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Copyright 2012 CARMEN PECOLA THOMPSON Copyright 2012 CARMEN PECOLA THOMPSON “20. AND ODD NEGROES”: VIRGINIA AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF SLAVERY, 1619-1660 BY CARMEN PECOLA THOMPSON DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor David R. Roediger, Chair Professor Jean Allman Associate Professor Adrian Burgos, Jr. Assistant Professor Jessica Millward ii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the relationship between Virginia’s early development and the transatlantic slave trade. This study locates Virginia as a colonizer and an enslaver in the context of the developing international system of slavery and the major upheavals that transformed both West Central Africa and the New World in the early seventeenth century. European peoples in the early sixteenth century promoted the expansion of plantation economies in the Americas using European immigrant and West African laborers. This expansion created the conditions for England’s settlement of Virginia and its transition from observer to participant in the transatlantic slave trade. This dissertation explores how the technologies of oppression that made-up the international system of slavery shaped the early development of Virginia and the extent to which they fueled the racial character of Virginia. This project also explores how Black peoples attempted to survive and build community using indigenous West African knowledge systems and cultural forms. Using a variety of county court records (deeds, orders, and wills), estate inventories, statutes, and letters from various counties between 1619 and 1660, this study examines the influence of the international system of slavery on Virginia’s social, legal, religious, and governmental institutions from its settlement through the legislative enactments of the 1660s that made it increasingly difficult for African peoples to remain free. In the early decades of the seventeenth century Virginia leaders looked to England, and England looked to other European nations that participated in the transatlantic slave trade for guidance in how to structure its society. By the 1620s and 1630s these models were fundamental to establishing the colony’s hierarchical social structure that produced unequal relations between European immigrants and iii African and Native groups. I argue that Virginia had integrated into the international system of slavery earlier than most historians have argued, influencing the not only the racial character of Virginia but also its early development. I further argue that African peoples united as a group in response to this reality, recreating indigenous knowledge systems and culture forms such as agrarian culture, oral traditions, and lineage systems that were held in common across ethnic divides in West Africa to resist subjugation and build community in Virginia. Viewing the early decades of Virginia through the lens of the transatlantic slave trade reframes our fundamental assumptions about first half of the seventeenth century, about the ways in which Africa and Africans shaped the development of Virginia, and about what it meant to be African and European in the early decades of the seventeenth century. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people and organizations assisted me as I researched and wrote this dissertation. In the History Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Professors Diane Harris, Dana Rabin, Craig Koslofsky, Kathryn Oberdeck, Orville V. Burton, and Sundiata Cha-Jua all gave me their assistance and advice when I asked for it. At the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library, librarians Mary Stuart, Thomas Weissinger, and staff helped me locate books, manuscripts, and other research materials whenever I needed them. The staff at the Graduate Library was very helpful as well. Vanessa Biggers, Connie Dillard-Myers, Adeyinka Alasade, Imani Bazzell, Sam Smith, Alison Bailey, Sonia Mariscal, Andrew Demshuk, and Gita Brenner, my friends and fellow graduate students, read parts of the dissertation and offered unwavering support. The members of the Women’s Writing Group read portions of the dissertation at various stages of completion, always offering useful criticisms and advice. The late Dr. Manning Marable and the staff at the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University have embraced my research and offered me unconditional support, for which I am very forever grateful. The staff’s of the Virginia Historical Society, the Research Library in Colonial Williamsburg, and the Manuscript collection of the Swem Library at the College of William and Mary were all very helpful in locating information on Great Planters and Parish records. The research librarians at the Library of Virginia provided invaluable assistance in navigating microfilm documents and county court records. In particular, I would like to thank Brent Tarter for his self-less support and interest in my topic, for his insight on possible resources, and most importantly, for patiently listening to my ideas over innumerable lunches. A Social Science v Research Council Summer Fellowship and a research fellowship from the History Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign made the many months I spent performing research in Virginia possible. A one-year writing fellowship from the History Department helped make the timely completion of this dissertation possible. Among many others whom I would like to thank for suggestions and assistance of one kind or another are Dr. Lee D. Baker, Dr. Patricia Schechter, Dr. Kimberly Springer, John Robinson, and Sally Green. I am deeply indebted to my dissertation committee for their close and careful readings of drafts of this dissertation, and for their patience and support over these last several years. This dissertation originated in Adrian Burgos’s graduate seminar on race in the city; and he has shaped this dissertation from its earliest inception to its completed form. Jean Allman’s research on West Africa first drew me to African history. She has been a demanding critic and has tried to improve the caliber of my thinking and writing. Jessica Millward guided me through the dense historiography of early American slavery. By setting high standards, she has asked important questions that have transformed earlier drafts of this dissertation. My advisor, David Roediger provided constant encouragement, sage advice, and constructive criticism. His book Wages of Whiteness was foundational to my understanding of race in America. With patience and hospitality, he has overseen this project from its inception to its present form. I could not have asked for a more astute critic or kinder advisor. For the past three years this dissertation has consumed my life, often at the expense of family and friends. I want to thank my husband, Rory M. Thompson, for his loving patience and understanding through it all. My mother, Vasola Smith, and my brother, Charles Lee Smith, Jr. vi who was my first scholarly role model have never wavered in their love, support, and belief in my work. And finally I offer praise to Lord Jesus Christ for sustaining me. It is by his grace that I have made it this far. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING VIRGINIA AND ITS PLACE IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF SLAVERY ................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF SLAVERY ON THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF VIRGINIA..........................................................................24 CHAPTER 2: DUTY BOYS, COMPANY TENANTS, SLAVEHOLDING LADIES, AND WEALTHY PLANTERS: HOW THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF SLAVERY MADE EUROPEAN EMIGRANTS WHITE, 1619-1650 .........................................................................53 CHAPTER 3: FROM SLAVE PEN TO PLANTATION: THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF SLAVERY ON VIRGINIA’S BUILT ENVIRONMENT, 1618-1634 ......................................................................................................................................87 CHAPTER 4: FROM FREEDOM SUITS TO FICTIVE KIN: AFRICAN LIFE IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA, 1619-1660 ................................................................................................................126 CONCLUSION: EARLY VIRGINIA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF SLAVERY ............................................................................................................171 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................186 1 Introduction Rethinking Virginia and its Place in the International System of Slavery When John Rolfe reported in a letter to Sir Edwin Sandys that “20 and odd Negroes” had been off-loaded from a English vessel at Point Comfort, Virginia in late August 1619, his statement was more than just a casual comment about the cargo contained on this vessel. It told of Virginia’s entrance into a developing international system of slavery that included Africa, the Americas, Western Europe and the Islamic world.1 The decision made by Virginia leaders to participate in the piracy of the “20 and odd Negroes” and to join their European neighbors in a program that exploited the labor of millions of African peoples from West Central Africa-- leading to the transformation of the regions indigenous forms of slavery--was
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