Intertwined Stories: The Origins of Slavery in Virginia

Intertwined: Stories
"The Origins of Slavery in Virginia"

FINAL TRANSCRIPT
Episode Published April 4, 2022

Co-written by Jeanette Patrick and Jim Ambuske

SPEAKERS

• Brenda Parker, Narrator, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon
• Jim Ambuske, Digital History, George Washington’s Mount Vernon
• John C. Coombs, Professor of History, Hampden-Sydney College

BRENDA PARKER: This podcast is supported by anonymous friends of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

JIM AMBUSKE: Hello, and welcome to Intertwined Stories. I’m your host, Jim Ambuske

In this mini-series, we’re taking a deeper dive into the history behind the podcast Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

To create that show, we interviewed over twenty scholars, some of whom are descendants of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community, for over an hour each. We couldn’t fit everything into the main series, so we’re happy to bring you extended versions of some of those conversations now.

The origins of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community are linked directly to the early history of slavery in Virginia. 

Although the first enslaved people arrived in Virginia in 1619, slavery did not become the dominate labor system in the Chesapeake Bay region for more than a century. 

As we heard in Episode 1 of Intertwined, race-based slavery developed slowly in the Chesapeake.  Colonists, merchants, and competing nations made a series of choices that interwove slavery into the fabric of Virginia’s society and economy. 

To learn more about how and why this happened, we talked to Dr. John C. Coombs, a professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. 

We also chatted about the connections between Barbados and Virginia that made Virginia an important part of the transatlantic slave trade long before it was a site of mass enslavement. 

I was in the host’s chair for our interview with Dr. Coombs, and we start off with a seemingly simple question that has some surprising answers. 

AMBUSKE: Let’s begin here, then, how did slavery develop in the Chesapeake region, and how did it shape Chesapeake society and economy?

JOHN COOMBS: Virginia is exceptional in that regard compared to other English colonies in that it's founded before the an English commercial slave trade even exists. Of course, the colony is founded in 1607, and most scholars agree that the English commercial slave trading began at the earliest in the latter half of the 1630's, but the date typically, most people agree about is about 1640. So throughout Virginia's early years, when it's developing, it's tobacco trade with Britain or then England, of course, there isn't a steady supply of slaves. So, slavery in Virginia, consequently develops very gradually over time. Um, the first shipment of slaves, of course, arrives in Virginia in 1619, which is the date, you know, we just commemorated a couple of years ago, but those slaves are procured by two privateers.  Privateering serves as the primary source of slaves for the English throughout these early decades of the 17th century. In the case of those slaves brought to Virginia in 1619, they're taken from a Portuguese shipment. Portugal at that time was a part of the Spanish empire under the control of the Spanish monarchy, and therefore subject to attacks by the English, despite this being ostensibly a period of peace between England and Spain.

The São João Bautista was attacked by two English privateers, one of them of course is the Treasurer, a very famous privateer, captained by Daniel Elfrith and the other is a vessel that we've learned a lot more about over the past decade is known as the White Lion. This is the infamous Dutch man of war that John Rolfe referred to in his famous letter regarding this delivery in 1619. And the captain of that vessel was a guy named John Colyn Jope. So, slavery is introduced very early into Virginia, in fact, its introduction almost coincides with the development of servitude as a labor institution in the colony, I mean literally, like, almost the same year. It was just in the previous session of the General Assembly that they had adopted the first statutes regulating the status of bound white laborers right before the arrival of the White Lion and the Treasurer in August of 1619. Slavery, therefore, isn't not gonna develop quickly, 'cause there's no ready source of supply, it's very hit and miss throughout the 1620's in the 1630's, enslaved Africans are intermittently brought to the colony by privateers as circumstances allowed.

It's very ad hoc. Beginning in 1640, though, with the development of the English commercial slave trade, there does begin to be a steadier supply, but throughout that period, the Chesapeake is on the margins of that English Transatlantic Slave Trade, which develops very closely in concert with the growth and development of the West Indian islands, particularly Barbados.

