NOTES TO CHAPTERS 162
APPENDIX 181
INDEX 249
_CHAPTER I_
ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD
At the beginning of the Seventeenth century colonial expansion had
become for England an economic necessity. Because of the depletion of
her forests, which constituted perhaps the most important of her natural
resources, she could no longer look for prosperity from the old
industries that for centuries had been her mainstay. In the days when
the Norman conquerors first set foot upon English soil the virgin woods,
broken occasionally by fields and villages, had stretched in dense
formation from the Scottish border to Sussex and Devonshire. But with
the passage of five centuries a great change had been wrought. The
growing population, the expansion of agriculture, the increasing use of
wood for fuel, for shipbuilding, and for the construction of houses, had
by the end of the Tudor period so denuded the forests that they no
longer sufficed for the most pressing needs of the country.
Even at the present day it is universally recognized that a certain
proportion of wooded land is essential to the prosperity and
productivity of any country. And whenever this is lacking, not only do
the building, furniture, paper and other industries suffer, but the
rainfall proves insufficient, spring floods are frequent and the
fertility of the soil is impaired by washing. These misfortunes are
slight, however, compared with the disastrous results of the gradual
thinning out of the forests of Elizabethan England. The woods were
necessary for three all-important industries, the industries upon
which the prosperity and wealth of the nation were largely
dependent--shipbuilding, for which were needed timber, masts, pitch,
tar, resin; the manufacture of woolens, calling for a large supply of
potash; smelting of all kinds, since three hundred years ago wood and
not coal was the fuel used in the furnaces. It was with the deepest
apprehension, then, that thoughtful Englishmen watched the gradual
reduction of the forest areas, for it seemed to betoken for their
country a period of declining prosperity and economic decay. "When
therefore our mils of Iron and excesse of building have already turned
our greatest woods into pasture and champion within these few years,"
says a writer of this period, "neither the scattered forests of England,
nor the diminished groves of Ireland will supply the defect of our
navy."[1-1]
From this intolerable situation England sought relief through foreign
commerce. If she could no longer smelt her own iron, if she could not
produce ship-stores or burn her own wood ashes, these things might be
procured from countries where the forests were still extensive,
countries such as those bordering the Baltic--Germany, Poland, Russia,
Sweden. And so the vessels of the Muscovy Company in the second half of
the Sixteenth century passed through the Cattegat in large numbers to
make their appearance at Reval and Libau and Danzig, seeking there the
raw materials so vitally necessary to England. "Muscovia and Polina doe
yeerly receive many thousands for Pitch, Tarre, Sope Ashes, Rosen, Flax,
Cordage, Sturgeon, Masts, Yards, Wainscot, Firres, Glasse, and such
like," wrote Captain John Smith, "also Swethland for Iron and
Copper."[1-2]
But this solution of her problem was obviously unsatisfactory to
England. The northern voyage was long, dangerous and costly; the King of
Denmark, who controlled the entrance to the Baltic, had it within his
power at any moment to exclude the English traders; the Muscovy company
no longer enjoyed exemption from customs in Prussia, Denmark and Russia.
In case war should break out among the northern nations this trade might
for a time be cut off entirely, resulting in strangulation for England's
basic industries. "The merchant knoweth," said the author of _A True
Declaration_, "that through the troubles in Poland & Muscovy, (whose
eternall warres are like the Antipathy of the Dragon & Elephant) all
their traffique for Masts, Deales, Pitch, Tarre, Flax, Hempe, and
Cordage, are every day more and more indangered."[1-3] Moreover, the
trade was much impeded by the ice which for several months each year
choked some of the northern ports.
The most alarming aspect of this unfortunate situation was the effect of
the shortage of shipbuilding material upon the merchant marine. Situated
as it was upon an island, England enjoyed communication with the nations
of the world only by means of the ocean pathways. Whatever goods came to
her doors, whatever goods of her own manufacture she sent to foreign
markets, could be transported only by sea. It was a matter of vital
import to her, then, to build up and maintain a fleet of merchant
vessels second to none. But this was obviously difficult if not
impossible when "the furniture of shipping" such as "Masts, Cordage,
Pitch, Tar, Rossen" were not produced in quantity by England itself, and
could be had "only by the favor of forraigne potency."[1-4] Already, it
was stated, the decay of shipping was manifest, while large numbers of
able mariners were forced to seek employment in other countries. "You
know how many men for want of imploiment, betake themselves to Tunis,
Spaine and Florence," declared one observer, "and to serve in courses
not warrantable, which would better beseeme our own walles and borders
to bee spread with such branches, that their native countrey and not
forreine Princes might reape their fruit, as being both exquisite
Navigators, and resolute men for service, as any the world affords."[1-5]
It must be remembered that the merchant vessel three hundred years ago
constituted an important part of the nation's sea defence. The fleet
which met the mighty Spanish Armada in the Channel and inflicted upon it
so decisive a defeat, was made up in large part of volunteer ships from
every English port. And the Britisher knew full well that the merchant
marine constituted the "wooden walls" of his country, knew that its
decay would leave England almost defenseless. At the moment when one
able writer was pointing out that "the Realme of England is an Island
impossible to be otherwise fortified than by stronge shippes," another
was complaining that there were scarce two vessels of 100 tons belonging
to the whole city of Bristol, and few or none along the Severn from
Gloucester to Land's End on one side, and to Milford Haven on the
other.[1-6]
For this intolerable situation there could be but one remedy--England
must secure colonial possessions to supply her with the products for
which her forests were no longer sufficient. Her bold navigators had
already crossed the Atlantic, returning with alluring stories of the
limitless resources of the New World, of mighty forests spreading in
unbroken array for hundreds of miles along the coast and back into the
interior as far as the eye could see.[1-7] Why, it was asked, should
Englishmen be forced to make the hazardous journey to the Baltic in
order to procure from other nations what they might easily have for
themselves by taking possession of some of the limitless unoccupied
areas of America? It was folly to remain in economic bondage while the
road to independence stretched so invitingly before them.
Long before the Goodspeed, the Discovery and the Sarah Constant turned
their prows into the waters of the James, able English writers were
urging upon the nation the absolute necessity for colonial expansion. In
1584 the farseeing Hakluyt pointed out that the recent voyage of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert had proved that "pitche, tarr, rosen, sope ashes" could
be produced in America in great plenty, "yea, as it is thought, ynoughe
to serve the whole realme."[1-8] Captain Christopher Carleill had the
previous year made an effort to persuade the Muscovy Company to divert
its energies toward America. Why remain under the power of the King of
Denmark, he asked, or other princes who "command our shippes at their
pleasure," when all the products of the Baltic regions were to be had
from unoccupied territories which so easily could be placed under the
English flag?
It has often been taken for granted that the statesmen and merchants of
three centuries ago pursued always a mistaken and shortsighted economic
policy. John Fiske assures us that even at the close of the Eighteenth
century the barbarous superstitions of the Middle Ages concerning trade
between nations still flourished with scarcely diminished vitality. Yet
it requires but a cursory study of the theories and arguments of the
Elizabethan economists to realize that they were men of ability and
vision, that they knew what was needed and how to procure it, that they
were nearer right than many have supposed. In fact, they acted upon
sound economic principles a century and a half before Adam Smith
formulated and expounded them.
These men realized keenly that England's safety demanded a larger
measure of economic independence and they pointed out what seemed to be
the only available means of securing it. Since her forests upon which
her prosperity in the past had been so largely based, were nearing the
point of exhaustion, she must expand to embrace new lands where the
virgin growth of trees stood untouched. If this is barbarous, then the
recent efforts of Italy to gain an independent coal supply, of Great
Britain to get control of various oil fields, of the United States to
build up a dye industry, are all likewise barbarous. In fact the world
today in matters of economic policy has by no means gotten away from the
conceptions of the men whose able writings cleared the way for the
beginning of the British colonial empire.
