Week 3 · Chapter

Chapter 3 — Colonial Society & the Origins of Slavery

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~50–60 minutes · Objectives 1 and 3 · Read it first this week, before the lecture and the slide deck.

In plain language

This week is about who did the work in England's colonies, and how colonial law turned some of those workers into people held in slavery for life. An indentured servant worked for a set number of years under a contract and then went free. Hereditary racial slavery was different: colonial laws made it last for life, pass from mother to child, and attach to African descent. You will read the week's document, a plan of government for the colony of Carolina, and see what it gave to enslavers. You will also meet the Middle Passage — the forced crossing of the Atlantic that carried captive Africans to the Americas — and a wave of religious revivals in the colonies.

Why you already care about this

Think about a phone contract or an apartment lease. It has a start date and an end date. You may not like every term, but you know when it is over. Now imagine a different kind of paper. It does not end. It says that your status passes to your children, and to their children, because of who your mother was.

Those two papers are the whole week in miniature. In the English colonies of the seventeenth century, many workers signed contracts that ended after a term of years. Over the same century, colonial lawmakers wrote laws that made slavery permanent and inherited. The first kind of paper describes a hard bargain. The second describes a system that held human beings as property across generations.

You will read the law's words in one dated document from 1669. You will also learn to say plainly what happened, without softening it and without inventing anything the record does not support.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to: compare how the colonial regions used labor; define indentured servitude and tell it apart from hereditary racial slavery; state what the National Park Service reports about 1619, with its source; explain the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage; source and close-read the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina; describe the First Great Awakening; and sort sources about colonial society as primary or secondary.

Hook to keep: a contract has an end date; a hereditary status does not.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 built the historian's tools: primary and secondary sources and the four moves of sourcing, contextualization, close reading, and corroboration. Week 2 compared how Spain, France, the Dutch Republic, and England built colonies, with the First Charter of Virginia (1606), Jamestown (1607), and the Mayflower Compact (1620).
This week: colonial economies and labor, indentured servitude, the Africans brought to Virginia in 1619, the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage, the laws that made slavery hereditary and racial, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, and the First Great Awakening.
How they connect: you use Week 1's four moves on this week's document, and you build on Week 2's colonies to ask who did their labor and under what law.
Where we're going next: Week 4, The Road to Revolution, begins a new unit on why colonists broke with Britain.

Week 1 gave you the habit of asking who made a source, when, and why. Week 2 put Jamestown, the Chesapeake, and New England on the map. This week asks a harder question about those same places. It is a hard week to read, and the course is built to be supportive of that. You will read one short pinned passage, one move at a time.

1. Compare the colonial economies: who did the work

Picture three different jobs. One is a family farm where parents and children share the chores. One is a busy port where a shop sells goods from many places. One is a large field of a single crop that needs many hands every season. Each job asks a different question: who will do the work?

The English colonies grew into distinct regions, and each answered that question in its own way. Here is how this course says it, as standard historical usage:

New England was settled largely by families in religious communities.
The Middle Colonies were more mixed in religion and origin.
The Chesapeake, around Virginia and Maryland, grew tobacco first with indentured servants and then increasingly with enslaved Africans.
The Lower South grew rice and later indigo with the labor of enslaved Africans.

Notice the pattern. Where a colony's wealth came from a crop that needed many workers, the demand for bound labor was greatest. That is causation at work: a crop, a market, and a labor system pushed on one another.

Misconception check. Students often think the colonies were one uniform society, so slavery must have looked the same everywhere. That is tempting, because the colonies shared a king and a language. But the regions differed in who settled them, what they grew, and who did the work. The cure is to name the region and its crop before you describe its labor.

Caveat: these four lines are generalizations about whole regions. Each region held exceptions, and the Readings & Resources page goes deeper into the Chesapeake.

2. Define indentured servitude: a contract with an end date

Think of a job offer that says, "Work for us for four years, and then you are free to go." You might take a hard offer like that if you had no other way to start over. The deal is tough, but it has a last day.

That is the core of indentured servitude: labor for a fixed term of years under a contract, after which the servant was free. The term of years is the fixed length of that contract.

In the seventeenth-century Chesapeake, labor shifted from indentured servants, who worked for a term of years, toward enslaved Africans held for life. The planters' demand for workers stayed high. What changed was the kind of bondage they relied on.

Worked example — an illustrative contract. An illustrative servant signs a contract at age 17 for a term of 5 years.

Start: the servant is 17 when the term begins.
Length: the contract runs for 5 years.
End: 17 + 5 = 22, so the contract ends when the servant is 22.
Status after the term: free, because the term of years is over.
Children: the contract says nothing about the servant's children, because servitude belonged to the person who signed, not to a family line.

