Chapter 2
Without a doubt, the land of America had been notated from way back in ancient times. There have always been storms out at sea. During the days of sailing ships, a number of ships were blown off course and at least a few down through the ages crashed on American shores. I personally have no problems believing that some of these ship wrecked crews and passengers lived out their lives back in ancient times, on American shores, as some evidence appears to suggest {89}. As it is seen from research into much more chronicled incidences, such as the “Bounty” colony on Pitcairn, most more than likely died, either during the initial crash or due to attrition later on while attempting to survive the shore based conditions. There is also a slight body of evidence that some few actually managed to make it back into their homelands, giving reports of what they saw and experienced {90}.
This author personally has no problem in believing that due to these returning reports, exploratory ventures were conducted back during ancient times, possibly by groups as diverse as the ancient Romans, Greeks, and the ancient Chinese and Japanese on both the Eastern and Western US shores. As we have discussed earlier, agricultural products were extremely abundant on American shores, but the real problem was the practicality in shipping these products for such a long distance. The only practical move would be to develop a shore based colonial effort with the task assignment of processing these agricultural products, construct a fleet of ships on the foreign shore, then ship these products back into the original homeland from there, where they could then be traded for profit in already prior established markets.
The First Serious Efforts
In briefing here, this author has no problem accepting that this colonial effort had been made a number of times down through the ages of history, at least from the time of the ancient Greeks, if not even earlier, as some evidence suggests. The problem is that conditions on the shores of America can be very harsh, as any study from old Spanish efforts right on into the beginning of the English effort at Roanoke, old James Town Va and Plymouth Ma, will tell. People naturally have a tough time adapting to harsh conditions outside of their native lands, but then, the land was already owned and occupied by people...and these people were not very happy when their exotic visitors wore out their welcome. It is the contention of this author that most of these very early, remotely successful colonial efforts, were eventually wiped out by the natives already present {91}. Any person who questions this contention of mine, need only to examine the original Spanish colony of La Navidad on the island of Hispaniola {92}, and a number of other Spanish colonies there.
Obviously what success in the effort boils down to is totally efficient organization on part of the colony. At that time, for the most part, this meant an effort based on trial and error, but one where the margin for mistakes was somewhat narrow at best. As we can deduce from our study of history, the English in America were best above all others at analyzing, making accurate deductions, moving to neutralize the negatives and being successful as a result. Another aspect along these same lines that determined success, especially against the natives, was to deduce weaknesses of all opposition and then move to create strengths in the face of observed military and social weakness in all of the competition. Over the course of time after a number of horrible setbacks {93}, the English became really good at doing this, as we can readily observe from only a casual study of the history regarding their colonial efforts to develop and expand.
As we read along, however, lets hold in mind exactly what the first successful English colony, James Town, really was. This colony was a business venture backed by investors found via influence from the crown, Queen Elizabeth to be specific, that bore a supporting military at their leadership's disposal. The idea here is not to criticize or condemn this reality, since there was no other way for the colony to survive without the existence of the military to defend from the natives as well as a possible Spanish attack, remembering that England was at war with Spain and the land of America was still largely under Spanish rule, as we all recall from our reading of basic official history.
In other words, to be more specific here, the English colony of James town was intended to be an extension of the English Crown/government, with the idea of processing basic raw materials into finished products and shipping them back into markets developed in Crown held territories {94}, rather than any exclusive focus on rare valuable metals, natural gems or any extortion of raw natural products alone from the land or the people there on. In exchange for making the effort, the Crown was expected to handle administrative affairs and provide protection for the colony in general. As the shipping base was developed, the colony grew in population and organization, both among the citizens in general and the military, since a lacking of such was an observed weakness in the native military and social organization. In addition to the above notations, the primary military objective of the colony was to grow and expand. This strategic objective could at various times be blatantly direct or even only subconsciously indirect {95}.