But it must not be supposed that England in this matter was concerned
only for her supply of naval stores, potash and pig iron. There were
other products, not so vital it is true, but still important, which she
was forced to seek abroad. From the south of Europe came salt, sugar,
wine, silk, fruits; from the Far East saltpetre and dyes, together with
spices for making palatable the winter's stock of food; from Holland
came fish, from France wine and silk. And as in the Baltic, so elsewhere
the merchants of London and Bristol and Plymouth found their activities
resented and their efforts blocked and thwarted.
All commerce with the dominions of the King of Spain was carried on with
the greatest difficulty. "Our necessitie of oiles and colours for our
clothinge trade being so greate," pointed out Hakluyt, "he may arreste
almoste the one halfe of our navye, our traficque and recourse beinge so
greate in his dominions." The rich trade with the Far East was seriously
hampered by the Turks, through whose territories it had to pass, and
often a heavy tribute was laid upon it by the Sultan and his minions.
Even after the merchants had succeeded in lading their vessels in the
eastern Mediterranean with goods from the Orient, they still had to run
the gauntlet of the hostile Powers who infested that sea. If they
escaped the Knights of Malta, they might be captured by the corsairs of
Algeria or Tripoli.
The trade with France had also declined greatly during the closing years
of the Sixteenth century. Not only had the religious wars proved a
tremendous obstacle, but the government at Paris discriminated against
the woolens from England by means of custom duties, while the French
workmen were themselves manufacturing cloth of excellent quality in
larger amounts than had hitherto been thought possible. In the Low
Countries the long and bitter struggle of the people against the bloody
bands of Alva had wrought such destruction and had so ruined industry
that all foreign commerce had greatly declined.[1-9]
There can be no surprise, then, that many English economists felt that a
crisis had been reached, that nothing save the immediate establishment
of colonies would prevent disaster. With the woolen industry declining,
with the shipbuilding centres almost idle, with able mariners deserting
the service, with the foreign market gradually closing to English wares,
with the country overrun with idle and starving laborers, with some of
her chief natural resources nearly exhausted and the trade by which her
needs were replenished in constant danger, England turned to America as
her hope for salvation. Upon securing a foothold in the New World,
hitherto monopolized by Spain and Portugal, depended Albion's future
greatness and prosperity.
It is this which gave to the London Company its national character, and
made its efforts to establish a colony across the Atlantic a crusade, a
movement in which every Englishman was vitally concerned. The great
lords and wealthy merchants who comprised the Company knew well enough
that there was little hope of immediate returns upon the money they
subscribed so liberally. They expected to receive their reward in
another way, in the revival of English industrial life and the
restoration of English economic independence. It is a singular
perversion of history, an inaccurate interpretation of men and events,
which for so many years beclouded our conception of the beginning of the
British colonial empire. The settlement at Jamestown was not the product
of a selfish, private venture, but the fruition of long years of thought
and endeavor, long years of pleading with the English public, of the
conscious and deliberate efforts of the nation to expand to the New
World, to break the bonds of economic dependence and to restore to
England the place in the world which rightfully was hers.
In addition to, but closely associated with, the economic causes of
Anglo-Saxon expansion was the realization in England of the need for
prompt action in putting a limit to the growing domains of the King of
Spain. In the century which had elapsed since Columbus opened a new
world to the peoples of Europe, this monarch had seized the richest part
of the great prize, and was still reaching forward to the north and to
the south. Unless England took advantage of the present opportunity, the
vast American continents might be closed to her forever. Anglo-Saxon
civilization in that case might well remain permanently cooped up in the
little island that had seen its inception, while the Spanish language
and Spanish institutions expanded to embrace the garden spots of the
world.[1-10]
There were still other motives for this great movement. The English felt
the prime necessity of discovering and controlling a new route to the
East, they wished to expand the influence of the Anglican church and
convert the Indians, they hoped to seize and fortify strategic points in
America which would aid them in their struggles with the Spaniards. But
these things, important as they were, paled beside the pressing
necessity of national expansion, of rehabilitating English industrial
life, restoring the merchant marine and securing economic independence.
Thus, when Captain Newport returned in 1607 to report that the colony of
Virginia had been safely launched, many Englishmen were aroused to a
high pitch of hope and expectation. Now at last a province had been
secured which could supply the raw materials which England so greatly
needed. The active supporters of the undertaking were lavish in their
promises. Virginia would yield better and cheaper timber for shipping
than Prussia or Poland, she would furnish potash in abundance, and since
wood could there be had for the cutting, her copper and iron ore could
be smelted on the spot. Wine could be made there, as excellent as that
of the Canaries, they boasted, while it was hoped soon to manufacture
silk rivalling in fineness that of Persia or of Turkey. The waters of
the colony were full of "Sturgion, Caviare and new land fish of the
best," her fields could produce hemp for cordage and flax for linen. As
for pitch, tar, turpentine and boards, there was a certainty of a rich
return.[1-11] In February 1608, the Council of Virginia wrote to the
corporation of Plymouth: "The staple and certain Comodities we have are
Soap-ashes, pitch, tar, dyes of sundry sorts and rich values, timber for
all uses, fishing for sturgeon and divers other sorts ... making of
Glass and Iron, and no improbable hope of richer mines."[1-12]
And no sooner had the infant colony been established than the Company
turned with enthusiasm to the production of these highly desired
commodities. A number of foreigners, Dutchmen and Poles skilled in the
manufacture of ship-stores, were sent over to make a start with pitch,
tar, turpentine and potash. They were to act as instructors, also, and
it was expected that within a few years the Virginia forests would be
filled with workers in these trades. Unfortunately their efforts met
with ill success, and save for a few small samples of pitch and tar
which were sent to England, nothing of value was produced.
For this failure the reason is apparent. All the able economists and
statesmen who had predicted that the colony would become an industrial
center had overlooked one vitally important factor--the lack of cheap
labor. No matter how rich in natural resources, Virginia could not hope
to compete with the long-established industries of Europe and Asia,
because she lacked the abundant population requisite to success. It had
been imagined by Hakluyt and others that the colony could avail herself
of the surplus population of England, could drain off the upper stratum
of the idle and unemployed. What more feasible than to set these men to
work in the forests of the New World to produce the raw materials the
want of which was responsible for unemployment in England itself!
But the voyage across the Atlantic was so long and costly, that it
proved impossible to transport in any reasonable length of time enough
workers to Virginia to supply her needs. And the few thousand that came
over in the early years of the Seventeenth century were in such great
demand that they could secure wages several times higher than those in
vogue throughout Europe. Thus the London Company, from the very outset,
found itself face to face with a difficulty which it could never
surmount. Virginia could not compete with the ship-stores of the Baltic
nations because her labor, when indeed it was found possible to secure
labor at all, was far more expensive than that of Poland or Sweden or
Russia. It mattered not that the Company sent over indentured servants,
bound by their contracts to work for a certain number of years; the
effect was the same. The cost of transportation swallowed up the profits
from the servant's labor, when that labor was expended upon industries
which had to face the competition of the cheap workers of the Old World.
It speaks well for the acumen of Captain John Smith that he seems to
have been the first to grasp clearly this truth. He wrote that the
workingmen had made a beginning of "Pitch and Tarre, Glass, Sope-ashes
and Clapboard," but that little had been accomplished. "If you rightly
consider what an infinite toyle it is in Russia and Swetland, where the
woods are proper for naught else, and though there be the helpe both of
man and beast in those ancient Common-wealths, which many a hundred
years have used it, yet thousands of those poor people can scarce get
necessaries to live ... you must not expect from us any such
matter."[1-13]
The attempt to produce iron in Virginia was pursued even more
vigorously, but with equally poor success. The early settlers, eager to
assure the Company that the venture they had entered upon would soon
yield a rich return, spoke enthusiastically of the numerous indications
of the presence of iron ore. In 1609 Captain Newport brought with him to
England a supply of ore from which sixteen or seventeen tons of metal
were extracted of a quality equal or superior to that obtained from any
European country. The iron was sold to the East India Company at the
rate of L4 a ton.[1-14] Immediately plans were launched for taking
advantage of what seemed to be a splendid opportunity. In the course of
the first three years machinery for smelting and manufacturing iron was
sent over and men were set to work to operate it. But the difficulties
proved too great and ere long the attempt had to be abandoned.