And the turn to slavery there is exceedingly rapid. George Downing reported from Barbados, for instance, in 1645, that he believed there was no less than 1,000 Negros imported that year into the island, and he was quite confident that the more they send, the more that Barbadians would be able to buy because sugar was so profitable. And the profitability of sugar is really important because it leads Barbadian planters to basically turn every usable acre of land on the island over to sugar production. This then leaves Barbadians dependent, and this is happening, of course, gradually, but fairly quickly over time, it leaves them to become increasingly dependent upon importing food stuffs into the island from abroad. And that then provides an opportunity for Virginians to provide those provisions to the island in exchange for sugar, molasses, rum and of course, enslaved Africans. So, very quickly throughout the middle decades of the 17th century, Virginia develops a, a very important trade with the Caribbean Islands. Barbados is at the center of it, Virginia and Barbados in fact are the primary trading partners in this relationship. Maryland is far less deeply committed to inter-colonial trade with the island, and on the Caribbean side, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands are far smaller players in the trade than Barbados is. Right, so this is really an aaxis between Virginia and Barbados. So that becomes one conduit of slaves for Virginians and Marylanders, to a lesser extent. The other thing that's happening is that throughout the 1640's, but particularly in the 1650's, which of course is the interregnum period following the English Civil War. The slave trade of the English is largely unregulated. There's no kind of restrictions placed upon it, and so it's really kind of being driven by supply and demand. And that creates an opening, particularly in the latter half of the 1650's for leading tobacco merchants to help supply their planter correspondents in the Chesapeake with slaves by arranging for deliveries from Africa. The leading English tobacco merchant of that era is a guy named John Jeffreys, who is partnered with Thomas Colclough, and this is the leading English tobacco firm of the era. And throughout the later part of the 1650's, Jeffreys and Colclough go together, arranged for at least two or three, perhaps even more slave shipments from different areas of Africa to planter correspondents in Virginia. They don't really have any trading ties with Maryland. The other thing that happens during that same period, of course, is the entry of the Dutch. The increasingly involvement of the Dutch in the tobacco trade of the Chesapeake Colonies, which gains considerable momentum over the course of the period of the English Civil War in the 1640's. And for a long time historians thought the Dutch were, you know, very important suppliers of enslaved Africans to the Chesapeake Colonies. It's not that they didn't bring any, but they're not a major supplier because the Dutch throughout that period are supplying their own colonies in Brazil that they had conquered from the Portuguese. Right? So, despite the fact that the Netherlands, right, the United Provinces of the Netherlands emerge as the biggest carriers in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade over the course of the 1640's, their involvement with the Chesapeake and even the English Caribbean Islands is fairly minimal.

So, the larger picture I'm trying to paint here is that both Virginians and Marylanders have to go and seek slaves out. They have to try and get them. And that has a couple of consequences, one, in order to be in a position to do that, one has to have wealth and capital, and you also have to have connections. So, you have to have connections in England, you have to have connections in the Islands, and so that's going to ensure that while the enslaved population of both colonies is expanding fairly slowly, with a significant spike in the 1650's, but this is really kind of a slow, gradual incline, moving upward.

Almost all of those slaves are both obtained by and held by the leading planters of the region, the gentry. Slave ownership among ordinary planters in the Chesapeake Colonies is very, very minimal throughout most of the 17th century. And that's important because while larger planters are able to obtain slaves, they don't make them available for sale, right, to anybody else. The classic kind of, I think was probably the popular conception of a slaver arriving in port and an auction of the captives, they have aboard being held that's open to the public with the enslaved men and women and children put up for sale to the highest buyer that doesn't exist in the Chesapeake Colony in the 17th century.

Instead, this is a trade that's closely controlled on it's various axes, leading planters in the Chesapeake, larger merchants in England, and correspondents in the Caribbean Islands. So, the growth of slavery in the Chesapeake Colonies is not only slow over time, but it's also restricted to a very, very small group, perhaps the top 5% of planters own the vast majority of enslaved Africans. That situation is gonna hold through the end of the 17th century, because following the restoration in 1660, the English Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which as I mentioned, had largely been unregulated up to that point, is placed under the monopoly control of a chartered company. It's originally called "The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa", and that's the name it's gonna go under throughout the 1660's, but following, you know, significant damage done to the company's interest of the course of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, in the middle decades of the 17th century, it'll be re-chartered in 1672 as the "Royal African Company," which is probably the name that most people are familiar with.

