American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia

This chapter discusses what happened to the colony once the mortality rates stabilized and immigrants were brought to work as servants began to earn their freedom. Indeed, Morgan shows that the response of Virginia’s leaders was to change the society in ways that “curtailed and threatened the independence of the small freeman” and further oppressed servants to make profits (216).

First, they extended terms for servitude to prevent freedom. For example, they added more penalties to runaways, and if a servant “engaged in forbidden pleasures,” like killing a hog, their term was extended (218). Yet men did earn their freedom and did acquire a small holding.

Freedmen, once free, preferred to work for themselves, so with a dearth of workers, big farmers used other means to force them back into servitude or tenancy. Land speculating and headrights trading were rampant, given mortality rates and out migration, creating land scarcity for freedmen. To get land, freedmen had to move to the frontier near the Indians or rent. Big farmers also allowed servants to give up clothes or provisions for early release, which made them vulnerable, since they often could not get land. When they did get some land, making a living in tobacco on a small scale was difficult, so they often sold their crop to large farmers, who in turn became merchants.