The Impact of Economics on Revolutionary Virginia
Since the first settlement in the colonies was founded in 1607, Virginia’s growth has been propelled by economics. The saying that “money makes the world go round” is true in this instance, as almost all laws and social structures were created to make money during the seventeenth and eighteenth century colonial Virginia. This is not out of place, as the whole reason why the age of exploration and English colonization of North America took place is because of the idea that colonies would increase the wealth of the mother country. In Virginia, the primary driver of growth had been economic in nature, since economics drove the original migration of Europeans to the New World, created the reason for slavery, and pushed the American Colonies to rebel against the Crown.
The first permanent English settlement in North America, Jamestown, was a completely commercial venture, carried out by the Virginia Company of London for the purpose of profit. Soon, however, the Company would realize that to promote economic growth in the colonies, which would lead to more profits for the company, it needed to offer financial incentives to colonists to work harder.[1] In the first few years of the colony, a military regime of complete Company control had been implemented in Jamestown, and the Company gave the members of Jamestown no reason other than mediocre wages to save the colony.[2] In response, Colonists had typically worked very hard before 1619 to “avoid work at all costs” because they hoped to collapse the colony, and thus return home.[3] Since all farm production went to a central store, it could not benefit any person to work hard to create more food when they can simply eat what others produce. Sir Thomas Dale realized that if he gave his men land in the colonies, it would then be in their best interests to farm that land efficiently to increase their own prosperity. Sir Dale allowed each man three to twelve acres of land to farm or raise livestock on.[4] Under this new system, Sir Dale reported each man produced ten times as much food as before, allowing the colony to become self-sufficient and produce more than enough to begin to turn a profit for the Virginia Company. This system of offering financial incentives to potential colonists to increase their efficiency and to give them a stake in the colonies’ success was copied throughout English North America.[5] Thus, the original settlement of Jamestown and the reforms that allowed it to finally become self-sufficient were primarily economic in nature, supporting the idea that economics was the most critical aspect in promoting the Growth of the early British colonies in North America.
The main institution that drove the creation of Virginian culture that we have studied in this course is the profits and social standing derived from slaves. The economics of slavery were simple: a members of the gentry can buy slaves imported from Africa and put them to work on a plantation. As a plantation worker, a slave was valuable because they could perform the labor-intensive job of growing tobacco or other crops without the master needing to pay the slave anything or provide enough money for the slave’s basic necessities of life such as adequate food and shelter. The tobacco or other crops can then go for sale in England, which made the slaves’ masters extremely wealthy. At any moment, the slave can be sold and a master to easily increase the value of a slave by educating them.[6] The profits from slavery then flowed into massive houses such as Bacon’s castle and Peyton Randolph’s house, or could even flow into more land and slaves to further increase the wealth of the planter as was the case with John Carter II, who more than doubled the number of slaves he owned during his life.[7] In addition, many of the Planter elite were members of the House of Burgesses or the government of the colony.[8] In this role, they could pass legislation that would enable them to gain more wealth, often at the cost of rights for their enslaved workers.[9] For example, as a citizen of Virginia, people during slavery were entitled to certain rights that would decrease their usefulness in growing Tobacco or in performing other manual labor tasks. Thus, when Virginia declared who shall be deemed a citizen, it excluded all nonwhites completely, thus allowing slavery to continue to be profitable. Thus, slavery was primarily an economic institution, and its economic aspects allowed for the creation of the elite in Virginia society.
Economic resistance was also directly responsible for the American revolution against the English. During the Seven Years War f 1756, England went to war with France in what would be the Seven Years War. The British eventually won, gaining nearly all French Colonies in North America. However, this war was extremely expensive and made England take on a huge amount of debt. To pay off this debt and keep the English government solvent, Parliament instituted the Stamp act. This act forced American colonists to pay taxes on most paper products to Britain. However, the American colonists rioted, burned effigies of stamp collectors, and generally refused to comply with the law.[10] Parliament was forced to repeal the act as the American colonists looked ready to revolt if they were given “Taxation Without Representation.” After the Stamp Act, Various taxes were imposed under the intolerable acts and parliament attempted to regain the support of the Americans, but these acts were given the same treatment as the stamp act. All the tension over financial issues came to a head when only the Tea tax remained, and in protest, the sons of liberty threw overboard Tea during the Boston Tea Party. While the Revolution is often painted in Ideological terms: tyrannical monarch versus democratic republic, this interpretation fails to communicate that the main reason that America rebelled was because of taxes and other financial issues with England, as mentioned above. For example, in the Deceleration of Independence, two of the most important issues with the Crown that the Founders listed were that he cut off American trade with the rest of the world and that he has enacted taxes on the Colonies without their consent. Lastly, this narrative of ideological struggle must be false because Americans did not hate previous English kings, rather only George the III, as is shown when the Patriots took down a painting of King George III but not of any other English Royalty paintings in Capital Building in Williamsburg.[11]
During seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Virginia, economics played the largest role in allowing the commonwealth to grow. A variety of factors that drove Virginia forward were caused by economics. First, The Virginia Company of London experimented with reforms to allow for greater growth and motivate colonists to be self-sufficient. This experiment led to the creation of a system where new English colonists were granted land if they would farm it, and this system led to the rapid growth of the colony’s population. Next, Virginia began to heavily rely on slavery, namely the ways that slaves are bought, used, and sold all contributed to creating a Planter elite that would rule the south. In addition, this planter elite ruled the House of Burgesses, setting out the laws for Virginia. Lastly, Virginia and the United States rebelled against England for almost exclusively economic reasons, since the first main resistance to English rule was felt only when Parliament enacted the Stamp and Intolerable Acts.
[1] Horn, James. “Two Great Reforms.” Essay, 44, n.d.
[2] Jamestown Island Visit, June 23, 2022.
[3] Horn, James. “Two Great Reforms.” Essay, 45.
[4] Ibid, p 46
[5] Ibid, p 45.
[6] Bly, Antonio T. “Slave Literacy and Education in Virginia.” Encyclopedia Virginia, July 21, 1656. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/slave-literacy-and-education-in-virginia/#:~:text=A%20relatively%20small%20number%20of,often%20tied%20to%20religious%20instruction.
[7] John C. Coombs, “Beyond the Origins Debate,” pg. 240.
[8] Colonial Williamsburg Capital Building, June 30th, 2022.
[9] Ibid.
[10]Ibid.
[11] Colonial Williamsburg Capital Building, June 30th, 2022.