The company probably controls about 85% of the English commercial slave trade throughout this period, right, which extends up until the Glorious Revolution. The Glorious Revolution is an important point, an important moment in that regard, because the authority of the colony of the Royal African Company, which is extensive, is largely backed solely by the prerogative power of the monarchy. In fact, the President of The Royal African Company is James II, first when he was Duke of York, and later when he's the King. And so, they're able to go after interloper's, you know, outside traders who are not part of the company, who are at least according to its charter, trading to Africa illegally, they're able to go after them aggressively throughout that period. Following the Glorious Revolution, the position of the Royal African Company begins to deteriorate. It has to have its charter confirmed by Parliament, and that's gonna begin a very long political process, it's gonna extend up until 1698. It's a very convenient date for historians because it's right at the turn of the 18th century, right, and all of a sudden, the structure of the English Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade changes dramatically with passage of the Africa Trade Act in 1698. The trade is thrown open to English men, there are some, all Englishmen, there are some fees that are levied on independent traders for the upkeep of installations along the African coast, but the trade is gonna expand rapidly by a factor of four in the early decades of the 18th century.

So, Virginia's position on the margins of the English Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade pretty much extends across the 17th century, and after the Africa Trade Act, it benefits like every other colony will benefit. It's more slaves a lot more quickly following passage of the Africa Trade Act, then it had previously. Probably, you know, some 10,000 slaves are imported into Virginia alone in the first decade of the 18th century, and that's the equivalent to the figure that had been brought to Virginia over the entire course of the 17th century. It's a marked, marked increase, and so in terms of its society, the larger planters, the gentry of Virginia, and to a lesser extent, Maryland, have a real head start in terms of expanding their estates. And this is going to shape the hierarchical character of society in the Chesapeake, right, it's going to have a dominant gentry at the top, a fairly large, but not huge, right, segment of labor owning middling planters in the middle, a much larger base of smaller planters who don't own labor and then increasingly in the 18th century tenants. So, that shape of society is very much an outgrowth of those limitations on the supply of slaves throughout the 17th century, the very character of the colony.

But it has greater implications than that. For one, in the Chesapeake, in many respects, the exact mere opposite of England. In England, economic power, social prestige, political influence, is fundamentally grounded upon the ownership of land. Many people are familiar with the English landed gentry and the aristocracy. The aristocracy of England is actually very, very small. It's the landed gentry, the people who serve as magistrates in the various shires of England, right, this is a fairly broadbased... Still only 10% of the population, but much larger than the Aristocrats. But the entire hierarchical structure of England is largely based on the ownership of land and the wealth of both the aristocracy and the gentry derives from the rents they receive from tenants who work that land on their estates. The Chesapeake is the exact opposite. Land is abundant, labor is the scarce resource, and so I think the attractiveness of slavery for the gentry is that it really provides a solution to a fundamental problem. How do you build lasting familial estates that can be maintained over time in an environment in which labor is scarce and land is plentiful? Servitude, of course, is very common in the Chesapeake Colonies throughout the 17th century and will continue to persist throughout the 18th century as well. But servitude has its limitations in terms of servicing dynastic ambition, which many members of the Virginia and Maryland gentry derived not from the aristocracy, but rather from these kind of landed families in England. Their vision of the world is one of landed estates passed down from heir to heir over time. And servitude doesn't really lend itself to that, of course, because servants serve a finite term and this requires constant investments in labor over time.

And it limits the size of Chesapeake labor forces throughout much of the 17th century. If the supply of servants diminishes, which it did in the 17th century, over time, then there's no means of building those kinds of profitable estates that can be passed down to descendants. Slavery provides the solution to that. It ensures that planters desirous of building dynasties can keep an adequate supply of labor on their plantations over time, and not only adequate, they're going to grow over time because of the inheritable nature of slavery.

AMBUSKE: Intertwined Stories is a production of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and CD Squared.

I’m Jim Ambuske, your host and producer for this episode.

Jeanette Patrick and I co-created and co-wrote the main series, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Brenda Parker brought it to life as our wonderful narrator. Curt Dahl of CD Squared was our lead producer and audio engineer.

Thank you to the anonymous friends of George Washington’s Mount Vernon whose generous financial support made this show possible.

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Thanks for listening.