In “The Metaphysics of Labor in John Donne’s Sermon to the Virginia Company” by Thomas Festa, Festa argues that Donne’s sermon to the Virginia Company presents his “theoretical abstractions about the redemptive value of work” in “stark contrast with the realities of the labor” (77). Festa claims that this conflict between Donne’s beliefs and the reality of the situation leads to Donne’s crafting of “metaphoric ‘conversions,’” in which “the argument for redeeming the failed colonial venture centers on metaphysical conceit” (77). However, Festa asserts that since influential leaders of the Virginia Company ask Donne to print his sermon, it is well-received by them, “despite the sermon’s explicit opposition to the company’s profit motive” (78). Festa states that, “Donne’s sermon to the Virginia Company records the contradictory effort of a religious man trying to persuade imperialists that adopting a humane attitude toward a native population is the best way to foster an economic structure of deepening exploitation” (78). Festa contends that Donne also uses this sermon to provide a “justification of enforcing labor” which “encodes a specifically Protestant of cultural …show more content…
Festa refers to the works of Reverend Richard Hakluyt to describe the nature of the laborers, who are “idle men ‘having no meanes of labour,’” which leads to his claim that they are “purging the English commonwealth” of these men (81). In regard to the financial motivation for this venture, Festa asserts that “Donne explicity asks the investors in the Virginia plantation to eschew immediate financial profit on behalf of the greater interest of the king’s religious and political goals”
Holton, Woody. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1999. 231. Print.
During his time as an indentured servant, Moraley would travel to the countryside for jobs and would describe that “ Almost every inhabitant, in the Country, have a plantation … where Gentlemen live on the Labour of the Farmer, to whom he grants a short Lease, which expiring, is raised in his Rent, or discharged him Farm.” 7 Colonial America was known for its plantation economy and as described here the gentlemen Moraley refers to live off of the labor of tenant farms, along with servants and slaves as well. Moraley uses the word “gentlemen” to invoke a tone of elitism that the plantation owner embodies. The plantation owner maybe using farmers as his tenants but he still has overbearing power on them because of the farmer’s predicament. The predicament, in this case, is that the farmer has nowhere else to turn to rather than what is essential in an agriculture-based economy, and therefore has to be willing to be under the supervising control of a landowner. This shows the advantages that many affluent landowners, masters, and elites can get since they have an abundance of what the servant, farmer, or poor laborer desires and therefore can subsequently use it for their own capitalistic
...gro Slavery tried to influence the reader all too much. Instead, Stampp preferred to let the statistics and anecdotes tell the tale which allowed both scholars and non-scholars to draw their own conclusions based upon the evidence presented. Because of this, The Peculiar Institution is an invaluable source of information regarding both the institute of slavery as well as southern culture during the ante-bellum period. Personal anecdotes as well as impersonal plantation records solidify this work as an important piece of research that seeks to present the realities of slavery to a modern audience. This impersonal presentation provides a more scholarly approach to a long sensitive topic of debate in the United States. It serves as a reminder to the modern generation of the horrors of slavery and seeks to debase the romantic notion of the paternalistic slave holder.
Hammond’s voice was very loud when it came to the issue of slavery. He was not ashamed to let everyone know how much he supported it. In 1831, Hammond became the owner of a cotton plantation called Silver Bluff. There were 147 slaves at Silver Bluff when Hammond arrived to take possession of it. They were eager to meet their new master. “Hammond had acquired seventy-four females and seventy-three males, a population with a median age of twenty-five. He would certainly have noted that forty-six, nearly a third of these slaves, were not yet fifteen, too young to be much use in the fields but a good foundation for a vigorous future labor force. Undoubtedly, too, he observed that sixty-four of the slaves were between fifteen and forty-five, the prime work years. These were the individuals upon whom Hammond would rely to plant, cultivate, and harvest the cotton and corn that would generate most of his yearly income” (Faust, 71). The rest were older slaves that couldn’t really do a lot of hard labor in the field, but they could do chores that didn’t require such demanding work ethics like watching over the children whose parents are out working in the fields.
Plans are revealed to, “hold a separate service on Sundays for [the slaves’] benefit,” in which pointed sermons were to be delivered to the slaves (Jacobs 57-58). One such sermon is inherently accusatory and meant to instill fear in its slave audience. Statements such as “God is angry with you,” “You tell lies”. God hears you,” and “God sees you and will punish you” serve to foster a sense of guilt and fear within the slaves, casting disobedience in any form as an affront against God, one that merits divine punishment (Jacobs 58). The sermon creates an emotional tie to profitable slave behavior – obedience stemming from fear – which it goes on to enforce as the will of God: “If you disobey your earthly Master,” the preacher claims, “you offend your heavenly Master” (Jacobs 58).
Virginia in 1676 was a colony in turmoil. For a number of years the popularity of Governor Sir William Berkeley had suffered, especially among smaller farmers and those living on the edge of the frontier. Issues of complaint included land ownership, requirements on voting rights, high taxes, low tobacco prices, restrictive Navigation Acts, and, most importantly, lack of protection from attacks waged by Native Americans. Berkeley’s attempts to negotiate peace with the Native Americans caused him to avoid confronting violations of treaty obligations for fear of making the situation worse. As a result, as a greater percentage of the white population began to infiltrate Indian lands, more and more Virginians, especially unemployed colonists who had formerly been indent...
