Prior to 1670, little difference existed between poor white indentured servants, considered “the scruff and scum of England,” and black slaves, considered possessions.
(Both the indentured servant and the slave lived an underfed and ill-clad existence in separate inadequate quarters, supervised by overseers who would whip them as a form of correction. Both groups would run away from the oppression, while others, specifically freemen (former indentured servants who were without property) formed alliances to rebel. The most intense challenge to the status quo came in the form of Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, which ended with Jamestown being burned to the ground. The last rebels to surrender were eighty slaves and twenty indentured servants.) (Miguel A. de la Torre. Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins By Miguel A. De La Torre (Kindle Locations 507-511). Kindle Edition. )
Fear of future rebellions and a changing economic base led the Virginia elite to pass legislation to create social divisions between blacks and poor whites in order to secure its privileged place in the emerging nation (Thandeka 1999, 42– 47).