The Company had no idea of relinquishing permanently its quest for
staple commodities, however, and soon a new and far more ambitious
project was set on foot for extracting the ore. The spot selected was at
Falling Creek, in the present county of Chesterfield, a few miles below
the rapids of the James river. George Sandys had noted with satisfaction
some years before that the place was in every respect suited for iron
smelting, for in close proximity to the ore was wood in abundance,
stones for the construction of the furnace and deep water for
transportation. To him it seemed that nature itself had selected the
site and endowed it with every facility which the enterprise could
require.[1-15] Here the London Company spent from L4,000 to L5,000 in a
supreme effort to make their colony answer in some degree the
expectations which had been placed in it. A Captain Blewit, with no less
than 80 men, was sent over to construct the works, upon which, they
declared, were fixed the eyes of "God, Angels and men." But Blewit soon
succumbed to one of the deadly epidemics which yearly swept over the
little colony, and a Mr. John Berkeley, accompanied by 20 experienced
workers, came over to take his place.
At first things seem to have gone well with this ambitious venture. Soon
the Virginia forests were resounding to the whir of the axe and the
crash of falling trees, to the exclamations of scores of busy men as
they extracted the ore, built their furnace and began the work of
smelting. Operations had progressed so far that it was confidently
predicted that soon large quantities of pig iron would be leaving the
James for England, when an unexpected disaster put an abrupt end to the
enterprise. In the terrible massacre of 1622, when the implacable
Opechancanough attempted at one stroke to rid the country of its white
invaders, the little industrial settlement at Falling Creek was
completely destroyed. The furnace was ruined, the machinery thrown into
the river, the workmen butchered. This project, which had absorbed so
much of the attention and resources of the Company, is said to have
yielded only a shovel, a pair of tongs and one bar of iron.[1-16]
The history of the attempts to establish glass works in Virginia is also
a story of wasted energy and money, of final failure. The Dutch and
Polish workers who came in 1608 set up a furnace at Jamestown,[1-17] but
nothing more is heard of them, and it is clear that they met with no
success. Nor did Captain William Norton, who arrived in 1621 with a
number of skilled Italian glass workers fare any better.[1-18] In 1623
George Sandys wrote: "Capt. Norton dyed with all save one of his
servants, the Italians fell extremely sick yet recovered; but I conceave
they would gladly make the work to appear unfeasable, that they might by
that means be dismissed for England. The fier hath now been for six
weeks in ye furnace and yet nothing effected. They claim that the sand
will not run." Shortly after this the workmen brought matters to an end
by cracking the furnace with a crowbar.[1-19]
Thus ended in complete failure the efforts of England to reap what she
considered the legitimate fruits of this great enterprise. The day of
which her farseeing publicists had dreamed had arrived; she had at last
challenged the right of Spain to all North America, her sons were
actually settled on the banks of the James, a beginning had been made in
the work of building a colonial empire. But the hope which had so fired
the mind of Hakluyt, the hope of attaining through Virginia British
economic independence, was destined never to be fulfilled. However
lavishly nature had endowed the colony with natural resources, however
dense her forests, however rich her mines, however wide and deep her
waterways, she could not become an industrial community. Fate had
decreed for her another destiny. But England was reluctant to accept the
inevitable in this matter. Long years after Sir Edwin Sandys and his
fellow workers of the London Company had passed to their rest, we find
the royal ministers urging upon the colony the necessity of producing
pig iron and silk and potash, and promising every possible encouragement
in the work. But the causes which operated to bring failure in 1610 or
1620 prevented success in 1660 and 1680. Virginia had not the abundant
supply of labor essential to the development of an industrial community
and for many decades, perhaps for centuries, could not hope to attain
it. Her future lay in the discovery and exploitation of one staple
commodity for which she was so preeminently adapted that she could, even
with her costly labor, meet the competition of other lands. The future
history of Virginia was to be built up around the Indian plant tobacco.
_CHAPTER II_
THE INDIAN WEED
History is baffling in its complexity. The human mind instinctively
strives for simplicity, endeavors to reproduce all things to set rules,
to discover the basic principles upon which all action is based. And in
various lines of research much success has attended these efforts. We
know the laws underlying the movements of the planets, of various
chemical reactions, of plant and animal life. It is inevitable, then,
that attempts should be made to accomplish similar results in history,
to master the vast multitude of facts which crowd its pages, many of
them seemingly unrelated, and show that after all they obey certain
fundamental laws. Despite the vaunted freedom of the human will, it is
maintained, mankind like the planets or the chemical agents, cannot
escape the operation of definite forces to which it is subjected. And if
these forces are studied and understood, to some extent at least, the
course of future events may be predicted.
Thus it may be accepted as practically established that in any country
and with any people a condition of continued disorder and anarchy must
be succeeded by one of despotism. History records, we believe, no
exception to this rule, while there are many instances which tend to
confirm it. The absolute rule of the Caesars followed the anarchy of the
later Roman republic, the Oliverian Protectorate succeeded the British
civil wars, the first French Empire the Reign of Terror, the Bolshevik
despotism the collapse of the old regime in Russia. Such will always be
the case, we are told, because mankind turns instinctively to any form
of government in quest of protection from anarchy, and the easiest form
of government to establish and operate is despotism.
Not content with generalizations of this kind, however, certain
historians have undertaken to reduce all human action to some one great
fundamental principle. The Freudian view emphasizes the influence of
sex; Buckle maintains that the effect of climate is all-powerful. In
recent years many students, while not agreeing that the solution of the
problem is quite so simple, yet believe that underlying all social
development will be found economic forces of one kind or another, that
in commerce and industry and agriculture lies the key to every event of
moment in the history of mankind. Often these forces have been obscured
and misunderstood, but close study will always reveal them. It is folly
to waste time, they say, as writers have so long done, in setting forth
the adventures of this great man or that, in dwelling upon the details
of political struggles or recounting the horrors of war. All these are
but surface indications of the deeper movements underneath, movements in
every case brought about by economic developments.
But this interpretation of history is by no means universally accepted.
While admitting readily that the conditions surrounding the production
and exchange of useful commodities have affected profoundly the course
of events, many historians deny that they give the key to every
important movement. We must study also the progress of human thought, of
religion, of politics, or our conception of history will be warped and
imperfect. How is it possible to explain the French religious wars of
the Sixteenth century by the theory of economic causes? In what way does
it account for the rebellion of Virginia and North Carolina and Maryland
against the British government in 1775? How can one deny that the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln affected profoundly the course of
American history?
These efforts to simplify the meaning of human events have often led to
error, have stressed certain events too strongly, have minimized others.
The complexity of history is self-evident; we must for the present at
least content ourselves with complex interpretations of it. If there be
any great underlying principles which explain all, they have yet to be
discovered.
Thus it would be folly in the study of colonial Virginia to blind
ourselves to the importance of various non-economic factors, the love of
freedom which the settlers brought with them from England, their
affection for the mother country, the influence of the Anglican church.
Yet it is obvious that we cannot understand the colony, its social
structure, its history, its development unless we have a clear insight
into the economic forces which operated upon it. These Englishmen,
finding themselves in a new country, surrounded by conditions
fundamentally different from those to which they had been accustomed,
worked out a new and unique society, were themselves moulded into
something different.
And in colonial Virginia history there is a key, which though it may not
explain all, opens the door to much that is fundamental. This key is
tobacco. The old saying that the story of Virginia is but the story of
tobacco is by no means a gross exaggeration. It was this Indian plant,
so despised by many of the best and ablest men of the time, which
determined the character of the life of the colony and shaped its
destinies for two and a half centuries. Tobacco was the chief factor in
bringing final and complete failure to the attempts to produce useful
raw materials, it was largely instrumental in moulding the social
classes and the political structure of the colony, it was almost
entirely responsible for the system of labor, it even exerted a powerful
influence upon religion and morals. In a word, one can understand almost
nothing of Virginia, its infancy, its development, its days of
misfortune, its era of prosperity, its peculiar civilization, the nature
of its relations to England, unless one knows the history of tobacco.
