Part 8 (2/2)

Records of transfers of land tend to substantiate this testimony, by showing that the average holdings at all times in the Eighteenth century were comparatively small. In the years from 1722 to 1729 Spotsylvania was a new county, just opened to settlers, and a large part of its area had been granted in large tracts to wealthy patentees. Yet the deed book for these years shows that it was actually settled, not by these men themselves, but by a large number of poor planters. Of the 197 transfers of land recorded, 44 were for 100 acres or less and 110 for 300 acres or less. The average deed was for 487 acres. As some of the transfers were obviously made for speculative purposes and not with the intent of putting the land under cultivation, even this figure is misleading. The average farm during the period was probably not in excess of 400 acres.

One of the most extensive dealers in land in Spotsylvania was Larkin Chew who secured a patent for a large tract and later broke it up into many small holdings which were sold to new settlers.[8-49]

This subst.i.tution of the small slave holder for the man who used only his own labor in the cultivation of his land unquestionably saved the cla.s.s of small proprietors from destruction. Without it all would have been compelled to give up their holdings in order to seek their fortunes elsewhere, or sink to the condition of ”poor white trash.” Yet the movement was in many ways unfortunate. It made the poor man less industrious and thrifty. Formerly he had known that he could win nothing except by the sweat of his brow, but now he was inclined to let the negro do the work. Slavery cast a stigma upon labor which proved almost as harmful to the poor white man as did negro compet.i.tion. Work in the tobacco fields was recognized as distinctly the task of an inferior race, a task not in keeping with the dignity of freemen.

Jefferson states that few indeed of the slave owners were ever seen to work. ”For in a warm climate,” he adds, ”no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him.”[8-50] Chastellux noted the same tendency, declaring ”that the indolence and dissipation of the middling and lower cla.s.ses of white inhabitants of Virginia is such as to give pain to every reflecting mind.”[8-51]

Slavery developed in the small farmers a spirit of pride and haughtiness that was unknown to them in the Seventeenth century. Every man, no matter how poor, was surrounded by those to whom he felt himself superior, and this gave him a certain self-esteem. Smyth spoke of the middle cla.s.s as generous, friendly and hospitable in the extreme, but possessing a rudeness and haughtiness which was the result of their ”general intercourse with slaves.”[8-52] Beverley described them as haughty and jealous of their liberties, and so impatient of restraint that they could hardly bear the thought of being controlled by any superior power. Hugh Jones, Anbury, Fithian and other Eighteenth century writers all confirm this testimony.

Despite the persistence of the small slave holder it is obvious that there were certain forces at work tending to increase the number of well-to-do and wealthy planters. Now that the labor problem, which in the Seventeenth century had proved so perplexing, had finally been solved, there was no limit to the riches that might be acquired by business ac.u.men, industry and good management. And as in the modern industrial world the large corporation has many advantages over the smaller firms, so in colonial Virginia the most economical way of producing tobacco was upon the large plantations.

The wealthy man had the advantage of buying and selling in bulk, he enjoyed excellent credit and could thus often afford to withhold his crop from the market when prices were momentarily unfavorable, he could secure the best agricultural instruments. Most important of all, however, was the fact that he could utilize the resources of his plantation for the production of crude manufactured supplies, thus to a certain extent freeing himself from dependence upon British imports and keeping his slaves at work during all seasons of the year. Before the Eighteenth century had reached its fifth decade every large plantation had become to a remarkable degree self-sustaining. Each numbered among its working force various kinds of mechanics--coopers, blacksmiths, tanners, carpenters, shoemakers, distillers. These men could be set to work whenever the claims of the tobacco crop upon their time were not imperative producing many of the coa.r.s.er articles required upon the plantation, articles which the poor farmer had to import from England.

For this work white men were at first almost universally made use of, but in time their places were taken by slaves. ”Several of them are taught to be sawyers, carpenters, smiths, coopers, &c.,” says the historian Hugh Jones, ”though for the most part they be none of the aptest or nicest.”[8-53]

The carpenter was kept busy constructing barns and servants' quarters, or repairing stables, fences, gates and wagons. The blacksmith was called upon to shoe horses, to keep in order ploughs, hinges, sickles, saws, perhaps even to forge outright such rough iron ware as nails, chains and hoes. The cooper made casks in which to s.h.i.+p the tobacco crop, barrels for flour and vats for brandy and cider. The tanner prepared leather for the plantation and the cobbler fas.h.i.+oned it into shoes for the slaves. Sometimes there were spinners, weavers and knitters who made coa.r.s.e cloth both for clothing and for bedding. The distiller every season made an abundant supply of cider, as well as apple, peach and persimmon brandy.

And the plantation itself provided the materials for this varied manufacture. The woods of pine, chestnut and oak yielded timber for houses and fuel for the smithy. The herd of cattle supplied hides for the tanner. The cloth makers got cotton, flax and hemp from the planter's own fields, and wool from his sheep. His orchard furnished apples, grapes, peaches in quant.i.ties ample for all the needs of the distiller. In other words, the large planter could utilize advantageously the resources at hand in a manner impossible for his neighbor who could boast of but a small farm and half a score of slaves.[8-54]

It was inevitable, then, that the widespread use of slave labor would result in the gradual multiplication of well-to-do and wealthy men. In the Seventeenth century not one planter in fifty could be cla.s.sed as a man of wealth, and even so late as 1704 the number of the well-to-do was very narrowly limited. In a report to the Lords of Trade written in that year Colonel Quary stated that upon each of the four great rivers of Virginia there resided from ”ten to thirty men who by trade and industry had gotten very competent estates.”[8-55] Fifty years later the number had multiplied several times over.

