lonial economy grew and, with it, the institution of slavery: "Probably all Negroes, or nearly all, arrived in the colonies as slaves. But some were free or became free; some were servants or became servants. And all, servant, slave, or free, enjoyed rights that were later denied all negroes in Virginia, such as property rights or the right to purchase one's freedom" (154). Declining numbers of white laborers, disease, a rise in tobacco farming and an influx of black slaves led to a transformation of the colonial economy.
As more and more slaves arrived in the colonies after the arduous trip on slave ships from Africa in the mid-1600s, slavery was codified in law in the Colonies in the 1660s (Morgan 155). In order to obtain labor, Virginians adopted a pattern of viewing Englishmen, Indians, and blacks as commodities to be purchased and sold or worked until no longer useful. This view of poor whites made it a natural transition to poor blacks, not so much a racist as an economic phenomenon. As the poor began to oppose the wealthy landowners who controlled politics and enriched themselves at their expense, events like Bacon's Rebellion further laid the fertile grounds for slavery. By codifying racism and slavery in law, wealth Virginia landowners hoped to prevent collusion between dissatisfied whites and blacks. The freedmen, former servants, had already shown the wealthy baron class how effective rebellion could be. The embedding of racism in public policy, then, stemmed from fears that whites and blacks would turn against the wealthy officials and landowners of society. As whites had come to fear and hate Indians, so racism would help whites come to fear and hate blacks. This undermined any potential insurrectio
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