Race and Ethnicity in Colonial America

1. Race and Ethnicity in Colonial America Prof. Alamillo CES 101: 06 Spring 2008

3. “Pays d’en haut”: Great Lakes area as “middle ground”

4. English-Indian Relations before 1800 Dealing with the “Indian Problem” Indians as “Noble Savages” Different views about land ownership Indian trading and creation of “middle ground” Rise of Indian Wars and forced removal

5. European-African Relations before 1800 • Colonial America was a multi-racial society • Did race exist in the 17th Century? • British Exploration or Capitalistic Venture? • No Silver or Gold, But Found Tobacco • Indian Resistance to Enslaved labor • Slavery vs. Indentured Servitude • Which came first? Slavery or race

7. Jamestown, Virginia, Founded 1607

11. Bacon’s Rebellion, 1675-1676 This rebellion started out against Native Americans but wound up as a rebellion against the colonial elites of Virginia. • Most significant is the fact that the rebels took up arms together without the slightest regard for each other’s complexion.They id not accept any social partition of themselves into “white” and “black” in fact, the “white identity” did not yet exist. • After Bacon's Rebellion was put down a series of laws were passed that “divide and conquer” whites and blacks making it more difficult to form interracial alliances • Laws: people of African descent are hereditary slaves. And they increasingly give some power to white independent white farmers and land holders. • Edmund Morgan: Bacon's Rebellion gave birth to both black slavery and American freedom

13. Spanish-Indian Relations before 1800 • European Settlement in America did not begin with the Plymouth Rock in 1620, but with St. Augustine, Florida founded in 1563. • Unlike the British colonists the Spanish government sought to incorporate Indians in Spanish colonial society (mission system)  • Spanish conquest with sword and the cross (Christianization of Indians) • Intermarriage between Indians, Spaniards and Africans created a mestizo population