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Hired Servants In Jamestown

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This is a picture of the hired servants working on a farm in Jamestown because the slaves were not yet introduced. The servants are harvesting tobacco on a farm in the southern colonies, where they depended on large-scale servants and cash crops, such as tobacco, for their economy. The servants will be working for the landlord for some years. They signed a contract that would work on a farm for a few years and then their freedom would be granted in America. These servants came in many sizes and colours. Many women and men chose to be hired servants because they wanted a trip to the new world to escape something or just to start over. Economic development in this period is the cultivation of tobacco that is portrayed in this picture. Tobacco
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Indentured servants, were by all accounts, the main source of labor in the seventeenth century. The labor force was mainly needed for the newly discovery of the cash crop that was tobacco. It was a plant that need a lot of man power to be harvested and transported to port to be shipped back to England. “At first they turned to their overpopulated country for labor, but English indentured servants brought with them the same haphazard habits of work as their masters.” Indentured service being described as haphazard is an understatement; uprising.

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In Virginia, people mostly focused on growing of staples and exotic crops for cash. The crops that they grew in their colony were rice, indigo, and tobacco. But in Virginia, tobacco was the crop that they focused on, in fact, tobacco was the first most famous staple crop grown and became their economic foundation. As far as working in the fields, Virginia started off with indentured servants to perform the labor, but as they became expensive they shifted to purchasing slaves. Mortality rates were higher because of diseases that many of them came in contact with, men were expected to live to forty and women weren’t expected to live past their thirties.

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In the early 1600’s, indentured servants, usually someone from a poor class in England would sell their labor for a term of four to seven years for the opportunity to travel across the Atlantic and be funded by a master/farmer. After reviewing “A Contract for Indentured Service (1635)” the blank contract I referenced indicates a term of four to seven years to be completed. The contract promises to pay the servant in meat, drinks, apparel and lodging during his time as an indentured servant. After the term is completed the master is required to provide his former servant: clothing, three barrels of corn, and fifty acres of land. The risks that potential indentured servants had to consider when migrating to the American colonies were the bad

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People wanted to grow tobacco in Virginia to get money. This is two of the southern colonies motivations. These motivations was leading to a BETTER LIFE!

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As a result, the economy in the North began to flourish and develop, allowing women to establish some degree of a role within the economy and earn wages. In particular, “women exchanged work and produce, employing each other’s skills and easing their own burdens in the process” (Norton 605). Contrastingly, this integration of women’s work in the economy did not exist as prominently in the South where cash crops (tobacco and sugar cane) were the main source of income (DuBois, 88). Due to the amount of manual labor that is necessary to maintain the production of these crops, slavery became the foundation of the Southern economy, and “enslaved Africans were employed in a modern, commercial, globally oriented form of production (Dubois, 90)”. Subsequently, women in the South did not have a large role in the economy compared to women in the North; rather than contributing economically, elite southern women were responsible for the raising of their children and the maintenance of the property.

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These colonies came across numerous hardships with war, famine, and political turmoil, in the 1600’s. These colonies worked for commercial purposes and neglected the need for relationship building with natives, safety, and resource gathering, so much so that they lost many early settlers. Working as an indentured servant was brutal in these colonies. Growing, storing, and packaging tobacco was very labor intensive work. Though indentured servants maintained contracts providing them with food, housing, and clothing, often times terms of service were lengthened.

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Tobacco was very profitable and was used as a source of bartering in Jamestown. However, tobacco was labor intensive making it difficult to mass produce due to lack of labor workers. This problem created the need for slaves in the Americas. Starting in Jamestown and spreading along with the rapid expansion North and South, slaves began to become a key part of society in the Americas. Slaves provided a cheaper alternative for labor which was ideal for the intensive labor needed to make tobacco, cotton, and other agricultural products that were used in the Americas.

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In Virginia, slaves lived and worked on plantations or small farms where tobacco was the cash crop. As a general rule, they worked from sunrise to sunset, usually in the tobacco fields. On large plantations, some learned trades and worked as blacksmiths, carpenters, and coopers or served as cooks and house

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I am enlightened by your desire to come join me here in Jamestown, but life has been a never ending roller coaster as the years slowly pass by. Some days I wonder if leaving the slums to avoid my peasant status was worth risking making an attempt at creating a new life in Jamestown. I have trouble falling asleep as I am persistently worrying about whether or not I will wake up the next morning, or if I will die in my sleep during a surprise Indian attack. Even tobacco alone cannot soothe my nerves and paranoia, nor can the money that has been produced from the tobacco market keep my mind in a state of peace. Even though the colony has recently prospered from the blooming tobacco business, I would strongly recommend for you all to refrain from coming here unless you enjoy an indentured servant life, constant Native American threats, and terrible living conditions.

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In 1607, the first wave of colonial settlers arrived in Virginia and began to establish Jamestown. Many of the new settlers came from wealthy families never performing a day of manual labor. With agricultural farming, being the revenue source of the new colonial settlers there would soon be a great demand for labor. Contracts of indentures were expiring and with much devastation in England, there was a shortage of English servants.

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The Virginia colony intended to reproduce into an English society when they settled. With tobacco becoming a huge crop in Virginia, they invested heavily in servants to help with the plantations, “Our principal wealth…. consisteth in servants.” (Takaki 53). Whites

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Slavery began long before the colonization of North America. This was an issue in ancient Egypt, as well as other times and places throughout history. In discussing the evolution of African slavery from its origins, the resistance and abolitionist efforts through the start of the Civil War, it is found to have resulted in many conflicts within our nation. In 1619, the first Africans in America arrived in Jamestown on a Dutch ship.

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During this time, the colonies built by Europeans in the Americas needed African slave labor to utilize and yield the most from the abundant land available (Dodson). Not only does Walsh explain the system used in North America (including the islands), but also the differences and similarities from the older British ways to the newer techniques used in North America. At the time, the agricultural systems put in place were used mainly on fields used to produced sugar, tobacco, and cotton (Walsh 1). Throughout the article the gang system and hoe culture , in particular, is described, with plantations relying heavily upon it. The ganging and hoeing were used for more efficiency in the production of crops and to yield the most results.

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