In words: an indentured servant's bondage had a last day and stayed with the servant alone.

Misconception check. Students often think indentured servitude and slavery were the same status under different names. That is tempting, because both were bound labor, and servants were often treated harshly. But servitude was for a term of years; slavery, as colonial law came to define it, was for life and inherited. The cure is one question: does this status end, and does it pass to children?

Carry-line: servitude ended; slavery, by law, did not.

3. Read 1619 with its source

Imagine a single line in a ship's records that later generations argue about for centuries. Every word in that line matters, and so does who wrote it down. Historians handle a line like that with great care.

The year 1619 is one of those lines. The National Park Service reports that in 1619 an English privateer ship brought "20 and odd" Africans to Virginia, where they were traded to the English for victuals, or food stores. A privateer was a privately owned armed ship licensed to attack enemy shipping. The phrase "20 and odd" comes to you through the National Park Service, and the course quotes it with that source and goes no further.

Worked example — placing 1619. Measure the gap from Jamestown's founding to the arrival the National Park Service reports.

Jamestown was founded in 1607.
The arrival came in 1619.
Gap: 1619 − 1607 = 12 years.

In words: Africans were brought to Virginia 12 years after the colony's founding. The reading in one plain sentence: the National Park Service's account shows that captive Africans were traded in Virginia in 1619; it does not by itself show what legal status those people held for the rest of their lives.

Misconception check. Students often think racial slavery arrived in Virginia complete, as a finished system, in 1619. That is tempting, because 1619 is a famous starting point. But the laws that made slavery lifelong, inherited, and tied to African descent came over the following decades. The cure is to keep the date and the system apart: 1619 marks an arrival; the law of slavery was built afterward.

Honesty note: the record of 1619 is thin. That is why the course quotes only what its source says and does not add a number, a name, or a story the record does not hold.

4. Face the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage

Picture a harbor where ships unload barrels, cloth, and sugar. Now picture ships that unloaded people. That second picture is the one this section asks you to hold, and it is meant to be heavy.

The Atlantic slave trade forcibly carried captive Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold into slavery in the Americas. It was a trade in human beings, run by European and colonial merchants over several centuries. The Middle Passage was the forced Atlantic crossing of captive Africans to the Americas.

Three facts anchor this section:

The people carried were captives, taken from their homes and sold, not willing travelers.
Very many captives died on the crossing. Historians revise their estimates of how many, so this course says it in words and asks you to memorize no death figure.
Most enslaved Africans carried across the Atlantic went to the Caribbean and South America, not to British North America.

The trade connects this week to Week 1's Columbian Exchange. The exchange included people, and the Atlantic slave trade is the part of it that moved people by force.

Misconception check. Students often think most enslaved Africans were carried to the colonies that became the United States. That is tempting, because this course is a history of those colonies. But most captives were carried to the Caribbean and South America. The cure is to widen the map: British North America was one destination among several, and not the largest.

Pause and choose one: (a) Write two sentences explaining why a course might teach the Middle Passage's death toll in words rather than as one number. (b) Write two sentences on why the word "captives" describes the people on these ships more accurately than "cargo".

5. Trace how law made slavery hereditary and racial

Think about a rule at work that starts small, such as "new hires park in the far lot." Then a second rule says the far lot is for certain workers only. A third rule says their children will park there too. Each rule seems to add one step, but together they build a wall.

Colonial slavery was built in that way, by law, over decades. Through the second half of the seventeenth century, colonial laws made slavery hereditary, passing through the mother, and tied it to African descent. Hereditary means passed from parent to child; in colonial slave law, passed through the mother.

Hereditary racial slavery is enslavement for life, inherited by children through the mother and tied by law to African descent. Racial slavery was built by law over decades rather than arriving complete in 1619.

Worked example — two papers, two futures. Set the illustrative contract from Section 2 beside a law that makes status inherited.

The contract: a term of 5 years, after which the servant is free; the servant's children are not bound by it.
The law: a status for life, with no last day.
The law's reach: a child's status follows the mother's, so the status passes to the next generation.
The law's line: the status is tied to African descent.

In words: the contract binds one person for a set time; the law binds a person for life and their children after them. That difference is the distinction between indentured servitude and hereditary racial slavery.

One rule from Week 1 matters most here. Contextualization explains why lawmakers wrote these laws, such as planters' demand for labor. It never excuses them. Placing a law in its time helps you understand it. It does not make the law less cruel.

