Patrick, I agreed with you until I did a little research on Jefferson and the Constitution and now I disagree on a few points. I found the only way to study the past is with timelines of all the common factors. That’s because everything changes all the time, but all common factors do not change at the same time. I need to know the level of the caste in the colonies.
What I have found that was interesting to me is, we almost never referred to America in that time period as Colony of Virginia, New Netherland, New Amsterdam, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rensselaerswyck, Province of Maryland, Connecticut Colony, Colony of Rhode Island, Providence Plantations, to name some.
Some notes. Many whites in England, Ireland and British North America were indentured servants. Between 50 and 67 percent of white immigrants to the American colonies, from the 1630s and American Revolution, had traveled under indenture. Ref: Galenson 1984
While slaves existed in the English colonies throughout the 1600s, indentured servitude was the method of choice employed by many planters before the 1680s. Ref: ushistory.org
As many as 75% of the population of some colonies were under terms of indentured servitude. Criminals convicted of a capital crime in England could be transported in lieu of a death sentence. African slaves made up less than 7% of the population. Vagabonds in England were sentenced up to 14 years as indenture servants by the English courts.
What I found was the political and economic actions in Europe was controlling the migration to the colonies. Because of the high rate of criminals, it was not look at as a good place to move to. Viewed more as criminal colonies and revolutionary religious cults.
Religion.
Jefferson’s Virginia was undergoing a revolution by racial caste, common people embraced evangelicalism, which allowed them to shape their culture and their spiritual life rather than be forced to depend on the mediations of political and religious elites.
The churches that these early Baptists and Methodists formed were close-knit biracial communities. Often black church members outnumbered white members, and blacks preached to whites. (In fact, nearly a third of all Methodists in America in 1800 were black.)
Blacks and whites embraced one another as “brothers” and “sisters” in Christ: being “born again” elevated all believers to a common level. In their churches blacks and whites testified and prayed together, were baptized in the same ceremonies, were held to the same moral expectations, and were buried in the same cemeteries.
Just as important, this early interaction profoundly and permanently influenced the style and substance of southern evangelical Christianity. Even though black and white churches separated after the Civil War, both continued to bear the stamp of early integration.
Point being. The enforcement of The Laws of God or Natural Laws was creating Progressives and allowing for Humanism to be formed in Europe. The Middle Class was new, and England was somewhat handling it, but France was not. The Laws of God was ending slavery in Europe and slaves were being moved to the colonies while the contracts still had value.
Sally Hemings was a slave at Monticello; she lived in Paris with Jefferson and two of his daughters and she had at least six children. I have not found out yet if she was a European slave or an African slave.