The native people were subject early on to the alien diseases brought on to their shores by these bizarre new people, beginning with the Spanish. Huge numbers died from simple diseases such as the common cold, for instance. Mumps killed hundreds more; but the greatest plague that even wiped out entire villages in some cases, was small pox, which slew tens of thousands {96}. These deaths were a big deal to a people who already possessed a very low birth rate due to a high infant mortality rate, that has been estimated by some to be as high as two in three. Half of those that survived never made it to adulthood, due to both disease and their own tribal wars. An absence of birth control, for the most part, gives us the justified assumption that pregnancy among young, child bearing females must have been very common and regular {97}, to insure survival of the village at large in the light of such ramped death statistics.
The point that is being made here is this...: early on, the English must have observed these noted weaknesses in the native population. Their objective of expanding and growing also served the purpose of standing as a countering strength in the face of a gradually fading native population, which wound up being the natives primary weakness in retaining the land. The ruthless enslavement of the native population for the purpose of extracting the valuable resources of the land, by forcing them to labor in absence of any incentive, the unjustified massacres that wiped out huge numbers of native fighting, productive men and boys..., all occurring at the same time as the other agents of depletion including, but not limited to..; their own inter-tribal wars, alcoholism {98}, poverty via loss of primary food sources, etc, served to further reduce the native population; while English numbers grew and eventually exploded as they progressively adapted to their new environment and it's harsh conditions, gradually filling what amounted to an increasingly vacated land.
The conclusion here from all observations can be no other than that the magisterial corporate effort to impose itself was well organized and intentional on part of the authoritarian order in James Town managing the colonial government. Readers should also keep in mind that the natives were the people of the land at the time of James Town. In the beginning, the land was not cherished by the natives {99}to any great extent due to it's unhealthy conditions and possessed a low stable population within the colonial sphere of influence only there around a few specific groups, but as the colony expanded in size and influence, this reality changed. The lesson in this conclusion is very important for readers to retain, as it applies to the thesis previously stated early on in this work. Vacant land was intended to be occupied by foreign interests, regardless of how the people of the land cherished it.{100}
I would ask all readers to hold in mind as well, that the James Town colony existed under what amounts to a rule of martial law/military colony, with the sole primary purpose being to render profit for the Crown and supporting government minions of the Crown {101}. This military authority carried out all court subpoenas, arrests, trials by law and executions as deemed necessary by the authority, etc. The same authority was responsible for tax collections, as well as enforcement of general codes deemed necessary for the well being of the colony, right along with any matters deemed pertinent to the concluded well being of the colony in general. Under rule of military law, the general population had very few, if any individual rights, as is always the case under situations of martial rule, since the colonists were all subjective to the military authority backing corporate interests, who in turn, was subjective to the overseas Crown/government authorities.
Maybe, it could be argued, this view that the colony existed as a single functioning body {102}, rather than a group of individuals, was right for the colony considering the threats, small size in general and the survival concerns of the populations as a whole. To hold virtues of individualism may in-fact, have been counter productive in the beginning stages of the colony, even possibly leading to it's own internal self destruction, all factors considering.
Changing Personal Situations
From the best of my research, the situation carried on in the fashion described for quite a long time. As time went along, the people of the colony themselves changed in the mental conception of themselves. As we can tell from our studies, people tended to be either; transient unskilled laborers who moved from house to house and town to town, longing for the day when they could afford their own property; property owners who lived as small subsistence farmers on the edge of town, owning and operating his own general store trading in products.... or apprentice tradesmen who endeavored to specialize in a skill or service highly needed by the surrounding society. Then of course, there were the indentured servants and finally the slaves, to a much lesser degree. One also chose when he could, to be a skilled tradesman who labored in another person's enterprising shop or the skilled tradesman who also owned and ran his self directed individual production enterprise and mercantile shop, based on the skill or service that he had to offer the society around him.
