Of Blood and Sweat: Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth

Whether the first people captured in Angola in Africa and  brought to the Virginia colony in 1619 were enslaved or  indentured servants may seem a moot point, if not  preposterous to suggest. 

Clyde W. Ford makes the case in his forthcoming book, Of  Blood and Sweat — Black Lives And The Genesis Of White Power And Wealth, such a distinction is critical to gain an  understanding of how the labor of Black people was the  foundation on which white power and wealth were created. 

Delving deep into the English common law that was used  in Virginia, and other colonies, he cites numerous sources to  posit indentured servitude was the norm in the 1600s — for  people of all races. The system that worked in England,  however, had drawbacks in the colonies, particularly in the  tobacco-based economy of colonial Virginia. 

First, indentured servitude meant there was a time limit  on a person’s service. Secondly, under the common law, when  the time of service expired, the master-planter of the servant  was required to provide clothing and several barrels of corn — “Freedom Dues” — to the person. Not only was this a cost, the  “owner” also lost the services, sometimes skilled, the  indentured person had. And the owner had a continuing need  for labor to plant, tend and harvest the tobacco. Beyond this,  the common law had flaws or loopholes that allowed a person  to sue for their freedom. Among these were the time limit of  indentured servitude was achieved; that a person’s freedom  depended on whether the father was white and a free or not free person; and also, whether or not a person was a Christian. 

Indentured servitude in the colonies, according to Ford’s  research, applied to more white people such as the Irish and  destitute and imprisoned English people than Black people; in 17th-century Virginia, Ford states, 75 percent of the population  was a servant and in 1640, he states, there were less than 100  African people in Virginia. In sum, indentured white people  made up far more of the population than Black people, and there were far more servants than masters. This created a  problem: were all those people given freedom and the rights of  equality they could upset the class structure under which they  served. 

Ford found the ruling gentry solved the problem by  passing new laws closing those loopholes. Among those was  bringing slavery — based on race — to the fore, thus lessening  the need for indentured servitude. This guaranteed white  tobacco planters a labor force, drove a wedge between poor  whites and Blacks, and was less of a cost to the planters than  the former system. 

Slavery, however, also had costs, chief among them  capturing people in regions of Africa, transporting them to the  colonies and then selling them. This led to the creation of an  investor class in England. This paid for those costs and returns,  with precursors of the popular but flawed derivative bundling of  real estate in the modern era. This also led to the creation of  an insurance industry that covered losses to pirates, to storm, to sickness or other reasons the investors might lose their  investments in enslaved people. 

Ford offers chapter and verse through the years, decades  and centuries to show how the legal, financial and political  systems existed and evolved to benefit and strengthen white  power and wealth — from 1619 to the present day. His writing  is clear, his research-based arguments compelling. The book is  fascinating, eye-opening and worth reading.