![]() ![]() ![]() Richard Hakluyt the elder (1530-1591), one of Elizabethan England’s chief colonial enthusiasts, referred to those he thought transportable overseas in indentured servitude as the “offals of our people.” Such commonplace imagery resonated for decades as much as any dream of avarice. Racial slavery was the obvious and eventual answer for commercial agriculture, but from the beginning, those in England promoting colonial schemes universally presented them as win-win projects-not only would investors reap the wealth, they would rid the realm of its human garbage. ![]() Even in purely economic terms, early colonial settlement was bedevilled by the question of labour: where to get the workforce to perform the brutal task of turning North America into a replica of Europe, and how to bend the workers to the task. One of the central factors in American history has always been one of the least mentioned: class. ![]()
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