To be quite honest, the business owner was most closely in resemblance to today's dying middle class, among any of the other groups mentioned. I make this statement with liberal hesitation though. According to my own investigation over the years, from my own visitations of the colonial site and reading material concerning the history and archeology of the site; according to eye witness reports of the day, the laboring transients basically lived hand to mouth while moving from place to place. The business owner also lived very much like the renter, by largely avoiding personal debts and producing most of what he consumed, except that he owned his home rather than rented, in a majority of cases. What personal articles anyone owned, they simply used until it completely wore out, reworked it or crafted it for another alternative use {103}, until it simply crumbled away into dust. When the business owners or tenets did make new purchases, they tried to buy used to reduce the pay load of the purchase or they tried to find scrap and make the item themselves at no cost what so ever, but so life goes in absence of any real production base.
The evidence of all this activity is in the archeology, which according to an on-site archeologist that I spoke with, very little in the way of personal artifacts is seldom discovered, except maybe in the case of natural or man-made disaster. When I visited the sites of James Town and Williams-burg, basically I was told the same things about the daily lives of the people back in that day and age by the tour guides, though not so specifically as did the archeologist.
Yes the people rented and owned servants to a small degree, who were never paid a single dime for their labor or services rendered, but were virtually always given the basics for daily living; that being food, shelter, clothes and the best in what ever medical care was available at the time. Slaves were a very expensive commodity back in that day and time, so few average rank and file colonial artisans, if any, could ever really afford one at all. The slave owners for the most part, were top end government, corporate and military officials! Also, the initial purchase expense made reveals that a desire for the positive well being of the slave was high in more than a few cases, especially as value in the slave's labor for his or her owner increased with the skill level of the individual slave. All that the servants/slaves were required to do was simply labor for their own mainstay.
Not intending to stray from the topic of discussion here, but the last sentence above should reveal a theme very familiar to all readers, such being the basic proclamations apparent in all socialist governments or societies of any sort that push a wealth redistribution agenda. The theme in simple words is this: all of you good, highly skilled people do the work, while we, by reason of divine right, receive all of the incoming profit. In return for that labor, we will give everyone the basics of life, never mind the fact that any true cost in the basics would only be a fraction of the incoming amount extracted from the subjugated citizens efforts, especially when efficiency is maximized as the corporate over inflated profit margin {104}has been basically eliminated from it's figure into products or services sold at large.
Getting back to the subject at hand: as time went on, the citizens in James Town adapted; first by neutralizing the native threat via rigid organization and calculating observation through foresight to avoid negative potentiality, then finally, by specializing in some needed skill or service that their developing society valued. As the citizen's skills increased, so did confidence levels concerning their own abilities to succeed in this new, rather imposing, if not outright antagonistic environment {105}. As time went on, carpenters for example among many others, wanted more work as did the brick masons and the silver smiths. So the town leaders looked for other weaknesses in the native systemic population organization, lack of population being one of the weakness already observed. Products such as wild rice, cotton and tobacco were developed for export and trade. A shipping base was constructed as the ship builders took advantage of the huge pine timber resources, such a pitch pine tar, for example and the types of rot resistant timber available. Industry shipping goods for trade was organized from James Town all the way to Great Britain and back again. The US navy to this very day, still owns and manages huge tracts of timberland acquired in the colonial period, as I understand the available information.
According to research done by both visiting sites and reading, some of the trade goods shipped locally and abroad included but were not limited to; tobacco, which without a doubt was one of the most valuable, yarn spun from cotton fiber, indigo and hemp, field peas and native butter beans of a wide variety in sorts, cassina or yuopon tea already processed by packaging the dried or baked leaves, locally made wine and spirits, freshly sawed boards and wood, especially juniper, cypress and cedar, stone used for carving goods and building, even hickory cured pork from pigs that had been fed locally produced acorns, and the list goes on and on. {106}
Growth of Fortune
From the information available, it appears when working the land became so profitable, that soon plantations arose outside of the city gates, as the native threat gradually retreated due to the causes previously mentioned. Keep in mind here as well, that most of the servant class during this period were from indentured laborers or those on a land consignment contract agreement, among other lesser known situations of trade. The difference between the two was that the indentured laborer was working to pay the cost of his transportation fees at hefty interest charges, prepaid by the plantation owner. The land consignment contract agreement was that if one agreed to labor on a farm, usually for the time period of seven years, then the pay would be a nice tract of land agreed upon ahead of time, that being around six hundred and forty acres, according to all of my best information. As far as I can tell, the person in the land consignment agreement paid for his own transportation or was a merchant marine shipping employee that attracted favoring attention from the captain/ship owner, as was my own direct ancestor.