As though they had a prophetic vision of its future importance, the
Virginia Indians revered the plant. To them it was an especial gift
direct from the Great Spirit, and as such was endowed with unusual
properties for doing good. When the fields of maize were dried and
parched for lack of rain they powdered the tobacco and cast it to the
winds that the evil genii might be propitiated; their priests on great
occasions fed it to the sacrificial fires; when the usual catch of fish
failed it was scattered over the water.[2-1] Smoking was considered a
token of friendship and peace. When the white men first visited the
native villages they soon found that to reject the proffered pipe was to
offend their savage hosts and incur their hostility.
It was John Rolfe, celebrated as the husband of Pocahontas, who first
experimented with the native leaf. This gentleman was himself fond of
smoking, but he found the Virginia tobacco as it came from the hands of
the savages, decidedly inferior to that of the West Indies. The leaf
itself was small, and although the flavor was weak it was biting to the
tongue.[2-2] Rolfe's efforts proved entirely successful. In 1614, two
years after his first attempt, he had obtained a product which Ralph
Hamor declared to be as "strong, sweet and pleasant as any under the
sun."[2-3]
Thus, early in its history, Virginia had found a commodity for which she
was preeminently suited, in the production of which she could compete
successfully with any country in the world. And for her tobacco she had
a ready market. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the habit of smoking
had spread rapidly among the upper classes of English, until at the end
of the sixteenth century, it was almost universal. When James I
ascended the throne, although feeling a strong aversion to tobacco, he
was forced to take up its use in order not to appear conspicuous among
his courtiers, for the dictates of custom seem to have been as strong
three hundred years ago as at present.[2-4] At the time that Rolfe was
making his experiments England was spending yearly for the Spanish
product many thousands of pounds.
It is not surprising, then, that the colonists turned eagerly to tobacco
culture. The news that Rolfe's little crop had been pronounced in
England to be of excellent quality spread rapidly from settlement to
settlement, bringing with it new hope and determination. Immediately
tobacco absorbed the thoughts of all, became the one topic of
conversation, and every available patch of land was seized upon for its
cultivation. The fortified areas within the palisades were crowded with
tobacco plants, while even the streets of Jamestown were utilized by the
eager planters.[2-5] In 1617 the George set sail for England laden with
20,000 pounds of Virginia leaf, the first of the vast fleet of tobacco
ships which for centuries were to pass through the capes of the
Chesapeake bound for Europe.[2-6] By 1627, the tobacco exports amounted
to no less than half a million pounds.[2-7]
The London Company, together with the host of patriotic Englishmen who
had placed such great hopes in the colony, were much disappointed at
this unexpected turn of events. They had sought in the New World those
"solid commodities" which they realized were fundamental to the
prosperity of their country, commodities upon which English industrial
life was founded. And they had found only the Indian weed--tobacco. This
plant not only contributed nothing to the wealth of the kingdom, it was
felt, but was positively injurious to those who indulged in its use.
Surely, declared one writer, men "grow mad and crazed in the brain in
that they would adventure to suck the smoke of a weed." James I thought
there could be no baser and more harmful corruption, while Charles I
expressed himself with equal emphasis. So late as 1631 the latter
protested against the growing use of tobacco, which he termed "an evil
habit of late tymes."[2-8]
Yet England soon learned to welcome the colonial tobacco as far better
than no product at all. Hitherto the leaf in use had been raised in the
Spanish colonies, and England's annual tobacco bill was becoming larger
and larger. It seemed calamitous that British industry should be drained
of good and useful commodities in exchange for a plant the consumption
of which was harmful rather than beneficial. It was at least some
satisfaction to know, then, that England could substitute for the
Spanish leaf the growth of their own colonies. Apparently it was only
later, however, that there came a full realization of the opportunity
afforded for enriching England and building up her merchant marine by
exporting tobacco to foreign countries. For the present they accepted
this one product of their experiment in colonial expansion, reluctantly
and with keen disappointment, as the best that could be obtained.
Yet it was obvious to the London Company that tobacco held out the only
prospect, not only of securing a profit from their venture, but of
bringing to Virginia some measure of prosperity. The first consignment
of leaf which came from the colony sold for no less than 5s. 3d. a
pound, a price which promised a rich return to the planters on the James
and their backers in England.[2-9] And they much preferred to have a
prosperous colony, even when prosperity was founded on tobacco, than a
weak, impoverished settlement, which would be a drain upon their
personal resources and of no value to the nation. Thus they accepted the
inevitable, gave what encouragement they could to the new product, and
sought to use it as a means for building up the British empire in
America. When once England had established herself firmly in the New
World, it would be time enough to return to the attempt to secure from
the colony ship-stores, potash, iron and silk.
With the overthrow of the Company, however, the Crown made repeated
efforts to direct the energies of Virginia away from the all-absorbing
cultivation of tobacco. In 1636 Charles I wrote to the Governor and
Council bidding them moderate the excessive quantities of the plant laid
out each year and to endeavor to produce some other staple
commodities.[2-10] "The King cannot but take notice," he reiterated the
next year, "how little that colony hath advanced in Staple commodities
fit for their own subsistence and clothing," and he warned the planters
to emulate the Barbados and Caribee Islands, where a beginning had been
made in cotton, wool and other useful things.[2-11] But the colonists
paid no heed to these repeated warnings. The King's commands were no
more effective in establishing new industries than had been the first
attempts of the Company. Virginia was not prepared to compete with the
workers of Europe in their own chosen fields, and persisted, had to
persist, in the production of the one commodity for which she possessed
unsurpassed natural advantages.
It is remarkable how universally the plant was cultivated by all classes
of Virginians throughout the colonial period. It was difficult to find
skilled artisans in any line of work, since those who had pursued in
England the various trades usually deserted them, when they landed in
the colony, in order to turn to the raising of tobacco. And the few who
continued to pursue their old vocations usually rented or purchased a
small tract of land and devoted a part of their time to its cultivation.
Blacksmiths, carpenters, shipwrights, coopers all raised their little
tobacco crop and sold it to the British merchants,[2-12] while even the
poor minister sought to make ends meet by planting his glebe with
Orinoco or Sweetscented. The Governor himself was not free from the
all-prevailing custom, and frequently was the possessor of a farm where
his servants and slaves, like those of other gentlemen in the colony,
were kept busy tending the tobacco crop.
It is doubtful whether the members of the London Company, even Sir Edwin
Sandys himself, ever attempted to visualize the social structure which
would develop in the Virginia they were planning. If so, they
unquestionably pictured a state of affairs very different from that
which the future held in store. They took it for granted that Virginia
would to a large extent be a duplicate of England. In the forests of the
New World would grow up towns and villages, centers of industry and
centers of trade. The population would be divided into various
classes--well-to-do proprietors boasting of the title of gentleman;
professional men, lawyers, physicians, ministers; skilled artisans of
all kinds; day laborers.
We catch a glimpse of the Virginia of their minds from a Broadside
issued in 1610, appealing for volunteers for service in the
colony.[2-13] We can see the shipwrights at work in the busy yards of
thriving ports; the smelters caring for their iron and copper furnaces;
the "minerall-men" digging out the ore; saltmakers evaporating the
brackish waters for their useful product; vine-dressers tending their
abundant crops of grapes and coopers turning out the hogsheads in which
to store the wine which came from the presses; bricklayers and
carpenters fashioning substantial houses; fishermen bringing in the
plentiful yield of the day and dressers preparing the fish for foreign
shipment; joiners, smiths, gardeners, bakers, gun-founders,
ploughwrights, brewers, sawyers, fowlers, each plying his trade in the
New Brittania.
But how different was the reality. Virginia became, not an industrial,
but a distinctly agricultural community. For more than a century it
could boast not a single town worthy of the name.[2-14] It was but a
series of plantations, not large in extent, but stretching out for miles
along the banks of the rivers and creeks, all devoted to the raising of
tobacco. The population of the colony was but the aggregate of the
population of the plantation--the owner, the wage earners, the
indentured servant, a few slaves. Virginia in the Seventeenth century,
despite the design of its founders, developed a life of its own, a life
not only unlike that of England, but unique and distinct.