Thus in Gloucester county in 1783, of 320 slave holders no less than 57 had sixteen or more. Of these one possessed 162, one 138, one 93, one 86, one 63, one 58, two 57, one 56, one 43 and one 40.[8-56] In Spotsylvania, of 505 owners, 76 had sixteen or more. Of these Mann Page, Esq., had 157, Mrs. Mary Daingerfield had 71, William Daingerfield 61, Alexander Spotswood 60, William Jackson 49, George Stubblefield 42, Frances Marewither 40, William Jones 39.[8-57]

The Dinwiddie tax lists for 1783 show that of 633 slave holders, no less than 60 had twenty-one or more negroes. Among the more important of these were Robert Turnbull with 81, Colonel John Banister with 88, Colonel William Diggs with 72, John Jones with 69, Mrs. Mary Bolling with 51, Robert Walker with 52, Winfield Mason with 40, John Burwell with 42, Gray Briggs with 43, William Yates with 55, Richard Taliaferro with 43, Major Thomas Scott with 57, Francis Muir with 47.[8-58] The wealth of the larger planters is also shown by the large number of coaches recorded in these lists, which including phaetons, chariots and chairs, aggregated 180 wheels.

Thus it was that the doors of opportunity opened wide to the enterprising and industrious of the middle cla.s.s, and many availed themselves of it to acquire both wealth and influence. Smyth tells us that at the close of the colonial period there were many planters whose fortunes were ”superior to some of the first rank,” but whose families were ”not so ancient nor respectable.”[8-59] It was the observation of Anbury that gentlemen of good estates were more numerous in Virginia than in any other province of America.[8-60]

In fact the Eighteenth century was the golden age of the Virginia slave holders. It was then that they built the handsome homes once so numerous in the older counties, many of which still remain as interesting monuments of former days; it was then that they surrounded themselves with graceful furniture and costly silverware, in large part imported from Great Britain; it was then that they collected paintings and filled their libraries with the works of standard writers; it was then that they purchased coaches and berlins; it was then that men and women alike wore rich and expensive clothing.

This movement tended to widen the influence of the aristocracy and at the same time to eliminate any sharp line of demarkation between it and the small slave holders. There was now only a gradual descent from the wealthiest to the poor man who had but one slave. The Spotsylvania tax lists for 1783 show 247 slaveholders owning from one to five negroes, 116 owning from six to ten inclusive, 66 owning from eleven to fifteen inclusive, and seventy-six owning more than fifteen.[8-61] In Gloucester 156 had from one to five slaves, 66 from five to ten inclusive, 41 from eleven to fifteen inclusive, and fifty-seven over fifteen. Thus in a very true sense the old servant holding aristocracy had given way to a vastly larger slave holding aristocracy.

It is this fact which explains the decline in power and influence of the Council in Virginia, which was so notable in the Eighteenth century.

This body had formerly been representative of a small clique of families so distinct from the other planters and possessed of such power in the government as to rival the n.o.bility of England itself. Now, however, as this distinction disappeared, the Council sank in prestige because it represented nothing, while the House of Burgesses became the mouthpiece of the entire slave holding cla.s.s, and thus the real power in the colonial Government.

Historians have often expressed surprise at the small number of Tories in Virginia during the American Revolution. The aristocratic type of society would naturally lead one to suppose that a large proportion of the leading families would have remained loyal to the Crown. Yet with very few exceptions all supported the cause of freedom and independence, even though conscious of the fact that by so doing they were jeopardizing not only the tobacco trade which was the basis of their wealth, but the remnants of their social and political privileges in the colony. When the British Ministry tried to wring from the hands of the a.s.sembly the all-important control over taxation which all knew to be the very foundation of colonial self-government, every planter, the largest as well as the smallest, felt himself aggrieved, for this body was the depository of his power and the guardian of his interests. A hundred years before, when the commons rose against the oppression and tyranny of the Government, the wealthy men rallied to the support of Sir William Berkeley and remained loyal to him throughout all his troubles.

In 1775 there was no such division of the people; the planters were almost a unit in the defense of rights which all held in common.

It is obvious, then, that slavery worked a profound revolution in the social, economic and political life of the colony. It practically destroyed the Virginia yeomanry, the cla.s.s of small planters who used neither negroes nor servants in the cultivation of their fields, the cla.s.s which produced the bulk of the tobacco during the Seventeenth century and const.i.tuted the chief strength of the colony. Some it drove into exile, either to the remote frontiers or to other colonies; some it reduced to extreme poverty; some it caused to purchase slaves and so at one step to enter the exclusive cla.s.s of those who had others to labor for them. Thus it transformed Virginia from a land of hardworking, independent peasants, to a land of slaves and slave holders. The small freeholder was not destroyed, as was his prototype of ancient Rome, but he was subjected to a change which was by no means fortunate or wholesome. The wealthy cla.s.s, which had formerly consisted of a narrow clique closely knit together by family ties, was transformed into a numerous body, while all sharp line of demarkation between it and the poorer slave holders was wiped out. In short, the Virginia of the Eighteenth century, the Virginia of Gooch and Dinwiddie and Was.h.i.+ngton and Jefferson, was fundamentally different from the Virginia of the Seventeenth century, the Virginia of Sir William Berkeley and Nathaniel Bacon. Slavery had wrought within the borders of the Old Dominion a profound and far reaching revolution.

NOTES TO CHAPTERS

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

[1-1] Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. III, A True Declaration, p. 25.

[1-2] Purchas, Vol. XVIII, pp. 437-438.

[1-3] Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. III, A True Declaration, p. 23.

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