The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism. Gerald Horne
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how the mutual interest in exploiting Africans and the indigenous in the Americas not only generated “whiteness” but also fomented the lessening of religious conflict that had so devastated Europe. In the early stages of French colonialism in the Caribbean there were Catholic Irish, Dutch Calvinists, and Portuguese Jews, all with a mutual interest in enrichment at the expense of “others.”90
However, this too was not a straightforward process. Settlers began receiving land grants on the eastern shore of Virginia in the early seventeenth century These came to include the African Anthony Johnson and his sons John and Richard who were to hold about 800 acres of land in Northampton County. He had arrived in Virginia as a slave in 1621, apparently from Angola, an indicator of London’s ever closer ties to Portugal, an early colonizer in Africa. Seeking to elude being taken over by its larger Iberian neighbor, Lisbon and its relationship with England solidified. There is some doubt if so-called durante vita enslavement—slavery for life as a racial birthmark—existed in Virginia at that moment.91 Yet by the end of the century it was increasingly difficult for the likes of Johnson to climb the class ladder, as intervening events—the seizure of Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the seizure of Manhattan from the Dutch in 1664, and the resultant formation of the Royal African Company in 1672—served to ossify the equivalence of African and slave, which amounted to a grand downfall for Native Americans now subject to the rapacity of land hungry settlers, with said territory then stocked by a growing cascade of enslaved Africans.
As the prospects for the likes of Johnson were falling as the seventeenth century unfolded, the prospects of Maurice Thomson, born in London in the early years of the century, were rising, and he would soon be known as England’s greatest colonial merchant. Like many merchants, he bet heavily on Oliver Cromwell’s revolt against monarchy, an expression of the shoots of capitalism seeking to break through the concrete of feudalism. But before that he became a major planter in Virginia, receiving a massive land grant near what is now Newport News in 1621, just as Johnson was departing a slave ship from Angola. Thomson himself was involved deeply in the pre-feudal institution that was slavery, now hitched to the star of a rising capitalism, transporting bonded Africans to the Caribbean. Straddling the major nodes of the colonialism that was to propel capitalism, he also invested heavily in the fur trade of Canada.92
The rise of Thomson and the decline of Johnson was a synecdoche for the contrasting fates of England and colonialism on the one hand and Africans and Native Americans on the other. As the latter was declining, the former was rising, with the two phenomena being inextricably linked.
CHAPTER 2
No Providence for Africans and the Indigenous
Between 1629 and 1645, thousands of religious dissenters, notably Puritans, migrated to the Americas to escape tyranny. But just as men, women, and children from England endured bondage in North Africa while London abjured abolitionism, the Puritans and other so-called dissenters proceeded to impose a tyranny on the indigenous, dispossessing them, enslaving them, murdering them.1
Although indigenes and Africans were the primary victims, in a manner that would bedevil settler colonialism for centuries to come, other settlers too were disfavored. For example, Roger Williams and his spouse arrived in New England from London on February 5, 1631, slated to reside in Massachusetts Bay, before moving to the separate colony in Plymouth, where they lived about two years. Sometime in 1633 they moved to Salem in the jurisdiction of their original point of arrival. In October 1635 the Massachusetts Bay General Court, which in this reputed “democracy” held all legislative, executive, and judicial power, sentenced Williams to banishment after he spoke out against attempts to punish religious dissension and against the brutal confiscation of the land of the indigenous. Eventually, the authorities sought to ship him back to Europe. He escaped by January 1636 into the wilderness, where he was succored only by his indigenous allies and finally settled in an area he termed “Providence.” Despite a subsequent coloration of “liberalism,” what became Rhode Island was also land confiscated from the indigenous, exposing the contradictions of “progressive” settler colonialism.2
Williams himself facilitated the enslavement of indigenes,3 despite their rescuing him from the wrath of Massachusetts Bay. Of course, it was not as if Massachusetts Bay were sui generis. In the New Haven Colony in Connecticut, the community was centered on the church and the word of the minister was law. Dissent was not permitted. Potential informants were everywhere. Any person so bold as to question the minister risked being brought before the General Court and banished, or worse.4
It is still true that from the inception, settlements—to a degree—evaded the religious snarl of Europe. This was not necessarily because settlers were more enlightened. It was more because the perils of subduing Native Americans meant that the colonial elite could not be too choosy in selecting allies. Still, since the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605, an alleged Catholic conspiracy in predominantly Protestant England, anti-Catholicism had become almost normalized. James VI of Scotland inherited England, Wales, and Ireland and the Channel Islands from his cousin Elizabeth but was perceived as much too conciliatory toward Catholics. This conciliation did not necessarily go down well and, in light of centuries of conflict between England and Scotland depositing a reservoir of mutual hatred and suspicion, this was bound to cause problems for his rule. Conciliation toward Calvinists—or Presbyterians—was not necessarily helpful either, given their prominence in Edinburgh. Catholics were a minority in England, perhaps 5 percent of the population, but they inspired a disproportionate popular hatred and fear as they included many prominent adherents (including James’s spouse and son and many of their courtiers), as well as some presumed extremists, for example, the group led by Guy Fawkes.5 Ultimately, many of these Catholics were to flee to what became Maryland, as London did exhibit flexibility in deciding who could populate settlements. But again, it was not enlightenment that dictated this choice but the necessity to corral settlers of whatever hue to subdue the indigenous. However, lingering anti-London resentment in North America helped to fuel the 1776 revolt.
London’s policy seemed to be support of exporting such presumed antagonists to the colonies, which could backfire if and when these opponents chose to ally with the Crown’s antagonists abroad. Thus, by 1634, certain privileges were granted to arriving Irish and Scots in Massachusetts Bay, who would have been disfavored in London.6 In other words, homeland bigotry had to yield in the face of subjugating the indigenous.7
This exportation policy carried over to disgruntled Africans who routinely were shipped from, say, the mainland to the Caribbean—or vice versa—which also allowed for allying with the Crown’s antagonists in the new venue of oppression.
Thus it was in the early 1630s that a Catholic, George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, sought a charter from the Crown in the territory that became Maryland. Virginia protested vigorously, but to little avail8 as the Crown in seeming anticipation of the new era of republicanism and its complement, “whiteness,” did not sustain these objections.9 It was not preordained that this request would be fulfilled for anti-Catholicism had yet to disappear from London. “We must fortify ourselves both abroad and at home,” said Sir Edward Giles, since “Papists increase and grow, braving and outfacing,” their “chief aim” and target being “England and in England [targeting] the King and the Prince.”10 Contrary to today’s suspicion, it was not as if Englishmen became more enlightened once they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. It was more that the light of fires set by indigenous arsonists and embattled Africans helped to convince these settlers that larger racial stakes loomed that surpassed religious bigotry.
These Catholics were responding to a set of repressive laws in London that were inviting them to depart, a precursor of the rise of the violently anti-Irish Oliver Cromwell.11 In 1633, departing from the Isle of Wight, were emigrants bound for North America. Perhaps appropriately, the sources of fear that accompanied them along the way included apprehension about Turkish pirates determined to enslave them, just as they intended to enslave those they would encounter in North America. They landed in Barbados, then Montserrat where they met a colony of Irishmen who had been banished from Virginia because of their Catholicism. Then it was on to the Chesapeake.