The Chesapeake Colonies
1607-1754
Key Facts about the Chesapeake Colonies
• Founding overseas colonies required unprecedented amounts of capital. English merchants
formed JOINT-STOCK companies to maximize profits and minimize risks. In a joint-stock company
investors share the profits and losses in proportion to the amount they invest.
• Virginia was financed by a joint-stock company for the express purpose of making a profit.
• Religion played a minor role in the founding of Virginia.
• During its first decade, the Jamestown settlement experienced a very high mortality rate.
• The scarcity of women and the high rate of men’s mortality strengthened the socioeconomic
status of women in the Chesapeake colonies.
• Virginia’s House of Burgesses was the first representative legislative assembly in British North
America.
• Lord Baltimore founded Maryland as a refuge for his fellow Roman Catholics. The primary
purpose of the Act of Religious Toleration (1649) was to protect Catholics in Maryland from
religious persecution by the Protestants.
The Importance of Tobacco
• Tobacco enabled the Chesapeake Bay colonies to become
economically viable.
• The profitable cultivation of tobacco created a demand for a large and
inexpensive labor force.
• Chesapeake Bay planters initially used indentured servants imported
from England.
• The planters began to replace the indentured servants with slave
labor imported from Africa in the late 1600s.
• Tobacco was the most valuable cash crop produced in the Southern
colonies until the invention of the Cotton Gin in 1793.
Indentured Servants
• Between 1607 and 1676 indentured servants comprised the chief source of
agricultural labor in the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland.
• The system of indentured labor gave English workers an opportunity to
improve their lives in America.
• Planters used the HEADRIGHT SYSTEM to attract more settlers to Virginia.
Under this system, planters received 50 acres for each person (or head)
they brought to the colony.
• Indentured servants faced difficult conditions. They could have their labor
bought, willed, and attached for debt. Women serving as indentured
servants had to remain unmarried until they completed their indenture.
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676 – What Happened?
• Led by Nathaniel Bacon, land hungry freemen in Virginia rebelled
against the arbitrary rule of Governor Berkeley.
• Bacon’s discontented followers challenged Berkeley’s power and
burned down Jamestown.
• Bacon’s sudden death (from dysentery) enabled Berkeley to crush the
now leaderless revolt.
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676 – What Caused It?
• Small farmers (often called yeomen) opposed Governor Berkeley’s
policy of favoring wealthy planters and protecting Indian tribes
engaged in the lucrative fur trade.
• Yeomen farmers were frustrated by falling tobacco prices, rising taxes,
and dwindling opportunities to purchase fertile land near navigable
rivers.
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676 – Why should it be
Remembered?
• Bacon’s Rebellion exposed tensions between poor former indentured
servants and the wealthy tidewater gentry.
• Bacon’s Rebellion persuaded planters to replace troublesome
indentured servants with slaves imported from Africa. It thus formed
a key link in the chain of events that led planters to begin what a later
generation would call the South’s “peculiar institution.”
Geographic Factors and Slavery
• Fertile land, a warm climate, and a long growing season enabled
planters to grow tobacco, rice, and indigo as cash crops.
• Numerous navigable rivers provided convenient routes for
transporting goods to ports such as Norfolk, Charleston, and
Savannah.
Economic Factors and Slavery
• Tobacco and other cash crops required a large supply of inexpensive
labor. The spread of tobacco cultivation beyond the Chesapeake
colonies created additional demand for slave labor.
• As the English Civil War ended and economic conditions improved,
the number of people willing to become indentured servants sharply
declined.
• Indentured servants proved to be both unreliable and rebellious.
Following Bacon’s Rebellion (1676), planters began to replace
indentured servants with imported African slaves.
Social Factors and Slavery
• By the early 1700s, slavery was legally established in all of the colonies. By
the mid 1700s, slaves comprised about 40 percent of the South’s
population.
• A small but powerful group of wealthy planters dominated Southern
society.
• Although the majority of white families in the South did not own slaves,
they did aspire to become slave owners.
• Impoverished whites felt superior to black slaves thus providing further
support for the slave system.
• Few seventeenth and early eighteenth century white colonists questioned
human bondage as morally unacceptable.
The Stono Rebellion, 1739 – What
Happened?
• The Stono Rebellion took place near the Stono River in South
Carolina.
• The rebellion began when about 20 enslaved Africans killed two
storekeepers and seized a supply of guns and ammunition. The rebels
gathered new recruits and burned seven plantations killing 22-25
whites.
• The local militia finally suppressed the rebellion following a battle in
which 20 whites and 44 slaves were killed.
The Stono Rebellion, 1739 – What Caused It?
• Slaves comprised the majority of South Carolina’s population.
• The slaves hoped to reach Spanish-controlled Florida where they
would be granted their freedom.
The Stono Rebellion, 1739 – Why should it be
Remembered?
• The South Carolina legislature enacted strict laws prohibiting slaves
from assembling in groups, earning money, and learning to read.
• The rebellion highlighted the growing tensions in colonial society
between slaves and their owners.