Immigration, like everything else in the colony, was shaped by the needs
of tobacco. For its successful production the plant does not require
skilled labor or intensive cultivation. The barbarous natives of Africa,
who later in the century were imported in such large numbers, eventually
proved quite adequate to the task. But it does require the service of
many hands. For decades after Rolfe's discovery had opened a new vista
of prosperity for Virginia, fertile land was so cheap that a person even
of moderate means might readily purchase an extensive plantation,[2-15]
but it would be of little service to him unless he could find hands for
clearing away the forests, breaking the soil, tending and curing the
plants.
Of the three requirements of production--natural resources, capital and
labor--the fertile soil furnished the first in abundance, the second
could readily be secured, but the last remained for a full century the
one great problem of the planters. From the days of Sir George Yeardley
to those of Nicholson and Andros there was a persistent and eager demand
for workers. Of this there can be no better evidence than the remarkably
high wages which prevailed in the colony, especially in the years prior
to the Restoration. In fact, it is probable that the laborer received
for his services four or five times the amount he could earn in
England. Even during the time of the London Company we find George
Sandys writing to a friend in London to procure indentured servants for
the colony as the wages demanded were intolerable. A day's work brought,
in addition to food, a pound of tobacco valued at one shilling, while in
England the unskilled worker considered himself fortunate if he could
earn so much in a week.[2-16]
In his efforts to solve this acute problem the planter found little hope
in the aborigines. The Spaniards, it is true, had made use of the
Indians to till their fields or work in the gold and silver mines, but
the Pamunkey and the Powhatan were cast in a different mold from the
Aztec and the Peruvian. To hunt them out of their native lairs and bind
them to arduous and ignominious servitude was hardly to be thought of.
Their spirit was too proud to be thus broken, the safe refuge of the
woods too near at hand. One might as well have attempted to hitch lions
and tigers to the plough shaft, as to place these wild children of the
forest at the handles. At times it proved practicable to make use of
Indian children for servants, and there are numerous instances on record
in which they are found in the homes of the planters.[2-17] But this, of
course, could be of little service in solving the pressing labor
problem, in clearing new ground or tilling the idle fields. The Virginia
landowner was forced to turn elsewhere for his helpers.
In 1619 a Dutch privateer put into the James river and disembarked
twenty Africans who were sold to the settlers as slaves. This event, so
full of evil portent for the future of Virginia, might well have
afforded a natural and satisfactory solution of the labor problem.
Slaves had long been used in the Spanish colonies, proving quite
competent to do the work of tending the tobacco plants, and bringing
handsome returns to their masters. But it was impossible at this time
for England to supply her plantations with this type of labor. The
slave trade was in the hands of the Dutch, who had fortified themselves
on the African coast and jealously excluded other nations. Thus while
the demand for negro slaves remained active in the colony, they
increased in numbers very slowly. The muster of 1624-25 shows only
22.[2-18] During the following half century there was a small influx of
negroes, but their numbers were still too small to affect seriously the
economic life of the colony.[2-19]
The settlers were thus forced to look to England itself to supply them
with hands for their tobacco fields. They knew that in the mother
country were many thousands of indigent persons who would welcome an
opportunity to better their lot by migrating to the New World. And the
English statesmen, feeling that there was need for blood letting,
welcomed an opportunity to divert the surplus population to the new
colony in America.[2-20] The decline in English foreign trade and the
stagnation of home industry had brought unemployment and suffering to
every class of workers. Wages were so low that the most industrious
could not maintain themselves in comfort, while to provide against want
in case of sickness or old age was hardly to be thought of. Every
parish, every town swarmed with persons stricken with abject poverty. In
some parts of the country no less than 30 per cent of the population
were dependent in part upon charity for their daily bread, while many
were driven into vagabondage and crime, becoming an element of danger
rather than of strength to the nation.[2-21] It seemed to the planters
that the mother country constituted an abundant reservoir of labor, a
reservoir already overflowing and capable of supplying indefinitely
their every need.
The only drawback was the long and expensive voyage across the Atlantic.
The fare, even for the poorest and most crowded accommodations, was no
less than six pounds sterling, a sum far beyond the means of the
thriftiest laborer.[2-22] Obviously some scheme had to be evolved to
overcome this difficulty before Virginia could make use of English
labor. And so the planters turned to the simple expedient of advancing
the passage money to the immigrant and of placing him under strict legal
bonds to work it out after reaching the colony.
This system, around which the economic life of Virginia centered for a
full century, proved satisfactory to all concerned. The credit advanced
to the immigrant made it possible for him to earn his ocean fare, not in
England where labor was cheap, but in America where it was dear. In
other words, he was enabled without delay to enjoy the full benefits of
selling his services in the best market. The necessity for placing him
under a stringent contract or indenture is evident. Had this not been
done the immigrant, upon finding himself in Virginia, might have refused
to carry out his part of the bargain. But the indenture was in no sense
a mark of servitude or slavery. It simply made it obligatory for the
newcomer, under pain of severe penalties, to work out his passage money,
and until that was accomplished to surrender a part of the personal
liberty so dear to every Englishman.
It is erroneous to suppose that most of the servants were degenerates or
criminals. It is true that the English Government from time to time
sought to lessen the expense of providing for convicted felons by
sending some of them to the colonies, among them on rare occasions a few
decidedly objectionable characters. More than once the Virginians
protested vigorously against this policy as dangerous to the peace and
prosperity of the colony.[2-23] By far the larger part of these penal
immigrants, however, were but harmless paupers, driven perhaps to theft
or some other petty offense by cold and hunger. Often they were
sentenced to deportation by merciful judges in order that they might
not feel the full weight of the harsh laws of that day.[2-24]
And of the small number of real criminals who came in, few indeed made
any lasting imprint upon the social fabric of the colony. Many served
for life and so had no opportunity of marrying and rearing families to
perpetuate their degenerate traits. Those who escaped fled from the
confines of settled Virginia to the mountains or to the backwoods of
North Carolina. Many others succumbed to the epidemics which proved so
deadly to the newcomers from England. In fact the criminal servant was
but a passing incident in the life and development of England's greatest
and most promising colony.[2-25]
An appreciable proportion of the so-called criminal laborers were no
more than political prisoners taken in the rebellions of the Seventeenth
century. These men frequently represented the sturdiest and most
patriotic elements in the kingdom and were a source of strength rather
than of weakness to the colony. When Drogheda was captured by Cromwell's
stern Puritan troops in 1649, some of the unfortunate rebels escaped the
firing squad only to be sent to America to serve in the sugar or tobacco
fields. Just how many of these Irishmen fell to the share of Virginia it
is impossible to say, but the number rises well into the hundreds, and
the patent books of the period are full of headrights of undoubted Irish
origin.[2-26]
When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 it became the turn of
the Puritans to suffer, and many non-conformists and former Oliverian
soldiers were sent to Virginia. In fact so many old Commonwealth men
were serving in the tobacco fields in 1663 that they felt strong enough
to plot, not only for their own freedom, but for the overthrow of the
colonial government.[2-27] In 1678, after the suppression of the
Scottish Covenanters by the Highland Host, a new batch of prisoners were
sent to the plantations.[2-28] Seven years later many of Monmouth's
followers taken at Sedgemour, who were fortunate enough to escape the
fury of Jeffreys and Kirk, were forced to work in the plantations.
But the bulk of the servants were neither criminals nor political
prisoners, but poor persons seeking to better their condition in the
land of promise across the Atlantic. They constituted the vanguard of
that vast stream of immigrants which for three centuries Europe has
poured upon our shores. The indentured servant differed in no essential
from the poor Ulsterite or German who followed him in the Eighteenth
century, or the Irishman, the Italian or the Slav in the Nineteenth.
Like them he found too severe the struggle for existence at home, like
them he sought to reach a land where labor, the only commodity he had to
sell, would bring the highest return. The fact that his passage was paid
for him and that he was bound by contract to work it out after reaching
America, in no wise differentiates him from the newcomers of later days.
