The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

Development of the Labor Force

Lecture 1

Administrative

• Reading for next time

• Make sure you check out the web page

• Make sure you read the expectations section of the syllabus carefully

Review

• Reasons we study history

• Labor history as the study of work, workers and their lives and communities

• Importance of themes rather than bits of information

• “Working Poor Blues” – Poverty and abusive working conditions are not just facts of the past

Today

I. Primitive v. Modern Economies

II. Sources of Labor in the Colonies

III. Labor Market in the New World v. Labor Market in Europe

IV. Working Conditions

V. Slavery in the Colonial Era

VI. Resistance by slaves and indentured servants

I. Primitive v. Modern Economies

• Level of living– Excess over subsistence – Possibility of idle groups or classes

• Division of labor– Much Greater Extent – Implies commerce – exchange

• These imply not everyone will work or can do the required work – need a labor force

II. Sources of labor in the colonies

• Why did people come to the New World?• Slaves

– About 300,000 imported during the colonial period– Also used indigenous population

• Indentured servants– Voluntary and involuntary – e.g. debtors– Especially important in Chesapeake and Delaware River

Regions

• Transported convicts• Free labor• First three are the large majority – servants and convicts

perhaps half of all white immigrants

III. Labor Market in New World v. Labor Market in Europe

• Abundant Land: How would this affect the labor market?– Ability to leave paid employment and become

independent farmer– Effect on wages?– Seems clear in colonial period wages higher

in North America than in Europe– Periodic attempts to legislate maximum

wages in 17th century provide evidence of labor shortages, even for ordinary laborers

IV. Working Conditions

• Despite relatively high wages, what were conditions of work like for free labor?– Strong evidence of class structure– Managerial authority?– Physical abuse of employees

• Evidence is that so many paid workers sought to escape paid labor by becoming farmers or independent craftsmen

Important Things to Remember about Colonial Economy

• Pre-industrial

• Pre-factory

V. Slavery

• Which colonies practiced slavery?

• Why slavery rather than wage labor?

VI. Bonded labor resistance

• Did slaves and/or indentured servants often resist their employers?

• What was the most common form of resistance among involuntary labor?

• Other forms included feigning illness or other reasons not to work, stealing or damaging the employer’s property, all the way up to armed resistance

Next Time

• Labor in the American Revolution

• The Post-Revolutionary Period and Democracy

The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

Lecture 2

Administration

• Reading Reminder

• Essay Reminder

Review

• Primitive v. Modern Economies – What are the primary differences?

• Principal sources of labor in the colonial economy

• Impact of abundant land on the colonial labor market

• Poor working conditions for free labor• Slavery in the colonial period• Resistance by slaves and indentured servants

Today

I. Free Labor

II. Role of labor in the Revolution

III. Post-revolutionary politics

IV. The U.S. Constitution and democracy

V. Federalist legal system

VI. Middle Passage

VII. Distinct labor systems in the New World

I. Occupations of Free Labor

• Sailors

• Journeymen artisans

• Women in domestic service

• Women in the production of clothing

• Common labor

I. Resistance by free labor

• Strikes and turnouts – where did term “strike” come from?

• 1636 fishermen mutinied off the coast of Maine against their employers

• Work stoppages by NY carters 1677 and 1684

• Turnout by NY tailors in 1768 may be the first “modern” strike

II. Workers in the revolution

• Did workers share the anti-British revolutionary ideals of the time?

• Were workers represented among the “founding fathers”?

• What was the ideology of those founding fathers and how did it relate to workers and their aspirations?

II. Worker Interests

• British soldiers often injured workers by moonlighting. What is moonlighting?

• Boston Massacre of 1770 fundamentally a labor dispute brought about by opposition from the colonists to soldiers moonlighting

II. Interests of slaves

• Attempted to support whichever side promised freedom

• When allowed to join continental army or militias, did so with understanding that afterward there would be manumission

• In practice, owners often sent slaves to serve in their place

III. Post-revolutionary Politics

• Did the former colonies promote democracy?

• They did not. Most limited democracy with strict property qualifications for voters, no female voters, unelected and unrepresentative upper houses, etc.

• How about the US constitution? Did that serve the interests of workers?

IV. US Constitution and Democracy

• Unelected and unrepresentative senate• Unelected president, how was electoral

college chosen? • In most states not based on ballot of

voters• Powerful executive who can thwart the will

of Congress• Protection of contracts, including those

imposed by the privileged

IV. Constitution and Democracy

• Continued to permit and protect slavery

• Continued to permit and protect second-class status for women

• These posed major contradictions with the expressed ideologies of the founders

IV. Early Political Alignments

• What were the early political parties?

• Federalists and Democratic-Republicans

• What interests did they represent?

IV. Worker Political Support

• Which parties did workers tend to support in the early United States?

• Why, if neither really represented their interests?

V. Federalist Legal System

• Federalists created legal system based on British traditions of “common law.” What was “common law?”

• Tended to be hostile to workers and their interests

• Examples– Punished workers for leaving their work

unfinished– Treated worker organizations as illegal

VI. Middle Passage

• What were conditions like on the ships?

• In what ways did the slaves resist?

• Examples– Refusing to eat– Throwing themselves overboard

VII. Differences in Colonial Labor Systems

• How many clearly distinct labor systems does Dunn, “Servants and Slaves in the East,” find in the colonies?

• Four– Caribbean– Southern Mainland– Mid-Atlantic– New England

VII. Describe the different labor systems

• Caribbean – large sugar plantations, absentee owners, incredible cruelty

• South – patriarchal owners, somewhat better conditions, varied by crop

• Mid-Atlantic – largely white imported labor, relatively few slaves but many indentured servants

• New England – reliance on native-born whites

Next Time

• Early development of the factory system

• Divisions by class, gender and race