In Episode 3 of Star-Spangled Studies, Dr. G dives into how the English colonies evolved from fragile footholds into brutal slave societies and fierce defenders of liberty. We cover:

• The rise of race-based chattel slavery and the Middle Passage horrors
• Legal codification of hereditary bondage and the invention of “race” in law
• Atlantic-world turmoil: Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution
• New proprietary colonies: Carolina’s feudal dreams versus Pennsylvania’s “Holy Experiment"
• King Philip’s War, Bacon’s Rebellion, the Pueblo Revolt, and Salem Witch Trials
• How slavery and liberty emerged side-by-side to forge distinct colonial identities

🔗 Resources & Links

• Instagram: @star_spangled_studies
• Facebook: Star-Spangled Studies Page

Perfect for U.S. history students, educators, and lifelong learners.

Historian Dr. G examines the brutal evolution of race-based slavery, the codification of racial law, and the simultaneous birth of a fierce English-colonial attachment to liberty. From the Middle Passage to King Philip’s War, Bacon’s Rebellion to the Glorious Revolution, discover how conflict and conviction shaped the 17th-century British American world.

Keywords: U.S. History podcast, American Yawp podcast, British North America, race-based slavery, Middle Passage, Bacon’s Rebellion, King Philip’s War, Glorious Revolution, Pennsylvania “Holy Experiment,” Carolina proprietors

Hello y'all.

2

It's me.

3

It's me.

4

It's Dr.

5

G, and welcome back to

Star-Spangled Studies.

6

Last time we watched as Spain's

rivals, the French, the Dutch,

7

and finally the English.

8

Jump into the race for

colonies in the Americas.

9

We saw how their different goals created

radically different colonial societies.

10

The French built a vast trading

empire based on mostly partnership.

11

With Native Americans in what was been

termed the middle ground, the Dutch

12

created a bustling tolerant commercial

hub in New Amsterdam, and the English

13

planted two very different colonial seeds.

14

A profit, hungry, chaotic settlement

in Jamestown, as well as a rigid

15

religious city on a hill in New England.

16

But these were just the beginnings.

17

The 17th century was an era

of violent, chaotic growth on

18

both sides of the Atlantic.

19

The English colonies were

not isolated outposts.

20

They were deeply entangled in these

larger Atlantic world issues, and they

21

were rocked by turmoil in both the mother

country as well as those within their

22

own internal conflicts in the Americas.

23

This was a century when the vague labor

arrangements of the early colonies.

24

Hardened into the brutal race-based

chattel slavery that would define

25

America for centuries to come.

26

It was a century of riot, rebellion

and revolt as colonists fought with

27

Native Americans with their governors.

28

I.

29

And with each other.

30

So today we're diving into that

chaotic century and we're going to ask

31

simple questions with complex answers.

32

How did the English colonies mature

from desperate footholds into

33

complex and violent societies?

34

How did two of the most consequential

forces in US history, race-based

35

slavery and a fierce attachment

to liberty, develop side by side?

36

This is the story of

British North America.

37

I.

38

How it was forged in that fire.

39

So let's go.

40

Do you understand the

story of the United States?

41

We have to understand the

story of United States slavery.

42

But it didn't arrive fully formed.

43

Slavery wasn't the same

throughout its entire history.

44

In the early 17th century, the line

between an indentured servant and an

45

enslaved person could often be blurry.

46

They were both unfree

laborers, both could be bought.

47

Sold.

48

But over the course of the 16 hundreds

49

leaders began to deliberately create

a new legal and social category.

50

One that was permanent, one that was

hereditary, and one that was based

51

on one thing and one thing only race.

52

The demand for labor, especially for

the profitable tobacco and later rice

53

and indigo plantations of the South

was insatiable when colonists enslaved

54

thousands of Native Americans, often

as a direct result of wars like the

55

Pequot War in Kings Phillips War, which

we'll get into the plantation economy.

56

Had not survived, and soon it

had to turn to a different labor

57

source, and this turned out to

be the transatlantic slave trade.

58

The journey across the Atlantic,

the middle passage, was a horror

59

of unimaginable proportions.

60

We are fortunate in the grim sense to

have the words of those who survived

61

it so we could fully understand it and

hear it in all its grotesque horror.

62

Laa Ano, who is kidnapped from his

home in West Africa as a boy, published

63

his narrative of this capture in 1789.

