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Difficulty: MediumChesapeake and Southern Colonies

"Our crop of tobacco, by the blessing of God, is very large this year, but we are in great want of hands to gather and cure it. If you can send me three or four healthy English servants by the next ship, I shall gladly pay their passage and provide them with meat, drink, and apparel, as is the custom here. The labor is hard, but the soil is rich, and a man who works his term of years may look forward to his own plantation in time, though many die before their terms are run."

— Letter from a Virginia colonist to a merchant in London, 1642

Which of the following developments in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake region is best explained by the conditions described in the excerpt?

  1. A
    The immediate implementation of lifelong, hereditary chattel slavery as the primary source of agricultural labor from the colony's founding
  2. B
    The creation of close-knit, family-based communities centered on subsistence farming and religious conformity
  3. The growth of an agricultural economy centered on a single cash crop that initially relied on contract labor before transitioning to racial slaveryAnswer
  4. D
    The development of a highly diversified economy focused on manufacturing and direct colonial trade with European rivals

Answer

The growth of an agricultural economy centered on a single cash crop that initially relied on contract labor before transitioning to racial slavery
The correct option describes the transition from indentured servitude to racial slavery in a tobacco-dominated agricultural economy. The excerpt highlights the labor-intensive cultivation of tobacco and the initial reliance on English servants who worked for a 'term of years' in exchange for passage. As the century progressed, economic and social changes led to a transition toward enslaved African labor.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus document for key historical details.
The document, written in Virginia in 1642, references the tobacco crop, the need for labor ('hands'), the importation of English servants, and the promise of land after a term of service, alongside high mortality ('though many die before their terms are run').
Identifying the crop (tobacco) and labor force (indentured servants) establishes the geographic and economic context of the Chesapeake colonies.
2
Evaluate the historical trends of the Chesapeake colonies in the seventeenth century based on these details.
The demand for tobacco labor drove the growth of indentured servitude, but social unrest (like Bacon's Rebellion) and a decline in English servant migration eventually led planters to rely on enslaved Africans.
This links the short-term conditions described in the source to the long-term structural changes in the region's labor system.
3
Assess the options to find the development best explained by these conditions.
The option describing a single-crop agricultural economy that transitioned from contract labor (indentured servants) to racial slavery directly aligns with this historical trajectory.
This selects the option that accurately reflects both the stimulus's emphasis on tobacco and servants, and the broader historical shift toward chattel slavery.

Key Concept

Chesapeake and Southern Colonies
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Topics

Chesapeake and Southern Colonies

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