Great story this morning by my old colleague Denise Watson, in The Virginian-Pilot, where I used to be a staff writer. It was about what the story says is the oldest “British built brick building” in the new world, Bacon’s Castle in Virginia, not too far from where I grew up. It’s celebrating its 350th anniversary. The “castle” was named for Nathaniel Bacon, who didn’t own it or build it, but briefly took it over when he and a bunch of other malcontents, including indentured servants and slaves of various colors, took it over in the late 1600s.

Denise’s story illustrates the moral complexity of this history. At this time, slavery and coerced labor in general was not entirely or perhaps even mostly race-based. There were white slaves, although not many in the New World. The line between an indentured servant and a slave was a gray one. And indentured servants and some slaves did become free people.

In her story, Denise notes how Bacon’s Rebellion, something I studied as a school boy in Virginia, prompted planters to begin instituting race-based slavery. The planters didn’t like that white and black laborers were uniting to rebel against the lords of the colony. So the lords begin putting in place laws that made it difficult or forbid black slaves and indentured servants from being freed or freeing themselves. Racial logic began justifying slavery more.

This is sad. In some alternate universe, perhaps this could have been avoided. It would have made it easier to phase out slavery in the coming centuries if there were no myths of white superiority to lean on.

But I also note how it’s not so simple as concluding the rich white guys in the 1600s were the bad guys. Just from reading Denise Watson’s story, it appears that those who rebelled under Bacon were no saints either. One of the big things they were rebelling for was the freedom to be more aggressive in pushing the Indians off the land. This would be a constant tension for the next two and a half centuries.

My own ancestor were mostly the slave owners. This in part has prompted me to look more into the history of slavery. We’ll see if anything comes of that.

I do discuss slavery briefly in my last book, The Surprising Design of Market Economies, in a chapter about Law. I point out that the Rule of Law is not necessarily the same as the Rule of Positive Morality. Then I pointed out that slavery was set up by law, and maintained by law. There was a whole body of law concerning slavery, that was finally made a dead letter when slavery was abolished after the Civil War.