64

His first sight of a slave ship captures

the terror of that moment, quote.

65

The first object, which saluted my eyes

when I arrived on the coast was the sea.

66

And a slave ship, which was then riding

at anchor and waiting for its cargo.

67

These filled me with astonishment,

which was soon converted into terror.

68

When I was carried on board, I was

immediately handled and tossed up to

69

see if I were sound by some of the crew.

70

And I was now persuaded that I had

gotten into a world of bad spirits

71

and they were going to kill me.

72

The conditions were even worse

when you went below deck.

73

Alexander Falcon Bridge, a

surgeon who worked on slave

74

ships, described the scene there.

75

The men Negroes on being brought

aboard the ship were immediately

76

fastened together two by two

by handcuffs on their wrists.

77

By irons riveted on their legs.

78

They are then sent down between the

decks and placed in an apartment

79

partitioned off for that purpose.

80

The deck that is the floor of their

rooms was so covered with the blood

81

and mucus, which had proceeded from

them in consequence of the flux

82

that it resembled a slaughterhouse

83

between 1526 and 1867.

84

An estimated 12.5

85

million Africans were forced

onto ships like these.

86

Roughly 10.7

87

million survived while the vast

majority were taken to Brazil and

88

to the islands of the Caribbean.

89

Roughly 450,000 landed in British

North America with Charleston,

90

South Carolina becoming the leading

entry point on the mainland.

91

As the number of enslaved Africans

grew, colonial leaders, particularly

92

in Virginia, faced a problem.

93

How could they justify a system

of permanent hereditary bondage

94

in a society that was supposedly

built on English liberties?

95

Their solution was to invent a new logic.

96

The logic of race.

97

Write it into law.

98

The 1660s then wass a critical

turning point in this evolution.

99

Before 1660, an enslaved person

who converted to Christianity might

100

be able to sue for their freedom.

101

But in 1667, the Virginia Assembly slammed

the door on that loophole, passing a law

102

that declared, quote, the conferring of

baptism doth not alter the condition.

103

Of the person as to his

bondage or freedom end quote.

104

Perhaps the most significant and

devastating legal innovation came

105

in 1662 in English common law.

106

A child status followed that of the

father, but this created a problem

107

for slave holders who fathered

children with their enslaved women.

108

Would these children be free?

109

The Virginia Assembly provided a chilling

answer quote, whereas some doubts

110

have arisen whether children got by.

111

An English man upon a Negro woman

should be slave or free, be it therefore

112

enacted and declared by this present

grand assembly that all children

113

born in this country shall be held

bond or free only according to the

114

condition of the mother end quote.

115

This act was revolutionary.

116

It overturned centuries of English

precedent and made slavery A

117

hereditary condition passed down

through the maternal line, no longer

118

taking the status of one's father.

119

It also then legally incentivized the

rape of enslaved women by their masters as

120

their children would become more property,

more capital in their households.

121

Over the next few decades, a web of

laws was spun to create what historian

122

Ira Berlin calls a slave society.

123

And this is important because

124

turns into a slave society rather

than just a society with slaves.

125

In 1643, law made African women typable

or taxable, associating their labor with

126

hard agricultural work and distinguishing

them from white women who were ideally

127

confined to the domestic sphere.

128

1669 law declared that if a slave died

while resisting his master, the master

129

could not be charged with a felony.

130

By 1705, Virginia Law explicitly

stated that all negro mulatto and

131

Indian slaves shall be held, taken,

and ajudicated to be real estate.

132

End quote.

133

Essentially, they were now by 1705.

134

Property.

135

This is a crucial point for

us as students of history.

136

Race, as we understand it

is not a biological reality.

137

As this sh has shown, and I've

only shown you a few of the

138

laws, there were many more.

139

It was a social idea, law after

law, continuing to codify.

140

What was a slave and what was not?

141

What was considered black and

what was considered white.

142

And here in these Colonial court

records, we can watch it being

143

constructed brick by brick as one source.

144

Notes quote, race was never

just a matter of how you look.

145

It was about how people assign meaning.

146

To how you look in 17th century

Virginia, the planter class assigned

147

a devastating meaning to stem color,

to justify exploitation, and create

148

a permanent enslaved labor force.

149

While the colonies were forging

these new brutal social orders,

150

the mother country descended into

chaos for much of the 16 hundreds.

151

England was racked by intense

political and religious conflict.