In 1671 Sir William Berkeley reported to the Board of Trade that the
colony contained "6,000 Christian servants for a short tyme," who had
come with the "hope of bettering their condition in a Growing
Country."[2-29]
Virginia is fortunate in having preserved a record of this, the first
great migration to the English colonies, which in some respects is
remarkably complete. In fact, the names of fully three-fourths of all
the persons who came to the colony, whether as freemen or servants
during the first century of its existence, are on record at the Land
Office at Richmond, and at all times available to the student of
history. In the early days of the settlement a law was passed designed
to stimulate immigration, by which the Government pledged itself to
grant fifty acres of land to any person who would pay the passage from
Europe to Virginia of a new settler. Thus if one brought over ten
indentured servants he would be entitled to 500 acres of land, if he
brought 100, he could demand 5,000 acres. But the headright, as it was
called, was not restricted to servants; if one came over as a freeman,
paying his own passage, he was entitled to the fifty acres. Should he
bring also his family, he could demand an additional fifty acres for his
wife and fifty for each child or other member of the household.[2-30]
When the Government issued a grant for land under this law, the planter
was required to record with the clerk of the county court the names of
all persons for whose transportation the claim was made. Some of these
lists have been lost, especially for the period from 1655 to 1666, but
most of them remain, constituting an inexhaustible storehouse of
information concerning the colony and the people who came to its
shores.[2-31] How the papers escaped destruction during the fire which
did so much damage in the Secretary's office at the time of Andros, it
is impossible to say. The explanation is to be found perhaps in the fact
that copies of the records were kept, not only at Williamsburg, but in
the several counties, so that in case of loss by fire new entries could
be made.
Immigration to Virginia continued in unabated volume throughout the
Seventeenth century. The needs of the tobacco plantations were
unceasing, and year after year the surplus population of England poured
across the Atlantic in response. An examination of the list of
headrights shows that the annual influx was between 1500 and 2000. Even
during the Civil War and Commonwealth periods this average seems to have
been maintained with surprising consistency. Apparently the only limit
which could be set upon it was the available space on board the merchant
fleet which each year left England for the Chesapeake bay. Thus in the
year ending May 1635 we find that 2000 landed in the colony,[2-32] while
in 1674 and again in 1682 the same average was maintained.[2-33] At
times the numbers dropped to 1200 or 1300, but this was the exception
rather than the rule. All in all, considerably more than 100,000 persons
migrated to the colony in the years that elapsed between the first
settlement at Jamestown and the end of the century.[2-34]
This great movement, which far surpassed in magnitude any other English
migration of the century, fixed for all time the character of the white
population of tidewater Virginia. The vast bulk of the settlers were
English. An examination of the headright lists shows here and there an
Irish or a Scotch name, and on very rare occasions one of French or
Italian origin, but in normal periods fully 95 per cent were
unmistakably Anglo-Saxon. In fact, such names as Dixon, Bennett,
Anderson, Adams, Greene, Brooke, Brown, Cooper, Gibson, Hall, Harris,
King, Jackson, Long, Martin, Miller, Newton, Philips, Richards, Turner,
White, appear with monotonous repetition. Except in the years 1655 and
1656, after the Drogheda tragedy when one sees such names as O'Lanny,
O'Leaby, O'Mally, and Machoone, or in 1679 when there was a sprinkling
of Scottish names, the entire list is distinctly English.
It must not be supposed that immigration to Virginia in the Seventeenth
century was restricted to indentured servants. Some of the settlers were
freemen, paying their own passage and establishing themselves as
proprietors immediately after arriving in the colony. But the conditions
which attracted them were the same as those which brought over the
servants. In both cases it was tobacco, the rich returns which it
promised and the urgent need it had of labor, which impelled them to
leave their homes in England to seek their fortunes in the strange land
beyond the seas.
Having seen the character of the immigration to Virginia, it remains to
determine what was the fate of the settler after he reached the colony,
what role lay before him in its social and economic life. Would he
remain permanently in the status of a servant, entering into a new
agreement with his master after the expiration of the old? Would he
eventually become a day laborer, working for wages upon the estates of
the wealthy? Would he become a tenant? Could he hope to become a
freeholder, making of Virginia, like Rome in the early days of the
republic, the land of the small proprietor?
_CHAPTER III_
THE VIRGINIA YEOMANRY
The system of indentured labor differed vitally from negro slavery. The
servant usually was bound to his master for a limited period only, and
at the expiration of four or five years was a free man, to go where he
would and pursue what employment seemed most lucrative. And of
tremendous importance to the future of Virginia was the fact that he was
of the same race and blood as the rest of the population. There was no
inherent reason why he might not take up land, marry and become a part
of the social structure of the colony.
When races of marked physical differences are placed side by side in the
same territory, assimilation of one or the other becomes difficult, and
an age long repugnance and conflict is apt to result. Perhaps the
greatest crime against the southern colonies was not the introduction of
slavery, but the introduction of negroes. It was inevitable that
eventually slavery would be abolished. But the negro race in America
cannot be abolished, it cannot be shipped back to Africa, it cannot well
be absorbed into the white population. Today California is struggling to
avoid a like problem by excluding the Japanese, while Canada, Australia
and New Zealand are closing their doors to Orientals of all kinds.
Thus Virginia, during its century of white immigration, was storing up
no perplexing difficulties for the future, was developing slowly but
surely into an industrious, democratic, Anglo-Saxon community. Not until
the black flood of slaves was turned loose upon her, strangling her
peasantry and revolutionizing her industrial and social life, was her
future put in pawn. The white servants, so far as they remained in the
colony, became bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, promised her a
homogeneous race, a sound economic and political development.
When the alien newcomer to the United States sees from the deck of his
steamer the Statue of Liberty and the ragged sky line of lower
Manhattan, he feels that the goal of his ambition has been reached, that
the land of opportunity lies before him. But to the indentured settler
of the Seventeenth century, his arrival in the James or the York was but
the beginning of his struggles. Before he could grasp the riches of the
New World, he must pay the price of his passage, must work out through
arduous years the indenture to which he had affixed his signature.
And these years were filled not only with toil, perhaps with hardship,
but with the greatest peril. He might account himself fortunate indeed
if during the first twelve months he escaped the so-called Virginia
sickness. Tidewater Virginia for the English settlers was a pest-ridden
place. The low and marshy ground, the swarming mosquitoes, the hot sun,
the unwholesome drinking water combined to produce an unending epidemic
of dysentery and malaria. And at frequent intervals, especially in the
early years, yellow fever, scurvy and plague swept over the infant
colony, leaving behind a ghastly train of suffering and death.[3-1] At
one time the mortality among the settlers upon the James ran as high as
75 per cent and for a while it seemed that this attempt of the British
nation to secure a foothold upon the American continent must end in
failure.[3-2]
But as the years wore on better conditions prevailed. Governor Berkeley
testified in 1671, "there is not oft seasoned hands (as we term them)
that die now, whereas heretofore not one of five escaped the first
year."[3-3] This improvement was brought about by the use of Peruvian
bark, a clearer understanding of sanitary matters and the selection of
more healthful sites for plantations. At the time when Sir William wrote
it is probable that 80 per cent or more of the indentured servants
survived the dangers of the tobacco fields, completed their terms of
service and, if they remained in the colony, became freedmen with the
full rights of Englishmen and Virginians.
In the period from 1660 to 1725 there was, as we shall see, an exodus of
poor whites from Virginia. This, however, was chiefly the result of the
influx of slaves which marked the end of the century, and it is safe to
assume that prior to the Restoration there was no extensive movement
from Virginia to other colonies. The servant, upon attaining his
freedom, usually remained in the colony and sought to establish himself
there.
Although it is impossible to determine accurately the average length of
service required by the indentures, there is reason to believe that it
did not exceed five years. In cases of controversy between masters and
servants who had come in without written contracts as to when their
terms should expire, it was at first required by law that the period be
fixed at five years if the age was in excess of twenty-one.[3-4] In
1654, however, a new act was passed by the Assembly, making it necessary
for those who had no indentures, if over sixteen to serve six years, if
less than sixteen until the twenty-fourth year had been reached.[3-5]
This was found to work to the disadvantage of the colony by discouraging
immigration, and in 1662 the law was changed so that in all doubtful
cases the legal term should be five years for persons over sixteen.[3-6]
Since the Assembly, which was so largely made up of persons who
themselves held servants, would certainly not fix the legal term for a
period shorter than that normally provided for in the indentures, we
may assume that usually the servant secured his freedom within four or
five years after his arrival in the colony.
