chapter 3

In this chapter I read all sorts of interesting information, but what stood out to me the most was the part about women in Chesapeake Bay. I found it very interesting that the male to female ratio was so low that men had a really time finding brides, so many women from lower statuses were actually able to marry into higher class. Many men also wrote in the will that if they were to die that women would inherit their estate. I found this so interesting because all throughout history you read a lot about how women have little to no rights and for many years women could not own land so I thought it was really interesting that women in Chesapeake Bay in this time could. I also found it interesting how slavery changed over the years in Chesapeake Bay. In the beginning not every slave was a slave for life, a slave could gain freedom and some even owned land. Later a law was placed which stated that slavery was lifelong and inherited based on ones skin color. Slavery only happened to blacks or indians, whites would never enslave their own colored people. When slavery first began, their were fewer then one thousands slaves but as the slave industry grew there were approximately twelve thousand slaves making them one fourth of the population in Chesapeake Bay. The was amazing to me how slavery became so big so fast.