![]() Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. Unlike the House of Commons in England, the House of Burgesses was a truly popular institution, with “no legal restrictions on voting in Virginia until 1670” (145). Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. SLAVERY AND REVOLUTION: THE CONSCIENCE OF THE RICH The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770-I823. ![]() Virginia’s big farmers had more sway in the colony than the king and increased the House of Burgesses’s power by refusing the governor the right to levy taxes without their consent. Other industries also emerged, but tobacco remained “too lucrative” to compete with other ventures (141).īy the 1650s, Virginians “began to look upon their raw new land as a home” (143). Pasture farming became profitable, and cattle and swine were introduced. Still, the population increased, reaching 25,000 by 1660, up from 1,300 in 1625. Morgan’s argument is presented across four books, each of which deals with a specific period in Virginia’s colonial history, focusing primarily on the 17th century. But the king wanted the colony to diversify the economy, so the assembly instituted a per-person tobacco production limit. The history of colonial Virginia, then, is the key to discovering the how and why of the marriage between slavery and freedom. ![]() Counties, led by a commander, had their own criminal and civil authority. As the price of tobacco fell, the assembly tried to “legislate the boom back into existence” (134) by introducing new local government, the county. ![]()
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