Helping the Poor Whites in the Book, American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan

American Slavery, American Freedom was written by Edmund S. Morgan, a professor at Yale University, who was born in 1916 and studied with very well-known professors at Harvard. The book is broken down into four sections: early English colonization, the beginning of a stable colony in Virginia, the indentured servant class and African slaves as a permanent labor.

The first book Morgan talks about the relationship between the English colonists and the American Indians who inhabited the land previously. The issues between the two groups started when The Virginia Company refused to rely on the Indians for any help living on this new land and when the king gave all of the “power” to The Virginia Company, they still fought on having the Indians involved even as slaves. This lead to an extreme labor shortage within the growing colony. After the colony developed a new form of liberal government, the king took the power back from The Virginia Company and gave it to the colony itself, which decreased mortality rates, increased tobacco production and showed a great increase in wealth of the people.

The second book focuses on the changing ways of the colony as they were released from the powers of the company and introduced to powers of the colony. As tobacco production decreased, Virginians began to consider the colony to be “home” and not just a temporary stop on their journey. At this time the Virginia assembly was trying to gain back their control under the king, however the king was not having it; those who were living in the colony found ways to get around the ideas that the did not want to be involved with. This part of the book finished out by explaining that by 1650 there were less than 500 black slaves in the colony, introducing ...

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...and increasing the attention and wealth from the wealthy class of the colony. He felt that the appearance of slavery within the colony was creating a class system that was holding back the creation of the colony in a positive way. When slavery was nonexistent, the colonies would flourish much better than they were at the current time.

American Slavery, American Freedom was a great book written by an author who wanted people to see the real truths of slavery and the idea of freedom within the colony. There have been many people who have disagreed with his writings, but many people have agreed with his statements as well. There were some sections of the book that seemed like he was straying off the path of slavery and freedom, but it did provide some great knowledge for those who were reading about the creation of the colony and the existence of servants and slaves.