Wealth,+Authority+and+Power

CD - 1 - Before the early 18th century the small number of blacks in the Chesapeake region had not given the whites a reason to fear a revolt from the blacks. Since at the time Africans were still treated equally by the law it is obvious that equality for everyone in the eye of the law was more important to people at the time than it would be when the laws that only affected blacks were passed. The passage of these laws, which bound blacks to a life time of heretical slavery to whites. It is no coincidence that the passage of these slave laws occurred in the late 1660's when the number of enslaved blacks had begun to rise much faster than it had before in the Chesapeake region. However the majority of the slaves were owned by the richest 1/2% of the population, however it was rising very slowly. Even though it had become common place for the rich to stay rich and the poor to stay poor, the continuation of this trend of people slowly being able to own more slaves would show that in America if you worked hard enough you would become wealthier and your children would be able to have a better life than you. An idea which would continue for many generations after. summarized not analyzed -- VERY short CD -- With the collapse of indentured servitude as a method of controlling the population in the mid 18th century, there was a drop in the number of people that were considered productive. Indentured servitude was used as a method of training children how to grow crops, and giving employment to adult immigrants. This collapse caused the formation of a new class of property-less laborers, artisans, and seamen who would travel from town to town offering their services for wages. The rise of this class of traveling laborers was a group unique to the Americas that would set the pattern to come. The varying levels of wealth that are to be expected to come from traveling laborers caused a lot of internal violence. Most of the hate from this group was directed at people within the group, however some of the hate was directed at the black population. This undeserved hatred that was directed at the black population was a sign of the rising racial tensions that would eventually come to split the nation. The collapse of the system of indentured servitude was a partial cause of this, since it is what held many families together. summarized not analyzed -- VERY short