Land was cheap in Virginia in the early days. In 1662 the King of
Mattapony sold his village and five thousand acres to the colonists
for fifty match-coats. During the seventeenth century the value of
land reckoned in tobacco, as sold in England, averaged for cleared
ground about four shillings per acre, the shilling then having a
purchasing power equal to a dollar now. It was at this time that most
of the great Virginian estates along James River were formed, the
colonists securing in some cases large grants. Thus, John Carter of
Lancaster took up 18,570 acres, John Page 5000 acres, Richard Lee
12,000 acres, William Byrd 15,000 acres, afterwards largely increased;
Robert Beverley 37,000 acres and William Fitzhugh over 50,000 acres.
These were the founders of some of the most famous Virginian families.
The demand for labor naturally brought Virginia within the market of
the slave trader, but very few negroes were there in the earlier
period. The first negroes who arrived in Virginia were disembarked at
Jamestown from a Dutch privateer in 1619--twenty Africans. In 1622
there were twenty-two there, two more having landed; but it is noted
that no negro was killed in the Jamestown massacre. In 1649 there were
only three hundred negroes in Virginia, and in 1671 there were about
two thousand. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the
arrivals of negro slaves became more frequent--labor being in demand.
The records show that the planters had great difficulty in supplying
them with names, everything being ransacked for the purpose--mythology,
history and geography--and hence the peculiar names they have
conferred in some cases on their descendants. In 1640 a robust African
man when sold commanded 2700 pounds of tobacco, and a female 2500
pounds, averaging, at the then price of tobacco, about seventeen
pounds sterling for the men. Prices afterwards advanced to forty
pounds sterling for the men. In 1699 all newly arrived slaves were
taxed twenty shillings per head, paid by the master of the vessel.
As the colony developed, the typical dwelling became a framed log
building of moderate size, with a big chimney at each end, there being
no cellar and the house resting on the ground. The upper and lower
floors were each divided into two rooms. Such a house, built in 1679,
measuring forty by twenty feet, cost twelve hundred pounds of tobacco.
Finally, when more prosperity came in the eighteenth century, the
houses were developed and enlarged into more pretentious edifices,
built of bricks brought out from England. These were the great
colonial houses of the wealthy planters, so many of which exist until
the present day. The most prosperous time in colonial Virginia was the
period from 1710 until 1770. The exports of tobacco to England and
flour and other produce to the West Indies made the fortunes of the
planters, so that their vast estates and large retinues of slaves made
them the lordly barons whose fame spread throughout Europe, while
their wealth enabled them to gather all the luxuries of furniture and
ornament for their houses then attainable. It was in these noble
colonial mansions, surrounded by regiments of negro servants, that the
courtly Virginians of the olden time dispensed a princely hospitality,
limited only by their ability to secure whatever the world produced.
The stranger was always welcome at the bountiful board, and the slave
children grew up amid plenty, hardly knowing what work was. This went
on with more or less variation until the Civil War made its tremendous
upheaval, which scattered both whites and blacks. But the typical
Virginian is unchanged, continuing as open-hearted and hospitable,
though his means now are much less. To all he has, the guest is
welcome; but it is usually with a tinge of regret that he recalls the
good old time when he might have done more.