some
laws protected 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. While the life of an indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, they could look
forward to a release from bondage once they had completed the terms specified in their contracts.

Many historians argue that contractual labourers were better off than those new immigrants who came
freely to the country. Their contracts could 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 who survived the treacherous journey by sea and the harsh
conditions of life in the New World, satisfaction was a modest life as a free man in a burgeoning colonial
economy. Others, however, argued that indentured servitude was not a guaranteed route to economic
autonomy because of their high death rate. Many servants did not live till the end of their terms. Even
when they did, freedom dues were sometimes so meagre that they did not enable recipients to acquire
land and other resources.

With the continuous expansion of the colonies, the demands for labour grew, and so did the cost of
indentured servants. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants' demand for land.
The colonial elite realised the problems of indentured servitude. Thus, landowners turned to African
slaves as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labour and the shift from indentured servants
to racial slavery began. Most of the indentured servants, returned home after their contracts expired.

Slavery
In 1619, the first black Africans came to Virginia. With no slave laws in place, they were initially treated
as indentured servants. That is, they were treated as bound servants and were freed when their terms
expired and given pretty much the same opportunities for freedom dues as the white indentured
servants. Sometime in the 1640s, the practice began of selling imported blacks as servants for life. In
short, this form of de facto slavery preceded legalized slavery. Slave laws were soon passed – in
Massachusetts in 1641 and Virginia in 1661 – and any small freedoms that might have existed for
blacks before were taken away. In the 1660s and 1670s, statutes in Virginia and Maryland gave slavery
its formal distinguishing features - an inheritable status of servitude for life. Soon, restrictions on slave
mobility, along with a harsh system of discipline, were written into the "Black Codes" of all the Southern
colonies.

It is no coincidence that white planters in the region started importing African slaves when rice
cultivation was introduced into the South, as the first English planters in South Carolina knew little about
rice cultivation. Not only were Africans well suited to tropical climates, but they also brought special
skills and husbandry knowledge for crops such as rice, which the British found helpful. The planters
relied on the expertise of their African slaves imported from the Rice Coast. For instance, enslaved
Africans showed planters how to properly dyke the marshes, periodically flood the rice fields, and use
sweet grass baskets for milling the rice quicker than wooden paddles. These innovations increased the
efficiency and profitability of cultivation. In later years, water-powered mills also helped expand rice
cultivation in the South. By 1850, a South Carolinian rice planter, Joshua John Ward, was the largest
American slaveholder, with an estate that held 1,130 slaves and gave him the title, “King of the Rice
Planters.” All this shows how important the role of slaves was to the colonial economy of North America,
and not just as a form of cheap exploitative labour.

During the latter part of the 17th century, the economic development of the Chesapeake region, which
revolved around tobacco cultivation, required intensive labour. At first, Chesapeake farmers hired
indentured servants to harvest tobacco crops. However, by the 1680s, fluctuating tobacco prices and
the growing scarcity of land in the region made the Chesapeake less appealing to men and women
willing to indenture themselves. The scarcity of indentured servants meant that the price of their labour
contracts increased, and Chesapeake farmers began to look for alternative, cheaper sources of bonded
labour.
As a result, many Chesapeake farmers turned toward imported African slaves to fulfil their desire for
cheap labour. Although African chattel slavery was a more expensive investment than white indentured
servitude, it guaranteed a lifetime service of free labour. As the demand for Chesapeake cash crops
continued to grow, planters began to increasingly invest in the Atlantic slave trade.

Slaves that lived in the North were often domestic servants to small farmers and rural ironworkers.
Unlike in the South, northern farms were not large-scale enterprises that focused on producing a single
cash crop; instead, they were often smaller, more agriculturally diversified enterprises that required
fewer labourers. Hence, the need for enslaved labour gradually dwindled – especially as rapid soil
depletion and the growth of industry in northern cities attracted many rural northerners to wage labour.

Even though slavery was not a prevalent institution in the North, the commercial urban centres that
sprang up in these colonies meant that most Northerners had a vested stake in ensuring that American
slavery flourished in the South. This is particularly true after the advent of the cotton gin, which supplied
the North with the surplus of raw cotton necessary to produce finished goods for export. Northern
industry and commerce relied on Southern cash crop production; therefore, while slavery was actively
abolished in the North, most northerners were content to allow slavery to flourish in the Southern states.
Indeed, it wasn’t until the later arguments over the admission and representation of states in the union
and the threat of southern states overpowering their northern counterparts because of their higher slave
populations that many northerners began to oppose the expansion of slavery.

Slaves everywhere resisted their exploitation and attempted to gain freedom through armed uprisings
and rebellions, such as the Stono Rebellion and the New York Slave Insurrection of 1741. Other less
violent means of resistance included sabotage, running away, and slow labour paces on the plantations.
Unlike their counterparts in the Caribbean, however, American slaves never successfully overthrew the
system of slavery in the colonies and would not gain freedom until a legislative decree was made after
the Civil War.
Conclusion
To say that the colonisation of America was a challenging task would be a massive understatement, so would be
to say that these three forms of labour had a big hand in shaping those unknown lands into the world’s largest
economy today. It can comfortably be concluded that land was the main economic driver and the fundamental
motivation behind the colonisation of America. Different European powers had varying attitudes towards the first
group to be widely employed as labour, the Natives, who essentially suffered their ultimate destruction at the
hands of the newcomers. Next were the indentured servants brought over from Europe, who helped the first
colonies expand by fulfilling their primary manpower needs, and thus speeding up the colonisation process. Last,
but certainly not least, were the African slaves, who ultimately became the only widespread group of enslaved
peoples in America. The repercussions of the cruelty and inhumanity forced upon them are still felt by the Black
population of the USA in the form of the systemic socio-economic divide that plagues the country to this day.
Hence, it is rightly said, “America was built on the backs of slaves.”

Bibliography
● Boyer, Paul S., et al., The Enduring Vision, Cengage, 2010.
● Foner, Eric., Give Me Liberty!, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2014.
● Galenson, David W., White Servitude and the Growth of Black Slavery in Colonial America, The
Journal of Economic History, vol. 41, no. 1, 1981, pg. 39-47.
● Fogleman, Aaron S., From Slaves, Convicts, and Servants to Free Passengers: The
Transformation of Immigration in the era of the American Revolution, The Journal of American
History, vol. 85, no. 1, 1998, pg. 43-76.
● Watson, Alan D., A Consideration of European Indentured Servitude in Colonial North Carolina,
North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 91, issue 4, October 2014, pg. 381-406.