Acknowledgements-Chapter 3

-Goal of the book: “How republican freedom came to be sup­ported, at least in large part, by its opposite, slavery, is the subject of this book.”

-More pedantry on my part: Not all those slaves were Washington’s.  Weren’t many of them his wives, whom he couldn’t free upon death?

-Helpful insight: “In revulsion from their oppression under Mary and in the glow of their enthusiasm for Elizabeth, some Englishmen were ready to think of English freedom in global terms.”

-There were two Hakluyts?  I wonder how many times I’ve messed that up.

-I found the story of Drake’s alliance with the rebel slave community interesting. 

-Morgan has a knack for showing the importance of events:

-the significance of Drake’s alliance with the Cimarrons (rebel slave community) = it shows how the English saw themselves as liberators.

-“The real question was whether the English could have or would have offered the Cimarrons and other victims of Spanish masters the kind of freedom that Englishmen at home were beginning to pride themselves on.”

-Hakluyt's feeling for the English poor was of a piece with his feeling for the oppressed Indians and blacks in America. Both were good people, suffering through no fault of their own. As England was "swarminge at this day with valiant youthes rusting and hurtful' by lacke of employement," ²³ so New Spain was filled with "valiant" people like the Cimarron and the Chichimici, suffering by Spanish oppression. The two must be brought together, under England's benevolent rule, in a new English empire on American soil.

-Interesting how there were no signs of racial animosity with Drake (despite Drake’s former slaving expeditions) and Hakluyt.  There seemed more animosity toward white Spaniards.

-Interesting how he blends Drake’s piracy expeditions with Roanoke.  He shows the strategy connecting them in a way I hadn’t seen before:

-“Raleigh's colony could furnish not only a base from which to prey on Spanish shipping, but a rallying point for the oppressed natives of New Spain.”  It was to be a worldwide liberation plan (with England as the new but more benevolent ruler).

-Also, he shows how the connection between the two helped ruin Raleigh’s plans because his plans would get militarized: 1) they were supposed to win the natives over with friendliness, but now the leaders were men of war; 2) soldiers don’t like to grow food (which is necessary if a new outpost is to survive).

-Take away from Chapter 1: “By 1583, when Gilbert's ship went down, English plans for the New World did not include slavery or forced labor of any kind.”

-Another example of his good insights: The problem at Roanoke was caused by the fact that Indians didn’t show the nobility expected of them nor the English the divinity expected of them.

            -Could we look at future clashes with Indians through that lens?

            -Memorable phrase: “The English forgot their lines.”

-“But something more had been lost before White's settlers even landed. At Roanoke in the winter of 1585-86, English plans and hopes for America had come up against their first serious encounter with the continent and its people. In that encounter neither Englishmen nor native Americans lived up to expectations. Doubtless the expectations had been too high, but it is always a little sad to watch men lower their sights. And Roanoke was only the beginning.”

-Here’s another thing I like about Morgan.  Though learned, he’s not unnecessarily detached—“it is always a little sad to watch men lower their sights.”  I also like the way he portrays the actors best intentions, but is realistic about what their up against.  It occurs to me that some of the best history I’ve read had this trait of wistful sobriety.

-Okay, so I guess we can’t use the earlier insight as a lens to look at later Indian conflicts:

“The English, on the other hand, would be wary of expecting to find America divided into good Indians and cannibals, with the good Indians eagerly awaiting English help. From this point we can perhaps date the beginnings of the English disposition to regard all Indians as alike.”

-He says that Indian’s “primitive” and “lazy” approach to farming was more productive than the Europeans’. 

-But, I wonder if that takes into account all of the wealth drained from the peasants into the hands of the elites.  When the peasants come to British North America they would have a higher standard of living than any farmers in Europe, wouldn’t they?

-Another question: Did European peasants even have the option of slash and burn agriculture?  Was there enough land?  Isn’t that what causing so much devastation in the Brazilian rain forests today?

-“Where (heaven) work was apparently no longer required”—I’m not sure that’s an accurate assessment of Protestant teaching.  Work is not essentially a curse—Adam was to tend the garden before the Fall.  Protestant teaching might very well have room for work in heaven (but without the thorns coming out of the ground and without the “sweat of your brow”).

-“Runaway masters”—who would have expected that?

-Could the shiftlessness caused by the policies (that seems to be what Morgan is describing) have encouraged the enclosure movement?

-Excellent summary of where we are at the end of chapter 3: “The Virginia Company had sent the idle to teach the idle. And they had sent, as it turned out, a quarrelsome band of gentlemen and servants to bring freedom to the free.”