Thus it is evident that the bulk of the population could not have been,
as is so often supposed, made up of large landed proprietors with their
servants and slaves. Such a conception takes no account of the annual
translation of hundreds of men and women from bondsmen into freedmen.
The short duration of the average term of service, together with the
fact that the servants were usually still young when freed, made it
inevitable that in time the freedmen would outnumber those in service.
The size of the annual immigration could in no wise alter this
situation, for the greater the influx of servants, the greater would be
the resulting graduation into the class of freedmen.
The average number of headrights, as we have seen, was probably not less
than 1750 a year. If it is assumed that 1500 of these were servants,
five per cent of whom served for life and 20 per cent died before the
expiration of their terms, no less than 1125 would remain to become
freedmen. While the number of those under indenture remained practically
stationary, the size of the freedman class grew larger with the passing
of the years.
Placing the average term at five years, then, and the average mortality
at twenty per cent, there would be in service at any given time some
6,000 men and women. In fact, Sir William Berkeley, in his famous report
of 1671, estimated the number of servants in the colony at this
figure.[3-7] On the other hand an annual accession of 1125 to the class
of freedmen would in five years amount to 5,625, in ten years to 11,250,
in fifteen to 16,875, in twenty to 22,500. At the end of half a century
no less than 56,250 persons would have emerged from servitude to become
free citizens. Although there is every reason to believe that these
figures are substantially correct,[3-8] their accuracy or lack of
accuracy in no way affect the principle involved. From its very nature
it was impossible that the system of indentured servants should long
remain the chief factor in the industrial life of the colony or supply
most of the labor.
It is true, of course, that the number of those completing their terms
of indenture is not an absolute gauge, at any given date, of the size of
the freedman class. To determine this it would be necessary to know the
average span of life of the freedman, a thing certainly not worked out
at the time and impossible of accomplishment now. We may assume,
however, that it was relatively long. The newcomer who had lived through
the first terrible year in the tobacco fields had been thoroughly
tested, "seasoned" as the planters called it, and was reasonably certain
of reaching a mature age. Moreover, the servants were almost universally
of very tender years. Seldom indeed would a dealer accept one over
twenty-eight, and the average seems to have been between seventeen and
twenty-three. The reasons for this are obvious. Not only were young men
and women more adaptable to changed conditions, more capable of
resisting the Virginia climate, stronger and more vigorous, but they
proved more tractable and entered upon the adventure more eagerly.[3-9]
These conclusions are fully borne out by an examination of the lists of
servants given in Hotten's _Emigrants to America_. Of the first 159
servants here entered whose ages are attached, the average is
twenty-three years.[3-10] And as many of these persons were brought over
as skilled artisans to take part in the industrial life which the
Company had planned for the colony, it is probable that they were much
older than the average servant of later days who came as an agricultural
laborer. There is every reason to believe, then, that the average
servant was still in his prime when he completed his term, perhaps not
more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, with many years of usefulness and
vigor before him.
It must also be remembered that the freedman, by a display of energy and
capability, might acquire property, marry and rear a family. While the
number of indentured servants was strictly limited to those who were
brought in from the outside, the class of poor freemen might and did
enjoy a natural increase within itself. Thus it was inevitable that with
the passing of the years the servants were more and more outnumbered by
the growing group of freemen. In 1649, when the population was but
15,000,[3-11] 6,000 servants might well have performed most of the
manual labor of the tobacco fields, but in 1670, when the inhabitants
numbered 40,000,[3-12] or in 1697 when they were 70,000,[3-13] they
would form a comparatively small proportion of the people, so small in
fact that most of the work of necessity had to be done by freemen. In
other words the picture so often presented, even by historians of
established reputation, of a Seventeenth century Virginia in which the
land was divided into large plantations owned by rich proprietors and
tilled chiefly by indentured servants is entirely erroneous. Such a
state of affairs was made impossible by the very nature of the system of
indentures itself.
It becomes a matter of prime interest, then, to determine what became of
the mass of freedmen, what role they played in the social and economic
life of the colony. Because the servant who had completed his term was
free to follow his own bent, we have no right to assume that he sought
at once to establish himself as an independent proprietor. He might seek
service with the large planters as a hired laborer, he might become a
tenant. In either case the population would have been divided into two
classes--the wealthy landowner and those who served him.
We know that at all periods of Virginia history there were a certain
number of persons employed as wage earners. The colonial laws and the
county records contain many references to them. Payment of wages was not
unusual even under the Company, and we are told by George Sandys that
hired laborers received one pound of tobacco a day in addition to their
food.[3-14] In later years we have from time to time references to wage
rates, and in some cases copies of contracts entered into between
employer and wage earner. But such cases are comparatively rare, and it
is evident that the use of hired labor throughout the colonial period
was the exception rather than the rule. In fact it would seem that few
save servants newly freed and lacking in the funds necessary for
purchasing and equipping little farms of their own ever sought
employment upon the large plantations. And even in such cases the
contracts were for comparatively short periods, since it often required
but a year or two of labor for the freedman to save enough from his
wages to make a beginning as an independent proprietor.
When once established, there was no reason, in the days prior to the
introduction of slavery, why he should not hold his own in competition
with his wealthy neighbor. In the production of tobacco the large
plantation, so long as it was cultivated only by expensive white labor,
offered no marked advantage over the small. With the cost of land very
low, with the means of earning the purchase price so readily in hand,
with the conditions for an independent career all so favorable, it was
not to be expected that the freedman should content himself permanently
with the status of a hired laborer.
Nor was there any reason why he should become a tenant. Had all the
fertile land been preempted, as was the case on the banks of the Hudson,
the poor man might have been compelled to lease the soil upon which he
expended his efforts or do without entirely. But such was not the case.
It is true that at the end of the Seventeenth century certain wealthy
men got possession of large tracts of unsettled land, but their monopoly
was so far from complete that they gladly sold off their holdings in
little parcels to the first purchasers who presented themselves.
Apparently they made no attempts to establish themselves in a position
similar to that of the great landlords of England.
The records afford ample evidence that the leasing of property was by no
means unknown in colonial Virginia, but the custom was comparatively
rare. Hugh Jones, writing in 1721, declared that the tenant farmers
constituted but a small fraction of the population, a fact which he
explained by the unusual facilities for acquiring property in fee
simple.[3-15] It would have been folly for the tobacco planter to expend
his labor upon another man's property, perhaps erecting barns and fences
and otherwise improving it, when he could for so small an outlay secure
land of his own.
Thus we are led to the conclusion that the average Virginia plantation
must have been comparatively small in extent. The development of large
estates was narrowly limited by the various factors which made it
impossible to secure an adequate labor supply--the restrictions upon the
slave trade, the insufficient number of indentured servants and the
shortness of their terms, the unwillingness of freedmen and others to
work for wages. On the other hand, it would be expected that the
servants upon securing their freedom would purchase land of their own,
and cover all tidewater Virginia with little farms.
Turning to the various records of the time that deal with the
distribution of land--deeds, wills, transfers, tax lists,
inventories--we find that these conclusions are fully borne out. All
reveal the fact that the average plantation, especially in the
Seventeenth century, so far from vieing with the vast estates in
existence in certain parts of America, was but a few hundred acres in
extent.
The land transfers of Surry county afford an interesting illustration.
In thirty-four instances mentioned during the years from 1684 to 1686,
for which the exact number of acres is given, the largest is 500 acres,
the smallest twenty. The aggregate of all land which changed hands is
6,355 acres, or an average of 187 for each sale. There are eleven
transfers of 100 acres or less, twenty-three transfers of 200 or less
and only four of more than 300 acres.[3-16] One can find in this no
evidence of the fabled barons of colonial Virginia, but only of a well
established class of small proprietors.