152

Starting in the 1640s, a bloody civil war

erupted between the forces of Parliament

153

and King Charles, the first, who was seen

by many radical Protestants or Puritans as

154

being far too sympathetic to Catholicism.

155

The colonies reacted in different

ways, Virginia and Maryland, with

156

their Anglican planter elites.

157

Tended to sympathize with the crown,

the fiercely Puritan Massachusetts

158

Bay, on the other hand, favored the

parliament, but for the most part,

159

the colonies tried to remain neutral,

hoping to avoid being drawn into the

160

conflict on the other side of the ocean.

161

That all changed in 1649 when

Parliament did the unthinkable.

162

They executed the King England

was declared a republic a

163

commonwealth under the rule of the

Puritan General Oliver Cromwell.

164

Suddenly the colonies could no

longer stay on the sidelines.

165

Parliament arguing that the colonies

were quote, planted at the cost and

166

settled by the English nation end quote,

demanded their allegiance to a force.

167

Its will it passed the

168

This powerful piece of legislation

mandated that all goods shipped

169

to and from the colonies must be

transported on English ships and

170

that valuable enumerated, as they

called them, goods like tobacco

171

and sugar, could only be shipped to

England or to another English colony.

172

This was a direct shot at the

economies of the Dutch particularly.

173

England's chief commercial rival,

and it was the first major step in a

174

long process of tightening imperial

control over the colonial economies.

175

Now the monarchy was restored in 1660

with King Charles ii, but the turmoil

176

was far from over Charles II and his

brother, who would later succeed him.

177

James II continued to tighten

the screws on the colonies.

178

They passed more navigation

acts and created new bodies.

179

Like the Lords of trade and plantations

to oversee colonial affairs.

180

James II was an open and devout Catholic,

and particularly feared by his Protestant

181

subjects in both England and the Americas.

182

He took the Jurassic step of

consolidating the Northern Colonies,

183

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode

Island, New Hampshire, New York, and

184

New Jersey into a single mega colony.

185

Called the Dominion of New England.

186

He abolished their local assemblies and

placed them under the direct control

187

of Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros to

the colonists who had enjoyed a century

188

of so of significant self-government.

189

This was an act of tyranny.

190

And then in 1688 came the news that

sent shock waves across the Atlantic.

191

A group of English nobles, terrified of

a permanent Catholic dynasty, invited

192

the Dutch Prince William of Orange, who

married James's Protestant daughter Mary,

193

to invade England and seize the throne.

194

This was known as the glorious revolution.

195

It was a bloodless coup in England,

but in America it lit a fuse.

196

When the news of the

revolution reached Boston.

197

In April of 1689, the colonists rose up.

198

They arrested Governor Andros and

other officials and triumphantly,

199

overthrew the dominion of New England.

200

Similar rebellions erupted

in New York and Maryland.

201

The colonists declared their allegiance

to William and Mary framing their

202

actions, not as a rebellion against

England, but as a defense of their

203

fundamental rights as Englishmen against

the absolutism of the deposed king.

204

The glorious revolution had a

profound impact across the Atlantic.

205

It destroyed the dominion, restored

the individual colonial governments,

206

and reinforced a powerful idea

in the minds of the colonists.

207

Specifically that they were part

of a great Protestant Empire of

208

Liberty, and that they had the

right to resist a government that

209

infringed upon their freedoms.

210

It was a lesson they would not forget.

211

The turmoil in Britain didn't

stop the Colonial project.

212

It kept on rolling.

213

In fact, the restoration of the monarchy

214

King Charles ii eager to reward his

supporters and to pay off his debts.

215

Granted huge tracks of

American land to lo loyal.

216

Proprietors.

217

This led to the founding of a new

set of colonies, the Carolinas,

218

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and

the English takeover of New York.

219

The charter for Carolina, which

originally stretched from Virginia to

220

Florida, was granted to eight powerful

noblemen the Lord's proprietors.

221

Their vision for the colony was

something out of the Middle Ages.

222

With the help of philosopher John

Locke, they drafted the fundamental

223

Constitutions of Carolina, a bizarrely

complex document that tried to establish a

224

feudal society complete with a hereditary

nobility of land, graves and CZs.

225

Our sovereign Lord the king having

out of his royal grace and bounty

226

granted onto us, the province of

Carolina, for the better settlement

227

of the government of the said place.

