Exam 3: The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century 1601-1700

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Illegitimacy of King James's Grant: James I granted the Virginia Company six million acres for settlement in the New World in 1606. Spain had already laid claim to the land in 1494 under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Spain's claim was still technically in effect in 1606, which made James's grant illegitimate.
Virginia Company Goals: The investors in the Virginia Company, a joint stock company, claimed that creating a colony in Virginia would provide work for poor Englishmen, create a new market for English goods, supply products that England had been importing from other nations, and provide economic benefits to the monarchy and the company's investors. Despite its many failures, the company's charter did inaugurate the House of Burgesses, an assembly of representatives elected by the colony's white male inhabitants, which was the first example of a representative legislative assembly in the English colonies.
Conversion to Royal Colony: King James revoked the Virginia Company's charter in 1624 after an investigation of affairs in Virginia revealed that the appalling mortality there was caused more by disease and mismanagement than by Indian raids. The new charter made Virginia a royal colony, subject to the direction of the royal government rather than the Virginia Company's private investors.

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Characteristics of Indentured Servitude: Indentured servants-poor English people who contracted to provide four to seven years of their labor in exchange for passage to Virginia-formed the bulk of the labor force in Virginia until the 1670s.To obtain a servant's labor,a planter paid transportation costs and agreed to provide the servant with food and shelter during the term of indenture.When the indenture expired,the planter then owed the former servant freedom dues,which generally consisted of a few barrels of corn and a suit of clothes.Planters expected servants to grow enough tobacco in one year to cover his costs,so that the remaining years of the servant's labor would be pure profit.Planters also received 50 acres of land from the colonial government for every new servant they purchased.
Conditions Underlying Indentured Servitude: The system of indentured servant labor flourished because tobacco crops required a great deal of labor but brought a high income;there was an abundance of poor Englishmen who wanted to come to Virginia for new opportunities and therefore no shortage of labor;conditions in Virginia were so poor that many servants did not survive their period of indenture,thus allowing for a constant flow of new labor without overpopulation;and there was a great deal of cheap land available for the few newly freed servants who did survive their indenture and wanted to break out on their own.
Effects of Indentured Servitude on the Chesapeake: Indentured servitude had a strong impact on the makeup of Chesapeake society.Most of the people contracting as indentured servants were young men,which created large age and gender imbalances in the region.Planters' hunger for labor caused them to demand as much work as they could get from their servants.They put strict laws in place to keep them from running away and devised legal ways to extend their periods of servitude.Planters also put special restrictions on female servants,prohibiting them from marrying and punishing them for giving birth to children while they were servants,which perpetuated the gender imbalance.