John Rolfe played a major role in history in 1614 when he found a way to harvest tobacco. The tobacco crop is what restored Jamestown, Virginia and it would not exist today without this cash crop. Restoring Jamestown is not the only significance the tobacco crop holds; it is also responsible for the early stages of slavery. Since tobacco became the cash crop of Virginia, it was more in demand. There was a shortage of laborers to plant and harvest the tobacco crop and as a result settlers were unable to meet the European quota for tobacco. Since it was increasing in demand more laborers were needed to maintain these large plantations ; therefore more indentured servants were needed. The higher the demand for tobacco, the higher demand for laborers. Company agents advertised a few years of labor bondage and exchange would receive a new and better life in America. In 1619, the first Africans came to Jamestown. They came...
He was a man whose very words struck fear into the hearts of his listeners. Acknowledged as one of the most powerful religious speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what was the reaction to his teachings? In order to understand these questions one must look at his life and works to understand how he was successful. In his most influential sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards’ persuasive language awakened the religious fervor that lay dormant in colonial Americans and made him the most famous puritan minister of the Great Awakening in North America.
...adiction to American religious ideals of pure, peaceable and impartial conduct. In being a devout man Master Thomas would convert many in the name of the church. His home even became the home of preachers to hold meetings and sermons. Nevertheless, this did not change his demeanor towards his slaves. For all his pious actions, inside Thomas was a vicious man who whipped, beat, and disowned his slaves in a warp sense of duty to the church and god, “Here was a recently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, and at the same time turning out her helpless child, to starve and die!”
In the 17th century, England was late when it came to the colonization of the new world. Which went through many changes before it was able to test the waters, forming the first settlements in the mid-Atlantic, Virginia. Under the guise of a noble mission given to them by King James I, the Virginia Company funded the first Colonies in Virginia. Years later, after perfecting their skills at surviving this new land, colonies in the south, Carolina were formed. These two regions both had their share of challenges, but they overcame them in different ways. Each had a method of doing things by force or from trial and error. The world in 1606 was very different than the world of today, but this is a story based on the
Early English settlers in the lower Chesapeake Bay region learned to cultivate tobacco from the Native Americans and it would prove to have profound influence in the development of Chesapeake society and the colonies of Virginia and Maryland as a whole. Between 1627 and 1669, annual tobacco exports climbed from 250,000 pounds to more than 15 million pounds. (p39. The American Journey). The Chesapeake region became the New World’s largest producer of tobacco. Since tobacco was a labour intensive crop to cultivate, the planters sought indentured servants from England as a source of cheap labour. However many servants died in alarming numbers from disease as a result from the supply of indentured servants declined, and larger planters who were wealthy managed to buy slaves. Slave population increased rapidly from 1,708 in 1660 to 189,000 in 1760. (Smith, Billy G., and Nash. Encyclopedia of American History).
“The ‘Blessings’ of a Slave,” in Kennedy, David M. and Thomas A. Bailey. The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by Contemporaries. Vol. I: To 1877. Eleventh Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Cotton Mather and John Woolman were two men who had very passionate ideas for the slaves. “Negro Christianized” written by Cotton Mather was an appeal to the slave owners to convert their slaves to Christianity. He primarily focuses on the idea that slaveholders should treat the slaves with dignity and respect along with converting them to Christianity. In John Woolman’s work “Some Considerations On Keeping of Negroes,” he talks about how slavery was detrimental to the slaves and the slave holder. He illustrated through his own conduct the principles of compassion and good will that formed the central message of his itinerant ministry.
...ve in Virginia did not mean immigrants were free from its rule. Upon departing England, those leaving would take an “oath of allegiance and supremacy” (Virginia Ship’s List). This meant that the people owed their loyalty to the monarch of England, not to Virginia itself. The colonists of Virginia could have been frustrated that their head official was chosen by a single person, a person who had no place within their community. In fact, Berkeley, the governor the monarch of England elected, “brought high taxes on the people, increased his power at the expense of local officials and created a monopoly on Indian trade” (Divine, 85). This abuse of power is possibly one of the causes of rebellions, specifically Bacon’s rebellion. This republic government leading the Virginia Colony was an increasingly stark contrast to the Massachusetts’ Colony’s democratic government.
Times of religious upheaval and need for urbanization following the Renaissance gave rise to the production of lavish artworks during the Baroque era in Italy. Characterized by intense emotion and dynamism, Baroque art reflected the power of Roman antiquity but typified the renewed piety of Roman Catholics. The opulent urbanization projects patronized by the church culminated in the verisimilitude of Baroque paintings. One painting that reflects such change is Saint John the Baptist Preaching by Mattia Preti, also known as Il Calabrese. Preti was born in 1613 in Taverna, Calabria to a modest family with ecclesiastical connections. Preti was well traveled around Italy and was exposed to artworks from the likes of Correggio, Mantegna, and Raphael. As with other artists during the Baroque era, his oil painting of St. John the Baptist Preaching executed in 1665 has a distinct Caravagesque style. It exemplifies Italian Baroque art through his dramatic, lively presentation of his subject, extreme attention to naturalism, and monumental composition.