Monday February 2nd

Mon. Feb. 2nd = The Culture of Colonial Plantations: Cash crops and the need for cheap labor (1600s) The Culture of Colonial Plantations: Cash crops and the need for cheap labor (1600s) 1. What did it mean to be "free" in 1600s colonial America? A. "Headright" system gave free land to self-paying immigrants, but lacked incentives for laborers B. new laborers were lured over by the promise of "freedom dues" under the indenture system (1614) 1. Colonial American society & politics parallel English government & classes A. King appoints officials in each colony (small group of elites) B. England’s Parliament has a weak counterpart: colonial assemblies can only debate laws & petition the King C. Two levels of land-owning farmers (“Gentlemen” of the “independent classes” who could claim headrights, vote and hold political office): i. “Planters” = large-scale plantation owners ii. Farmers (“freeholders” or “smallholders”) D. Four “dependent” (non-land-owning) classes, who could neither vote nor hold office: i. Tenants (small group) = renting their farmland from the planters ii. Merchants (small group) = shopkeepers & tradesmen in towns or on planters’ estates iii. indentured servants (2/3 of all 1600s immigrants) = non-land-owning, voluntary white/English laborers [some abuses did occur -- see article at: http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Spring05/scots.cfm] iv. slaves (big influx after 1690s) – at the very bottom of colonial society (but not in England) = involuntary, forced labor from Africa [later session] Review of AMST themes: * land as source of real economic power, and the basis for political power * "freedom" seen as a lack of debt or other legal contract (economic status, not race/ethnicity)