Racism’s Roots in Colonial Virginia’s Tobacco Economy
Following the money
In the early 17th century, the English settlers in Virginia had a problem. From the beginning, there were two major European settlements in what would become the United States: the Massachusetts Bay Colony growing from its humble beginnings in Plymouth, and the Virginia Colony centered around Jamestown. Despite the fact that the climate of Massachusetts, with its long hard winters, seemed harsher, the death rate for European settlers was much higher in Virginia than in its northern counterpart.
It was already hard enough to get Europeans to sail across the Atlantic to settle here. Just think of your reaction if a company offered to ship you to Mars. You might just die on the perilous journey there, and if you survive the trip, you would spend the rest of your life toiling there. Upon your arrival, you would be faced with an inhospitable environment totally foreign to anything in your prior experience. But for a few lucky ones, hard work could result in prosperity, the kind of opportunity that was in short supply in your current home. That was the nature of the proposition being offered to potential settlers.
Our lore has it that early settlers came here to escape religious persecution. That was indeed the motivator for the early Plymouth settlers. But in reality, most…
