Myths of American History 2

America has always been ’sold’ to the world as the land of opportunity. As a place of equality and freedom, as if this ‘virgin‘ land was simply waiting for settlers.

The area which would become the United States was not empty land. There were thousands of Indians residing in every ’state’. To maintain the peace, treaties were formed to demarcate the land between settlers and the Native population.

Indentured labourers were the work force. They were brought across the Atlantic, worked for the period of their indenture, then were given a piece of land and supplies.

The first twenty Africans brought to Jamestown were treated as Indentured Labourers, not slaves. After a period of about five years, they were freed and given land.

This treatment of Africans changed in 1654 when Anthony Johnson, himself one of those twenty Africans, petitioned the court to have one of his indentured Africans declared a slave, not a servant.

In winning the case, Johnson provoked a new treatment of the African as slave.

Slavery contra Indentured labour was desirable to the leadership as there was not enough land available to insure each indentured servant gained a piece after completion of their period of bondage.  This lack of land for those who had worked so hard for so many years caused problems.  Many of the ex-indentured labourers journeyed into ‘Indian Territory’ . They captured and built  on land that by Treaty was granted to the Indians. This led to skirmishes and deaths.

Seeking to avoid further conflict, Governor Berkeley of Virginia proposed the construction of fortifications along the frontier. This would clearly demark the border, making it difficult for settlers to plead that they inadvertently encroached on Indian land.  To avoid limiting the land white settlers could grab, Berkeley’s plan was rejected an excuse to raise tax rates.

Farmers from surrounding counties gathered and formed an expedition against the Indians, electing Bacon as leader. Berkeley removed Bacon from the governing council and arrested him. Bacon’s men secured his release and forced Berkeley to hold legislative elections.

The recomposed House of Burgesses enacted a number of sweeping reforms. It limited the powers of the governor and restored suffrage rights to landless freemen.

On July 30, 1676, Bacon and his army issued a Declaration of the People of Virginia, demanding that Indians in the area be killed or removed. They launched an attack on the Pamunkey Indians who had not participated in raids against settlers.

After months of conflict between the Governor and Bacon’s forces, the colonial capital Jamestown was burnt to the ground on September 19, 1676.

Shortly after, Bacon died from dysentery and John Ingram took over leadership of the rebellion. Berkeley’s forces won, seized the property of several rebels and hung 23 of them.

Bacon’s Rebellion convinced tobacco planters who needed laborers, to go for enslaved Africans instead of indentured servants.

Indians did not randomly attack settlers. The settlers encroached on land that was by Treaty given to the Indians.  America was no land of opportunity for indentured labourers who were promised land after seven years hard labour, because there was no land to give them.

African slavery was not ‘necessary’ because white men couldn’t do the work, as Australia has proven.  Slavery was ‘necessary’ to avoid too large an underclass which would provoke warfare with the Indians.

In the North, wage ’slavery’ was far more economical. Persons would be employed, paid, and have to find their own amenities.

Apprenticeship was a form of slavery, in which a person was sold to a Master for training and continued to work for him and be supported by him until such time he was deemed Master of the trade. Blacks and whites were apprenticed. As late as 1860 there was a population of black ‘permanent’ apprentices in New Jersey. In New Jersey which was not a slave state.  Andrew Johnson, the 17th President of the United States, had been apprenticed to a tailor until he ran away.

Hence, The United States, land of the free, was built on the exploitation of workers.  Whether they were Europeans tricked into signing themselves in slavery as Indentured Labourers in expectation of getting land, whether they were ‘apprentices’ learning trade until the day they died forced to work for a ‘Master’, or whether they were Africans, captured and sold as cattle.