Myne Owne Ground Summary

In T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes’s Myne Owne Ground, race changed the fundamental of the colony.

In Myne Owne Ground, the authors argue that it was not inevitable that black men and women were made subordinate to white colonists in colonial Virginia because in the early days there was more about wealth, economic standing, and religion than the color of one’s skin. For example, when a white man, Richard Ackworth, ask John Johnson to give testimony in a suit which Ackworth had filed against another Whiteman (Myne Owne Ground, 16). They were unwilling to allow a black man to testify in legal proceedings involving whites at first, but when they learned that John had been baptized and understood the meaning of an oat, they accepted his statement.

The relationships are not affected by “the color of a man’s skin, but by his economic status” (Myne Owne Ground, 110). The color of one’s skin does not completely deny his rights.

There are other factors that far more important than color of one’s skin. “Property, even a few cows or pigs, provided legal and social identity in this society” (Myne Owne Ground, 17). Therefore, Anthony Johnson and other successful free Black men have a better status and social identity than those White men serving their term as indenture servants. The testimony from Virginia Court Record of a white woman, Katherine Watkind, and John Long, a Negro, supports that there were no extreme discrimination between colors yet. Katherine Watkind claims that neighbor’s slave rapped her in the wood. However, the witnesses, a group of white and black men, say that Katherine initiates this event “soe she tooke him about the necke and kissed him” (Reading the American Past, 46). It seems like Black slaves and white servants are united as a group. They probably come to drink and enjoy their social life together behind their master. However, this kind of bonding is what the colonial elites fear the most –might overturn their master. Black and White Virginians on the eastern shore experience relative equality for much of the seventeenth century because it was a multiracial conservational with “blurred and constantly shifting “ racial boundaries, and that whites and blacks

interacted with one another on terms of relative equality for two generations (Myne Owne Ground, 110). Members of the two races exchanged land, traded livestock, worked for each other, sued one another, and socialized together. “Blacks and whites dealt with each other essentially as equal” (Myne Owne Ground, 104). Economic status is the key element in determining the structure of race relations. “Person who owned land, livestock, and slaves fared better in the search for backers than did poor, more marginal people, a lesson that John Casor and the Parkers learned before the Northampton County court” (Myne Owne Ground, 110). As long as one is rich, one gets supporters and it does not matter if one is white or black.

There are three types of relationships among the residents Northampton County are 1) patron-client relationship 2) family and friends relationship 3) free blacks and other races relationship.

First types of relationship of, all free colonists (even elite) act as client to someone. For instance, the royal governor or powerful Englishman merchant from England might be the patron to the great/successful planter in the colonist. Second types of relationship, it involves family members and close friends. This type of relationship is completely difference from patron-client relationship because family and friends usually provides love, comfort and security. Therefore, when family and friends trade, they are not “primarily economic in character” (Myne Owne Ground, 34). Racial identity is very important for this type of relationship. For human transaction, free blacks usually seek out for other free blacks. Common ethnic background and skin color increases the cohesiveness of the Northampton free black community. Last types of relationship, “the Northampton free blacks formed relationship with white indenture servants, poor to middling white freemen, and local Indians” (Myne Owne Ground, 35). Transactions between members of these groups are casual and temporary. In Myne Owne Ground, Breen and Innes argue that there was a great deal of cohesion among the colonial elite on eastern shore, but none among the small planters because these elites was attacked by the group of poor,

indenture servants and small planters; therefore, they need to come together as one to draft laws that protect themselves from these people. They were all about individual wealth acquisitions; therefore, they have the same aims. In this society, wealth and economic status decide where one stand in the community.

Though economic status rather than racial identity seems to be the key factor in defining how blacks and white dealt with one another, free blacks were conscious of being part of separate group. Free blacks absorbed into the culture of their white neighbors and former masters, they do not consider themselves as “Black Englishmen.” For them, “being Angolan meant more than being black” (Myne Owne Ground, 111). Also, free blacks do not see themselves as living in a racist society. They do not flourish by separating themselves from the rest of the community; rather, they entered into a first type of relationship, patron-client relationship. The color of the skin does not discriminate one to trade with another skin color. However, often times, free blacks would reach out to other free blacks to form a discrete network of friendships and family ties. For instance, trade between Johnson and Payne continued relationships based upon other respects. Therefore, race rather than economic status was fundamental in shaping the business.

After Bacon’s rebellion, the status of free blacks slowly declined. By the end of 1680, “several major black families no longer appeared in the records of Virginia’s Eastern Shore” (Myne Owne Ground, 108). Bacon’s rebellion causes the formal establishment of slavery due the economics need large amount of cheap labors. Colonial Elites want to turn away from Indenture servants to slavery because these slaves will never be free. By doing that, they need to established chattel slavery as constitution; slaves as properties. However, racism plays a crucial role in this because, now, Englishmen began to refer themselves as “white” and believed that African labors are subordinated to white. Colonial Elite anxious that black and white will be linking together as class solidarity; therefore, they began to draft “Black code” and “Slave code” to protect themselves. Slave is a property with no right at all. This creates crucial differences of Indenture servants and slaves because master owns Indenture servants as labors and black slaves as bodies and souls. Black code and Slave code create absolute subordination on Black’s freedom. Now, Indenture servants are not the lowest status in the colony; however, the slaves are. This created labor status that will benefit colonial elite because it put restriction on manumission, which makes it very difficult to free their slaves. This restriction on manumission constructs colony as full-slave society. They look at free blacks as threats to the society and they are second-class citizens. Colonial Elites also attempted to make white against black people by saying its not a crime for any white to assault any slave. It creates more tension between white and slave. In addition, the reward for returning runaway slave “shall have a Pistole Reward, besides what the law allows” creates incentive for white people to go against blacks (Reading the American Past, 91). It is a way of co-opting poor white men.

Northampton was a highly successful society, and within this hierarchy, economic status rather than race determined the relationship between one another. Free blacks do not consider themselves as living in the racist community rather they see themselves as being part of separate group. However, the Bacon’s rebellion changed the structure of society and race changed the fundamental of the colony. Laws such as “Black code” and “Slave code” are absolute subordination in blacks’ freedom and create tensions between races.