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Economic And Political Developments In Virginia 1607-1700

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Economic And Political Developments In Virginia 1607-1700
Economic and political developments in Virginia from 1607-1700

On the year of 1607, May 14th, a hundred men sent by the Virginia Company of London, landed at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay which also resulted in the first permanent English settlement. The settlement of the Virginia Colony (Jamestown) was the source of economy of the Chesapeake Bay region and Virginia, during the colonial period was always tied upon the accessibility of plantation and slavery.

On the year of 1607, May 14th, a hundred men sent by the Virginia Company of London, landed at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay which also resulted in the first permanent English settlement. The Virginia Colony was intended to supply England with gold and many other necessities; but instead,
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Therefore, inexpensive labor was discovered; indentured servants and slaves. Soon slavery became a part of colonial business and became a sort of ¡¥barter¡¦ people. By 1689, the British traders had shipped 90,000 slaves from Africa to the New World, including several thousand to the Tobacco Coast (the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia, Maryland. and North Carolina). To keep their increasing costly investment in slaves, Virginia's colonial government allowed a chain of acts that created a system of hereditary, everlasting slavery based on race. In 1662, Virginia passed a law stating that "all children born in this colony shall be bond or free only according to the condition of the mother (her race)." Newly imported slaves could no longer ask for freedom. Court-ordered punishments for slaves ranged from whipping to death. Slaves were considered property, not persons. Finally, in 1705, the Virginia Assembly authorized the slave code (lifelong slavery and the right for masters to use violence on slaves) stating that, "All servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land ... shall be ... slaves, and as such be here bought and

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