According to my best information, most of the land acquired from the natives during this time was purchased outright or was simply land overlooked by them. The natives who agreed to the purchases did not always remain contented with the purchase for ever {107}, but as far as this author can tell, most of the purchases were all relatively fair, legally binding surveyed and documented deals; at least, if these purchases involved the individual colonial settler rather than his collective government.
The point that is attempting to be made here in the course of this work, is that the colonies were beginning to settle, grow and prosper as the individual settler gained confidence and witnessed general success of the colony. As the individual colonist developed raw, virgin territory, he could view the manifestations of his own success right before his eyes. Seeing these manifestations not only increased his level of pride in his work, but stood to convince himself more of his own potential to succeed. Bear in mind that the colonies of James Town Va and Williams-burg, right along with old Brunswick Town in NC, for example, and a growing number of others, were actually imperial capitol ventures, or capitol ventures from another angle indirectly related to the Crown. Justification for their existence was that they produce finished product or raw materials that could be purchased on the dime by Crown sponsored corporations, then resold abroad on the dollar; the standard practice and idealized intent of business negotiation at any time, all through the ages.
Taxes on the citizens of these colonies also brought in huge revenue. Since the revenue in product shipments was so vast, and the general tax on the average citizen so small in comparison, the rules for coercing payment were not that rigid later on as they had been in the very beginning days of the colonies. Most skilled tradesmen could either avoid payment all together or simply recoup lost revenue payment on the side in untaxed cash or specie payment; a feature that would remain in tack, off and on, until the nineteen eighty six tax reform bill that was alluded to much earlier on in the two preceding chapters. The governments across the big pond didn't like losing money, but when huge profits came in from other ventures, then this was where they made the effort to place their most undivided attention. Simply speaking, for most part, it would have been non-productive business to persecute out of a perverse sense of arrogance, and much more practical to simply allow the system go on as it was. Keep in mind that many times when lands were acquired by the colonial governments, if these lands were not immediately used, then in a number of cases, the natives were allowed to occupy the lands again, but for a fee in hides and agricultural products, at standard price issued to the colonist in general.112 The intent here is not to say that there were no incidences of fraud from corrupt collection officials, because undoubtedly there were; but in a general sense of the word, the rate of tax was about the same as for the colonist in general, who also suffered from corrupt collection officials at various times, here and there.{108}
As we can see while we read and study along, life went on as usual for a while, as the colony continued to prosper and the people engaged in their industrious pursuits. We had the occasional witch trial every now and then, but when we closely examine the details in these trials {109}, we can readily deduce that in-fact, the real root causes of these “trials” were corrupt wealthy government leaders, officials and business associates persecuting penniless land holders who owned large, potentially productive yet idle property estates anticipated as being valuable in the foreseeable future; or were the results of personal feuds between two families, with one having more funds to dispose of than the other and intending to confiscate the others property for a rogue resale {110}. As far as this author is concerned, these events within themselves were mini harbingers of a much greater negative future still yet to come, since the people persecuted were also individuals upon whom it would have been politically correct to persecute at the time and legally held title to something coveted, of hard value.
Colonial Mentality Changes
Overall, the colonists grew, prospered and engaged in their own business enterprise, and for the most part, doing so was very positive. As we study along, however, lets view the often overlooked reality of another development in the mentality of the colonists. Back in the days of the English colonies in America, successful business people allowed what were known as shop stewards, to apprentice in learning the trade or service that the business owner had to offer. One either went off to apprentice in the “trades” or to labor in the “services,” which also was an on-the-job apprentice type affair in many cases. Most of these “educational” affairs were five to seven years long. The more well noted by reputation the business owner was, the better the apprentice appeared upon completing his studies, and the more weight his stamp held when stenciled into his own future products or upon the billing receipt of services being rendered. What the business owner got out of the deal was an eventually effective skilled production at unskilled laborer pay rates for a number of years before the apprentice was certified and officially endorsed by the owner; so everything balanced out justly in the end.