228

We, the said lords and proprietors

have agreed to this following form of

229

government to be perpetually established

amongst us, onto which we will oblige

230

ourselves, our heirs and successors.

231

In the most binding ways that we can

be devised and quote, this futile

232

dream, of course, never came to pass.

233

The reality of Carolina was shaped by

something much more practical and brutal.

234

Many of its early settlers came from the

overcrowded English sugar plantation.

235

In Barbados, and they brought the

Barbadian model of colonization with them.

236

This meant large scale plantation

agriculture, empowered by enslaved black

237

labor from Africa to attract settlers.

238

The proprietors offered alluring

incentives, including large land

239

grants, 150 acres per family member,

a grant that explicitly included.

240

Enslaved people.

241

This created a society dominated

by a wealthy planter class who grew

242

rich off the cultivation of rice

and indigo worked by a massive and

243

growing enslaved African population.

244

In stark contrast to the Carolinas

stood Pennsylvania, the Holy

245

Experiment of William Penn.

246

Penn was a member of the Society of

Friends, better known as the Quakers,

247

a radical Protestant sect that believed

in passivism in social equality

248

and in inner light in every person.

249

He received a massive land grant

from King Charles II to settle a

250

debt the king owed to his father.

251

Penn envisioned his colony.

252

As a haven for those facing

religious persecution.

253

His 1701 Charter of Liberties

established a remarkable degree

254

of religious freedom for the time.

255

In his own words, quote, almighty,

God being the only Lord of conscious,

256

father of light and spirits, and

the author as well as object of all

257

divine knowledge, faith, and worship.

258

Who only does enlighten the

minds and persuade and convince

259

the understandings of people?

260

I hereby I do hereby grant and declare

that no person or persons inhabiting this

261

province or territories who shall confess

and acknowledge one almighty God shall

262

be, in any case, molested or prejudiced

because of his or their conscientious

263

persuasion or practice end quote.

264

Penn actively recruited settlers

from all over Europe and Pennsylvania

265

quickly became one of the most

diverse and prosperous colonies.

266

He also initially sought peaceful

relations with the local Lenny Le

267

Indians, famously acquiring land

through purchases rather than conquest.

268

However, this holy experiment was

not without its contradictions.

269

Slavery existed in Pennsylvania and it

was a deep source of unease for many

270

Passivist Quakers, who in 1688 issued a

the first formal protest against slavery

271

as an institution in American history.

272

And as the colony grew, the pressure for

land would lead Penn's own sons to abandon

273

his principles in coercive and fraudulent

deals like the infamous walking purchase

274

of 1737, as discussed in your textbook.

275

The 17th century was also an

age of staggering violence.

276

The English colonies were built on

a precarious foundation, and the

277

deep tension simmering within them

frequently erupted into open warfare.

278

King Phillips war was the fight to the

279

the colony exploded, not literally.

280

Figuratively speaking, the conflict.

281

King's Philip War was one of the deadliest

wars per capita in American history.

282

It was triggered by the relentless

pressure of English expansion

283

into Native American lands.

284

The Wampanoag leader MetCom, whom

the English called King Philip,

285

led a coalition of Native American

nations into a desperate last ditch

286

effort to drive the English out.

287

The war was horrifically

brutal on both sides.

288

Meta's forces attacked more than

half of New England's 90 towns.

289

The English in turn responding with

overwhelming force, culminating in events

290

like The Great Swamp Fight where they

attacked a massive Narragansett fort

291

and killed nearly a thousand people.

292

Most of them women and children.

293

The war ultimately broke the

back of Native American resistant

294

in Southern New England.

295

Thousands of Native Americans were

killed, and many of the survivor,

296

including Meta's own wife and son, were

sold into slavery in the West Indies.

297

The war left a deep and lasting legacy

of racial hatred that would poison

298

relations for generations to come.

299

As New England burned Virginia was

about to ignite into its own civil war.

300

This was Bacon's Rebellion in 1676.

301

A complex and confusing conflict.

302

This chaotic mix of a frontier

war against Native Americans and

303

a civil war between colonists.

304

Collided on one side was the

governor, sir William Barkley.

305

It's spelled Berkeley, but whatever.

306

He represented the interests of the

wealthy, the established tobacco

307

planters of the Tidewater region.