Misconception check. Students often think enslavement in the colonies was always based on race, from the first day. That is tempting, because colonial law did come to tie slavery to race. But the record shows the law moving step by step: making slavery lifelong, making it pass through the mother, and tying it to African descent. The cure is change and continuity: ask what the law said at each point, not only where it ended up.

6. Read the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina

Picture the founders of a new company writing its rulebook before the first employee is hired. The rulebook shows what the owners wanted the company to be. It does not tell you what working there was like.

The week's document is a rulebook of that kind for a whole colony. A frame of government is a written plan that sets out who holds power in a colony and how it is to be governed. The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina are a colonial frame of government made by the Lords Proprietors, the men to whom the English king granted the province of Carolina. This is the week's Primary Source Workshop document.

Worked example — the four moves on the Fundamental Constitutions. Take the moves in order.

Sourcing: the Lords Proprietors made it; it is a colonial frame of government; the Avalon Project keeps the text, which is dated 1 March 1669 in the Avalon Project's heading.
Sourcing, continued: Avalon's notes, printed with the text from Thorpe's 1909 compilation, say the form of government was framed by John Locke and amended by the Earl of Shaftesbury. They record that a different article, Ninety-six, on public maintenance of the Church of England, was inserted by some of the proprietors against Locke's judgment. The notes do not say who drafted the slavery article.
Contextualization: the document comes 50 years after 1619, because 1669 − 1619 = 50, in the same decades when colonial laws were making slavery hereditary and racial.
Close reading: the pinned fragment, from article One hundred and ten, reads:

"Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever."

Close reading, continued: "absolute power and authority" names total control. The closing words, "of what opinion or religion soever", mean the power held whatever the enslaved person believed or practiced, so a change of religion changed nothing under this article. The fragment uses the language of its time; the course quotes it only to read the document and never adopts that language.
Corroboration: set it beside this week's account of colonial law. The article fits the pattern of law building slavery over decades, written into a colony's founding plan.

The reading in one plain sentence: the Fundamental Constitutions show that Carolina's proprietors wrote enslavers' absolute power into the colony's frame of government; they are evidence of what the proprietors planned and permitted, not of the lives or views of the people they enslaved.

Misconception check. Students often think that because Avalon's notes name a famous author for the form of government, he must have written every article, the slavery article included. That is tempting, because a famous name feels like an answer. But the notes say only who framed and amended the form, and that a different article was added against his judgment. They do not say who drafted article One hundred and ten. The cure is sourcing: say exactly what the notes say, and no more.

Caveat: a frame of government is a plan. It tells you what its makers wrote into law, not how every person in Carolina lived.

7. Name the First Great Awakening

Think of a speaker who fills a field instead of a hall, and a crowd that leaves arguing about what they heard. Some people feel changed. Others think the whole thing went too far. Moments like that can shake who holds authority in a community.

The First Great Awakening was a wave of religious revivals in the British colonies in the 1730s and 1740s that emphasized personal conversion and challenged established clergy. The course dates it by decade, in words, and asks you to memorize no single year for it.

Why does it belong in a week on colonial society? It shows a society changing from within. Revivals asked ordinary people to judge their own faith, and that challenged the standing of the established ministers who had led their churches.

Misconception check. Students often think colonial religion was one fixed, unchanging church. That is tempting, because many colonies had an established church. But the revivals of the 1730s and 1740s divided congregations and challenged established clergy. The cure is to date the change by decade and ask who gained or lost authority.

Pause and choose one: (a) Name one way a revival that challenged established clergy might change how people in a town thought about authority. (b) Name one kind of primary source a historian might use to learn how ordinary people experienced a revival, and say what it could not show.

8. Sort the evidence and order the years

Imagine you are building a picture of a colonial town from what survived. A shopkeeper's ledger tells you what was sold. A person's own memory of being enslaved tells you what no ledger would record. Each source answers a different question.

The course's source-sorting set is illustrative: written for this course, it describes no real document. Two of its items fit this week.

Worked example — sorting two sources about colonial society. Sort each item for a question about the period it comes from.

Item 5, a merchant's account book from a Charleston shop, 1774 to 1776: kept at the time, so it is primary for a question about colonial trade.
Item 12, an oral account recorded in the 1930s from a person born into slavery: primary for that person's own experience, read with the gap in time in mind. An oral account is a spoken account of a person's own experience, recorded by someone else.
Count: both items are primary, so 2 + 0 = 2 primary sources and no secondary source this week. Across the whole set of twelve items the count is 7 primary and 5 secondary, so 7 + 5 = 12.

Now connect the sorting to the workshop document. The Fundamental Constitutions speak in the proprietors' voice. Accounts like item 12 are where historians look for the voices of enslaved people themselves.

