Masters, Slaves, and Subjects Essay -- Robert Olwell Charles Towne Ess

get the hang, Slaves, and Subjects In his book know, Slaves, and Subjects, Robert Olwell examines the complex relationships and power structures of colonial-era Charles Towne. Charles Towne, as Charleston was cognise in the years between its founding and its independence from the British Empire, is pictured by Olwell as dominated by a rigid agricultural buckle down society which served as an intermediary in a more than complex power structure that extended from the royal halls of London to the woodlet fields of the Lowcountry. In examining the complicated web of relationships between London and the colony, and Masters and Slaves, Olwell argues that the economic and political structure of Charles Towne was based upon a conquestive serial publication of carefully-maintained power-based relationships. CHARLES TOWNE A GATEWAY TO POWER Power in Charles Towne was modify at what became known as the Four Corners of Law, at Broad and Meeting Streets, and rad iated outbound across the Lowcountry. The Four Corners were home to the State House, where the Colonial Assembly met, St. Michaels Church, the heart of the Church of England in the colony, the Town Watch House, which kept the slave population in check, and the public marketplace, where the commerce that was vital to the colonys economy took place (19). One could easily see power was centralized within Charleston, not just over the local area, but in like manner statewide. Of the forty-eight members of the colonial Assembly, twenty-eight lived within a days horse ride of the city. Half of the justices of the colony, who took an oath to defend King and inelegant, were either sitting or former members of the Assembly, and all of the justices were slave owners (... ...constitution officially separated church and state, ending the power of the Anglican Church forevermore (282). With this, the last ties to Mother England were cast off, and the elite were secure as Mas ters of their world, and Subjects to none.CONCLUSION Colonial Charles Towne had evolved into a sort of fuedal city-state governed by power-based relationships, which established roles for everyone from the worst slave to the economic and political elite who ruled the colony. These relationships were vital to the success and stability of the city and the lands and the people over which it held power. In his book, Robert Olwell clearly set defines the roles of Master, Slave, and Subject, and made a strong argument that, right or wrong, this administration of power-based relationships was the key to the success, prosperity, and security of the colony.