308

On the other was a man named Nathaniel

Bacon, a charismatic and ambitious

309

young planter who became the leader of a

frustrated coalition of landless frontier

310

settlers, as well as indentured servants.

311

Even enslaved Africans bacon and his

followers, this motley crew were furious

312

at Barclay's refusal to authorize a

full scale war to exterminate all Native

313

Americans on the frontier whom they

blame for a series of raids, as well

314

as a lack of land for bacon and others.

315

Bacon's forces decided to defy

the government and they attacked

316

both hostile and allied Native

American nations indiscriminately.

317

They then turned their

ire to the governor.

318

They marched on Jamestown.

319

They forced Barkley to flee, and they

burned the colonial capital to the ground.

320

The rebellion only collapsed because

bacon suddenly died of disease.

321

I.

322

But the legacy of the rebellion

is what's truly profound, and it

323

brings us back to this initial

question of race that we started.

324

Today's episode, historians argue that

Bacon's Rebellion was a pivotal moment

325

in the hardening of racial slavery.

326

The planter elite were terrified by the

sight of armed landless white servants.

327

Fighting alongside armed enslaved black

people to prevent such a cross racial

328

alliance from ever happening again.

329

They made a deliberate choice.

330

They began to pass more laws that gave

new rights and privileges to poor whites,

331

creating a common white identity defined.

332

By its opposition to a now even

more oppressed black population,

333

they accelerated the shift away from

white indentured servitude towards

334

exclusively a labor force that was

entirely African and entirely enslaved.

335

In the ashes of Jamestown, a new

social order was born, one built

336

on a racial bribe that secured the

power of the elite and entrenched

337

the system of chattel slavery.

338

While the English colonists were

fighting each other, the Spanish

339

Empire to the South experienced the

single most successful Native American

340

uprising in North American history.

341

In 1680, the Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico

United under a religious leader named Pope

342

Rose up against their Spanish colonizers.

343

For decades, the Spanish had brutally

suppressed Pueblo religious practices.

344

The revolt was a coordinated

and stunning success.

345

The Pueblo Warriors killed over 400

Spaniards, destroyed every Catholic church

346

in the region, and drove the Spanish

completely out of New Mexico for 12 years.

347

The Pueblo Revolt stands as a

powerful testament to indigenous

348

resistance and resilience.

349

And finally, no discussion of the

17th century would be complete

350

without mentioning the Salem witch

351

Village of Salem, Massachusetts

was consumed by a wave of paranoia.

352

And hysteria that led to the

execution of 20 people for witchcraft.

353

The trials were fueled by a perfect

storm of anxieties, the trauma of

354

the recent Indian wars, the political

instability after the glorious

355

revolution, local rivalries, the

introduction of slavery, and a genuine

356

belief in the power of the devil.

357

The accusations began with a group of

young women who claim to be affected

358

by a West Indian servant named

Tuba, and it quickly spiraled out of

359

control, a dark and tragic chapter

in the story of a city on a hill.

360

The 17th century was a

brutal foundational period.

361

The English colonies

were not born in peace.

362

They were forged in conflict out

of the desperate need for labor.

363

Colonial elites constructed a system

of race-based chattel slavery.

364

A system codified into law and built

on the horrors of the middle passage.

365

Out of the chaos of the Civil War and

revolution in England, the colonists

366

developed a fierce attachment to

their liberties as Englishmen in a

367

deep suspicion of centralized power.

368

And outta the violent clashes

with Native American nations

369

and the internal rebellions that

shook the colonies to their core.

370

A new, more complex and more

divided society began to

371

emerge by the 17 hundreds.

372

These were no longer

just tenuous outposts.

373

They were maturing societies

with unique religious cultures,

374

with unique economic ties.

375

And with unique political

traditions, they had survived a

376

century of desperation and war.

377

The very forces that shaped them in this

tumultuous century, the institution of

378

slavery and the ideology of liberty,

were now set on a collision course.

379

Next time on Star Spangled Studies,

we move into the 18th century.

380

We'll see how these colonies grow

and change how a wave of religious

381

revivalism known as the Great Awakening

sweeps through them and how they are

382

drawn ever deeper into the global

power struggles of the British Empire.

383

I.

384

This will forge a new American

identity, but it will also set them

385

on a different collision course.

386

This one with the mother country itself,

the road to the revolution is being

387

paved and you won't wanna miss it.

388

I'm Dr.

389

G, and I'll see y'all in the past.