A number of these apprentices were laborers, seeking to rise up in the trade. It is well known that sometimes by simply asking, the laborer was allowed to learn the art of the skill and/or how to run the business of the mercantile shop selling wares produced or services. Others were family and friends of the family who had known one another for years and were confident of the skill level that the apprentice potentially held. In other words, people had a choice to rise up, since opportunity was abundant in the colony all around them or they could just choose to be idle or “lack-less”, as they called it, although idleness was discourage in a large number of cases {111}. A majority chose to rise up into the business world, since opportunity was abundant and never repressed, meaning that one only needed to possess the desire to excel...and nothing else, since opportunity was very abundant and the business world then was really in need of producers and highly skilled service providers.
With the passage of time, any man who appeared in the colony with nothing more than the clothes on his back, a clear sober mind and a fine practical idea for success, could find a position and work himself up into his own business, without being repressed from the opportunity or extorted from his hard earned resources upon doing so. Soon many ambitious people came to view the colony as made up of industrious, independent individuals, rather than a collective whole; since the colony was constructed by tradesmen, who were employed by contractors who had once been tradesmen, who in most cases had rose up from simple laborers, either in the context of indentured servants or adventurous colonist who assumed all of the personal risks in doing so. In other words, these brave men and women became very confident of their independence and did not feel that they were in any sort of need from an authoritarian handout. Their world surrounding them had been constructed by their own hands, the hands of their families or very close associates and friends!
With the passage of time, more and more of these hard working, brave individualists came to view Crown government as being a road block to personal success, sitting casually way up there in the mansion on the hill, laboring to serve a king way across the big water beyond and his corporate interests at home, at the expense of the independent citizen population in the colony. They could see a need for a military, but one that was immediate and among people of their own peers and needed only when true need existed, not a standing military authority. These people came to see themselves as being perfectly capable of handling all of their own administrative affairs, legal affairs, public building affairs and all other public affairs within their own contexts. The Crown military inside the colony soon became viewed more and more as being an agent representing a corporate entity haling a foreign lord, that held it's own best interests at heart, rather then those from among the people's own ranks there inside the colony. In other words, they were tiring of an absolute authority/martial government who did not even represent their best interests, and were seen more as a stumbling block to their own personal individual success, rather than an asset.
In response to this growing feeling of independence, colonial communities formed their own militia units, their own courts, made up of their own people whom they all knew would be fine stewards of their own concerns, from all angles that can be considered. As a result with the passage of time and the rise of emotion, there were growing conflicts between the authority of the corporation looking out for the interests of the Crown via increasing repression and extortion {112}, and the authority formed of the people, by people from their own ranks, seeking to insure that no impediments ever stood to repress their own individual success; since in reality, they no longer felt dependent upon the Crown or it's imposing, corrupt minions to an ever increasing extent.
Before we delve any deeper, lets pause to consider an all inclusive picture of what we are dealing with here: these people grew their own food now, crafted their own products from their own raw products, gathered their own medicine from the land surrounding them, made their own cloth from raw wild cotton all around as well as that which they grew on the plantations and to a large extent, handled their own public affairs. Yes the colonists had trade relations with Great Britain, but they had also developed others of their own {113} {114}. These people also by their own efforts, began as laborers, apprenticed to the trades or services, rose up as tradesmen who endeavored to engage in business exchange, to build the colony by their own raw, hard fist-ed efforts and shear determination. What real needs did these industrious individuals have for the Crown, it's corporate enclaves or it's extended representing government at this point?
When these questions were increasingly asked aloud, the most tart colonial authoritarian reply came in the form of protection from foreign invaders. The colonist possessed weapons, could well manufacturer their own {115}, knew how to fight guerrilla style from the natives by retreating back into the “limitless” dense wi