The Chesapeake Bay Colony of Jamestown
...ty of the five hundred inhabitants lived through the winter of 1609-1610, known as the “starving time”. However as tobacco prices plunged in the 1630s, and tobacco became less profitable, planters began raising more corn and cattle, which in turn lowered the mortality rates because the food supply went up. The introduction of black slaves brought about profound changes to the early Chesapeake Bay society. In 1676 only five percent of the population was black, but with the introduction of African American slaves in the mid-1700s, that number jumped to forty percent. Originally black slaves were not sought after because they cost too much, and Europeans could buy English servants for cheaper prices. But a number of changes in the early 1700s caused planters to shift their attention to the African American labor pool. First since the mortality rates were going down, planters could now expect to get many more years out of a slave. Second masters would now have title to any children that slaves would have. Out of all this, the Atlantic Slave Trade was formed. A triangle of trade between the west coast of Africa, the British colonies, and the English that involved the transfer of millions of slaves across the Atlantic Ocean. Most slaves were taken from their villages by fellow Africans and shipped to the British colonies were they were bound to the master for the rest of their lives. As slavery increased in the British colonies, so too did discrimination against already freed African Americans, many of whom were in the lower-middle class. For example, laws in the 1690s issued by the House of Burgesses provided harsher punishments for “Negroes” and forbade interracial marriage between blacks and whites. It reserved voting for the “white, property holding, males of the colony”. Along with the bustling economy and introduction of slaves, settlers had to face head on encounters with the Native American tribes nearby. Settlers fought with Native Americans over land rights. Whites ...