Slavery
The Pilgrim Colonists and the Jamestown colonists started arriving in 1620 and bought their first African slaves in 1621. The Colonists met the Indian tribes and established a fairly cooperative relationship at first. The Indians were farmers, and had developed the land into tillable farm plots. Few of the Colonists were farmers, and there was a lack of agricultural knowledge among them. The Indians helped the Colonists survive by giving them Indian foods, and by teaching them the art of farming.
In Jamestown, the Colonists were too busy hunting for gold to prepare for the winter, which as transplanted urban Englanders, they had not entirely anticipated. The Jamestown Colonists spent their time digging up Native American graves and other pursuits while the Pilgrims, who showed up a little later in a different area, were a little more industrious. The Jamestown Colony was a failure and many people did not survive the winter. The Pilgrims were much more successful. They arrived interested in agriculture which was the key to their greater success. They also found ready made farms and homes, even crops in the cultivated fields, waiting for them.
Due to the vast numbers of Native Americans wiped out by disease , tribal farmlands were left unclaimed. The Colonists took these Indian farms over and applied their newly learned skills. Many aspects of the tribal system, such as the truly Democratic government and the use of eagle symbolism, were observed and copied by the Colonists.
After their numbers began to grow exponentially, the Colonists also began to look for ways to expel the Indians from the colonized territories to get the rest of the properties. The Colonists were also looking for ways to make the profits for which they were responsible under their English charters. The tradition of forced servitude was many thousands of years old, and the English Colonists had brought indentured servants with them, which were for all intents and purposes...
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