Worked example — ordering the week's years. Put the five years in order and measure the gaps.

Order, earliest to latest: 1606 (the First Charter of Virginia), 1607 (the founding of Jamestown), 1619 (the Africans brought to Virginia, as the National Park Service reports), 1620 (the Mayflower Compact), and 1669 (the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, dated in Avalon's heading).
Gaps: 1607 − 1606 = 1 year; 1619 − 1607 = 12 years; 1620 − 1619 = 1 year; 1669 − 1620 = 49 years.
Span: the latest year minus the earliest year is 1669 − 1606 = 63 years.
Check: the four gaps add back to the span, 1 + 12 + 1 + 49 = 63 years.

In words: the arrival of 1619 and the Mayflower Compact of 1620 came one year apart, in the same colonial world. The Carolina frame came 49 years after the Compact.

Misconception check. Students often think a source recorded long after the events, like an oral account from the 1930s, cannot be a primary source. That is tempting, because it was recorded generations later. But it is the teller's own account of their own experience, so it is primary for that experience. The cure is to read it with the gap in time in mind, the same way you would read a memoir.

Key terms

Indentured servitude — labor for a fixed term of years under a contract, after which the servant was free. (first used: 2. Define indentured servitude: a contract with an end date)
Term of years — the fixed length of an indentured servant's contract. (first used: 2. Define indentured servitude: a contract with an end date)
Atlantic slave trade — the trade that forcibly carried captive Africans across the Atlantic to be sold into slavery in the Americas. (first used: 4. Face the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage)
Middle Passage — the forced Atlantic crossing of captive Africans to the Americas. (first used: 4. Face the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage)
Hereditary — passed from parent to child; in colonial slave law, passed through the mother. (first used: 5. Trace how law made slavery hereditary and racial)
Hereditary racial slavery — enslavement for life, inherited by children through the mother and tied by law to African descent. (first used: 5. Trace how law made slavery hereditary and racial)
Frame of government — a written plan that sets out who holds power in a colony and how it is to be governed. (first used: 6. Read the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina)
Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina — the colonial frame of government made by the Lords Proprietors, dated 1 March 1669 in the Avalon Project's heading. (first used: 6. Read the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina)
Lords Proprietors — the men to whom the English king granted the province of Carolina. (first used: 6. Read the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina)
First Great Awakening — a wave of religious revivals in the British colonies in the 1730s and 1740s that emphasized personal conversion and challenged established clergy. (first used: 7. Name the First Great Awakening)
Oral account — a spoken account of a person's own experience, recorded by someone else. (first used: 8. Sort the evidence and order the years)

Summary

The colonial regions used labor differently; the Chesapeake and the Lower South came to rely on enslaved Africans.
Indentured servitude was labor for a term of years, after which the servant was free.
The National Park Service reports "20 and odd" Africans brought to Virginia in 1619; racial slavery was not complete that year.
The Middle Passage was the forced Atlantic crossing of captive Africans; most went to the Caribbean and South America.
Colonial law made slavery lifelong, inherited through the mother, and tied to African descent over decades.
The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina gave every freeman absolute power over the people he enslaved.
The First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s challenged established clergy.
Contextualization explains a source; it never excuses what the source describes.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative apprentice in a print shop signs on at age 15 for a term of 6 years. At what age does the term end, and does the contract bind the apprentice's future children?
An illustrative town's records hold three dated papers, from 1702, 1715, and 1741. Find the span from the first to the last, and the gap between each pair in order.
A classmate says, "Slavery in Virginia was fully in place the day the first Africans arrived." Use this chapter to correct the claim in two sentences.
A historian finds a church's membership book from the 1740s and a magazine article about revivals written in 2019. Sort each as primary or secondary for a question about revivals in the 1740s, and give the reason.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

The term ends at 15 + 6 = 21, so the apprentice goes free at 21. The contract binds only the person who signed it, so it says nothing about future children. That is the mark of servitude for a term of years, as opposed to a status passed to children.
The span is 1741 − 1702 = 39 years. The gaps are 1715 − 1702 = 13 years and 1741 − 1715 = 26 years. Check: 13 + 26 = 39, so the gaps add back to the span.
The National Park Service reports that captive Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619, but colonial laws made slavery lifelong, inherited through the mother, and tied to African descent only over the following decades. So 1619 marks an arrival, not a finished legal system.
The membership book was kept during the 1740s, so it is primary for that question. The 2019 article is a later account that interprets the period, so it is secondary. The test is when the source was made, not how official or how recent it feels.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week The Road to Revolution turns from labor and law to taxation and representation, the rule colonists said Parliament broke.

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