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Richard Frethorne was a young Englishman who came over to the New World in 1623 as an indentured servant and settled in Virginia, near the Jamestown colony. Other than the three letters to his parents included here, there is no historical record of his life. The letters, however, provide an illuminating picture of the hardships of colonization in the early seventeenth century, especially for the class of indentured servants.
Combating homesickness, disease, hunger, discomfort, and isolation, Frethorne & his fellow settlers struggled to make a success of their fledgling community. But life in early Virginia was particularly difficult because of the shortage of supplies, the prevalence of disease, and tense relations with the Native Americans. On March 22, 1622, the Powhatan chief Opechancanough organized an attack on English settlements across the colony that killed between three hundred and four hundred people. This attack, ignited by the recent murder of the great warrior Nemattanew by the English, was intended to curb English expansion into native lands. As a result, the English abandoned many remote settlements and moved closer to or into Jamestown itself, increasing the amount of disease and death in the overcrowded village. The English retaliated by destroying Indian crops. Frethorne suggests to this attack, in which eighty people from his outlying settlement died, and which motivated the fear and harsh policies of the settlers toward the Indians. Tensions between the two groups escalated over the next decade and climaxed in another attack by Opechancanough in 1641, in which nearly four hundred English colonists were killed. It is not surprising, as Frethorne recounts, that many longed to be “redeemed out of Egypt” and return to their former lives across the Atlantic.
-Cause : Tobacco grew well in Virginia creating companies to establish along with a labor work force.
-Result : Natives were not a reliable work force since they went threw harsh conditions throughout the labor work force causing them to die.
-Planters in early 17th century Virginia had bountiful amounts of land and a profitable crop in tobacco, but they needed labor to till their fields. They faced resistance from the local Indian people and were unable to enslave them, so they recruited poor English adults as servants. These young men and women signed indentures, or contracts, for seven year terms of work in exchange for their passage to North America. Richard Frethorne came to Jamestown colony in 1623 as an indentured servant. Written just three months after his entry into the colony, he described the death and disease all around him. 2/3rds of his fellow shipmates had died since their arrival. Those without capital suffered particularly precarious situations with the lack of supplies and loss of leaders. Frethorne pleaded with his parents to redeem (buy out) his indenture.
- The changes in North America were dramatic for the Native Americans. European expansion displaced many indigenous peoples. European diseases decimated whole tribes. Changing trade relations and the arrival of firearms allowed some tribes to become more powerful and expand their influence at the expense of rival tribes. The Native American tribes often struggled against each other as much as against the whites.
- Both Europeans and Native Americans took advantage of shifting alliances within and between factions to expand territory, gain prestige, and settle grudges. In the 1600s, Native Americans were seen as obstacles to European advancement. By the 1700s, a new collection of allies and rivals developed as the political battles of Europe merged with the existing tensions among the Native American tribes of the New World.
- Tensions mounted as the settlers of New France wanted to increase their land holdings to build up the fur trade. Their primary focus was the lush Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, the British also started moving into the Ohio River Valley, with the Crown granting lands to companies such as the Ohio Company to encourage settlement.
- The conflict between the British and the French in North America played into power struggles in Europe. In the 1740s war broke out between George II of England and his allies in northern Germany against France and Austria who had connections to the Hapsburg rulers of Spain. As part of this struggle for power, in 1745, the British captured the French city of Louisbourg, in what is now Nova Scotia. The French tried to retake the area but were unsuccessful. With the French on the St. Lawrence threatening British holdings on the Atlantic coast, colonists in New England began contemplating an invasion of Canada to prevent the French from gaining any strongholds in North America.
- The increasing political, economic, and cultural exchanges within the Atlantic World” had a profound impact on the development of colonial societies in North America.
- “Atlantic World” commercial, religious, philosophical, and political interactions among Europeans, Africans, and American native peoples stimulated economic growth, expanded social networks, and reshaped labor systems.
- The growth of an Atlantic economy throughout the 18th century created a shared labor market and a wide exchange of New World and European goods, as seen in the African slave trade and the shipment of products from the Americas.
- Several factors promoted Anglicization in the British colonies: the growth of autonomous political communities based on English models, the development of commercial ties and legal structures, the emergence of a trans-Atlantic print culture, Protestant evangelism, religious toleration, and the spread of European Enlightenment ideas.
- The presence of slavery and the impact of colonial wars stimulated the growth of ideas on race in this Atlantic system, leading to the emergence of racial stereotyping and the development of strict racial categories among British colonists, which contrasted with Spanish and French acceptance of racial gradations.
- Britain’s desire to maintain a viable North American empire in the face of growing internal challenges and external competition inspired efforts to strengthen its imperial control, stimulating increasing resistance from colonists who had grown accustomed to a large measure of autonomy.
Who: Richard Frethorne
What: a letter home from the servant
When: March 20, 1623
Where: Jamestown , Virginia
Why: to inform his parents about the conditions that he went through and that was brought upon him