These are some random notes on the Book White Trash by Nancy Isenberg

Taking out the Trash

Highlights

Starts with the American colonies late-1500s
Richard Hakluyt both Elder and Younger, propagandasists for colonization (Sir Walter Raleigh was friends with the younger)
Idea is to cultivate the land on the New World with the poor and indigent of old world

British colony where the ideas of moving England's poor to the new world were tested
Horrible people shitting in the streets
idle folks gonna idle, new world or not
80% of the original 6000 died
tobacco became the cash crop in 1609
People became indentured servants to buy passage to the new world. If they died, their children or spouse became indebted.
Orphan Children as property

Puritans got a "patent" from the Virginia company, sailed to the hudson bay, established Massachusetts bay and the City on the Hill
John Winthrop was an early and important figure (1630—…) and asshole
Puritans were super strict and "obsessed with class and rank"
In a family, children were treated as servants; nobody (laws, etc) distinguished between west african slaves, indentured servants, and children.

Being further away from the center of power meant you got less protection and gained less wealth
Women's fertility and the fertility of a new land were treated interchangeably
Indentured servants' children became indentured servants just as calves became the property of the owners of the cow

Sumptuary "tu*a*ry\, a. [L. sumptuarius, fr. sumptus expense, cost, fr. sumere, sumptum, to take, use, spend; sub under + emere to take, buy: cf. F. somptuaire. See {Redeem}.] Relating to expense; regulating expense or expenditure. –Bacon. [1913 Webster]

{Sumptuary laws} or {Sumptuary regulations}, laws intended to restrain or limit the expenditure of citizens in apparel, food, furniture, etc.; laws which regulate the prices of commodities and the wages of labor; laws which forbid or restrict the use of certain articles, as of luxurious apparel. [1913 Webster]
King Philip's War, sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–78
Fecundity cun"di*ty\, n. [L. fecunditas: cf. F. f['e]condit['e]. See {Fecund}.]
1. The quality or power of producing fruit; fruitfulness; especially (Biol.), the quality in female organisms of reproducing rapidly and in great numbers. [1913 Webster]

Locke authored the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669)
Locke was very pro-slavery
Locke created a feudal system with different titles
- Leet-men vs. serfs (Caciques and Landgraves)
Was worried about democracy (he thought it was dangerous)
N. Carolina was the "poor Carolina"
William Byrd II (Virginian) thought N. Carolina sucked.

Surely there is no place in the World where the Inhabitants live with less Labour than in N Carolina. It approaches nearer to the Description of Lubberland than any other, by the great felicity of the Climate, the easiness of raising Provisions, and the Slothfulness of the People

— William Byrd II, History of the Dividing Line, 1729
Lubberland was an English folk-tale about Lawrence Lazy in the town of Sloth in Neverwork county in the realm of Lubberland

Georgia was founded as a charitable venture designed to lift up poor people
African slavery was not allowed, nor was alcohol
- Slavery disenfranchised poor whites by inducing them to give up their land to buy slaves until the slave traders owned all the land
Land was allotted and owned under a "fee tail" or "tail-male" trust, it couldn't be sold or given away, it was given to the eldest son
Nobody could own more than 500 acres in Georgia, no large estates
John Oglethorpe assassination attempt in 1740, left Georgia in 1743, all land owned by 5% of the population by 1750

Villain "lain\, n. [OE. vilein, F. vilain, LL. villanus, from villa a village, L. villa a farm. See {Villa}.] [1913 Webster]
1. (Feudal Law) One who holds lands by a base, or servile, tenure, or in villenage; a feudal tenant of the lowest class, a bondman or servant. [In this sense written also {villan}, and {villein}.] [1913 Webster]

Benjamin Franklin came from a poor(er) background, escaped apprenticeship in Boston and fled to Philidelphia
He felt that America wanted/needed people and that breeding was a good thing, regardless of parentage, wrote stuff about that
Experiments with the "natural state" pigeons and ants led him to believe that class would take care of itself by natural means
Mostly western expansion fixes class
The idea of "happy mediocrity" — I read it as having a wide enough country that folks can move to a place where they are not the lowliest
Thomas Paine - Common Sense (January 1776)
Paine emphasies commercial alliances over class divisions
Paine dismissed the aristocracy, noting that they could be ignorant and unfit or children of noble birth who were not ready to rule
If aristocracy wasn't "real" – maybe not class either
Both men seemed to think class would resolve itself because America

Jefferson seemed to hate the idea of industrialization and instead liked the idea of farming, gentleman farmers, the pastoral
Jefferson was certainly more part of the traditional aristocracy than Franklin
Wanted people to be farmers and believed in "raking the rubbish" to produce scholars from the lower class
Often denied that there was class in the US to spite plain evidence otherwise
Believed class to be permeable rather than inborn
Believed that people could "breed" out of their class (Sally Hemmings children would be ⅛ non-white)
Debated John Adams a lot about class issues, I guess

1800 ⅕ of Americans lived on the western frontier (between Appalachian Mtns and Mississippi River)
Squatters in the North, Crackers in the south: Both disreputable poor white people with no social mobility living in the frontier
Jackson was a cracker president (1824, 1828, 1832)
Davy Crockett (also — like Jackson — of Tennessee ) elected to the House in 1827
Both men absurd, boastful, racist — Crockett, to his credit, was against removing the Cherokee (as was the Supreme Court). Jackson didn't give a single shit.
Jackson dueled in the streets, killed Charles Dickinson in a duel. Left Jackson with a bullet next to his heart.
Jackson seemed like the Trump of the 1800s :(((
Universal Adult Male suffrage became a thing in the mid-1800s (1857 N. Carolina lifted the freehold requirement)
The net result of all of this was that politicians need cracker/squatter/poor votes