The York county books for the years from 1696 to 1701 tell the same
story. Here we find recorded forty-one transfers and leases. Twenty-two
are for 100 acres or less, 33 for 200 acres or less, and four, one for
1,400, one for 1,210, one for 600 and one for 550, are more than 300
acres in extent. The aggregate is 8,153 acres and the average 199.[3-17]
In the Rappahannock county records from 1680 to 1688 of fifteen land
transfers taken at random from the books, the largest is 400 while the
average is 168 acres.[3-18] Of the forty-eight transfers mentioned in
the Essex county books for the years from 1692 to 1695, the largest is
600 acres and the smallest 50. Twenty are for 100 acres or less, 31 for
200 or less and only four for over 300.[3-19]
That conditions not fundamentally different prevailed in the early days
of the colony is shown by the census taken of the landowners in 1626. Of
the holdings listed no less than 25 were for 50 acres or less, 73 for
100 and most of the others for less than 300 acres. The total number of
proprietors listed is 224 and the total acreage 34,472, giving an
average for each plantation of 154 acres.[3-20]
It has been assumed by certain writers that the land grants preserved
in the Registrar's Office in Richmond tend to contradict this evidence.
Although the average patent is by no means large, it is much more
extensive than the typical land transfer. In 1638 this average was 423
acres, in 1640 it was 405, in 1642 it was 559, in 1645 it was 333, in
1648 it was 412, in 1650 it was 675. During the entire period from 1634
to 1650 inclusive the size of the average land grant was 446 acres. From
1650 to 1655 the average was 591 acres, from 1655 to 1666 six hundred
and seventy-one, from 1666 to 1679 eight hundred and ninety acres, from
1679 to 1689 six hundred and seven acres, from 1689 to 1695 six hundred
and one acres, from 1695 to 1700 six hundred and eighty-eight
acres.[3-21] In the course of the entire second half of the Seventeenth
century the average size of the patent was 674 acres.
Yet these facts have little direct bearing upon the extent of the
plantations themselves. The system of granting land, as we have seen,
was not based upon the individual needs of the planters, but upon the
number of headrights presented to the Government. Obviously it was the
question of the most economical method of transporting immigrants which
would determine the average size of the grant. If it proved best to
bring in servants in small groups, distributed among vessels devoted
chiefly to merchandise, the patents would be small; if they came in on
immigrant vessels, in numbers ranging from 50 to 200, the patents would
be large.
Apparently both methods were in vogue. There are grants recorded varying
in size from 50 acres to 10,000 acres.[3-22] Beyond doubt many
merchants, finding that their vessels on the western voyage were not
fully laden, from time to time took on a few indentured servants. If
they furnished accommodation for from ten to twenty immigrants, they
could demand, in addition to the sale of the indentures, 500 to 1,000
acres of land. It was a frequent practice, also, for planters in
Virginia to send orders to their agents in England to procure and ship
one or more servants as need for them arose.[3-23] "Your brother George
hath moved you in his letters to send him over some servants the next
year," wrote Richard Kemp to Robert Read in 1639.[3-24] Undoubtedly in
cases of this kind the servants usually sailed in small parties upon the
regular merchant vessels.
On the other hand it would appear that large numbers of persons arrived
on strictly immigrant vessels, in which they made the chief if not the
only cargo. Some of the best known men in the colony were dealers in
servants and reaped from the business very large profits. Of these
perhaps the best known in the earlier period was William Claiborne,
celebrated for his dispute with the Maryland proprietors over the
possession of Kent Island. Peter Ashton was another extensive dealer in
servants, at one time receiving 2,550 acres for his headrights, at
another 2,000. Isaac Allerton, Lewis Burwell, Giles Brent, Joseph
Bridger and many others of like prominence are upon the patent rolls for
large grants. The most inveterate dealer in servants, however, was
Robert Beverley. This well known planter, so famous for his part in
Bacon's Rebellion and in the political contests which grew out of it, is
credited with patents aggregating 25,000 or 30,000 acres.[3-25]
Often partnerships were formed for the importation of servants, in which
cases the patents were made out jointly. Among the more interesting are
patents to Robert Beverley and Henry Hartwell, to Thomas Butt and Thomas
Milner, to William Bassett and James Austin, to Thomas Blunt and Richard
Washington. When associations of three or more persons were formed for
the importation of servants, a not infrequent occurrence, the number of
headrights is unusually large and the grants patented in consequence
extensive. Thus Edmund Bibbie and others are credited with 3,350 acres,
Robert Ambrose and others with 6,000, George Archer and others with
4,000.[3-26]
It is clear, then, that the size of the average patent in the
Seventeenth century is not an indication of the extent of the average
plantation. If economic conditions were such as to encourage large
holdings, extensive farms would appear regardless of the original
patents, for the small proprietors would be driven to the wall by their
more wealthy rivals and forced to sell out to them. On the other hand,
if the large planters found it difficult to secure adequate labor they
would of necessity have to break up their estates and dispose of them to
the small freeholders. That the latter development and not the former
actually took place in Virginia during the Seventeenth century a careful
examination of the country records makes most apparent.
Over and over again in the records of various land transfers it is
stated that the property in question had belonged originally to a more
extensive tract, the patent for which was granted under the headright
law. A typical case is that of John Dicks who purchased for 8,500 pounds
of tobacco, "all the remaining part of 900 acres gotten by the
transporting of 19 persons."[3-27] Similarly we find John Johnson in
1653 selling to Robert Roberts half of 900 acres which he had received
by patent.[3-28] In 1693 John Brushood sold to James Grey 200 acres, a
part of 5,100 acres originally granted to Mr. Henry Awbrey.[3-29] Such
cases could be multiplied indefinitely.
Perhaps the most instructive instance left us of this development is the
break up of a tract of land known as Button's Ridge, in Essex country.
This property, comprising 3,650 acres, was granted to Thomas Button in
the year 1666.[3-30] The original patentee transferred the entire tract
to his brother Robert Button, who in turn sold it to John Baker. The
latter, finding no doubt that he could not put under cultivation so
much land, cut it up into small parcels and sold it off to various
planters. Of these transactions we have, most fortunately, a fairly
complete record. To Captain William Moseley he sold 200 acres, to John
Garnet 600, to Robert Foster 200, to William Smither 200, to William
Howlett 200, to Anthony Samuell 300, to William Williams 200. It is
probable that he sold also a small holding to Henry Creighton, for we
find the latter, in 1695, transferring to William Moseley 100 acres,
formerly a part of Button's Ridge.[3-31]
Important as are these gleanings from the county records, we have at our
disposal even better and more conclusive evidence that colonial Virginia
was divided, not into baronial estates of vast proportions, but into a
large number of comparatively small farms. Governor Nicholson's rent
roll, which is published as an appendix to this volume, for the early
years of the Eighteenth century at least, places the matter beyond
doubt. Here we have before us an official inventory of all Virginia save
the Northern Neck, giving the name of every proprietor and the number of
acres in his possession.
It will be remembered that in the Crown colonies there was a perpetual
obligation imposed upon all land when first granted known as the
quit-rent. In Virginia this duty amounted to one shilling for every
fifty acres, payable in tobacco at the rate of a penny per pound.[3-32]
Despite the fact that some 27 per cent of the returns was consumed by
the cost of collection, and that there were frequent frauds in disposing
of the tobacco, the revenue derived from this source was of considerable
importance.[3-33] The amount collected in 1705 was L1,841. 1. 6-3/4.
When James Blair, the Virginia Commissary of the Bishop of London,
petitioned William and Mary for a fund from the accumulated quit-rents
for his proposed college at Williamsburg, some of the British
governmental officials objected strenuously. "This sum is perhaps the
only ready cash in all the plantations," it was declared, "which happens
to be by good husbandry and is a stock for answering any emergency that
may happen in Virginia."[3-34]
Throughout the entire Seventeenth century, however, the Governors had
experienced great difficulty in collecting this tax. Over and over again
they reported in their letters to the Board of Trade that there were
large arrears of quit-rents which it was impossible to make the
landowners pay.[3-35] The reason for this was obvious enough. In each
county the tax collector was the sheriff. Although this officer was
appointed by the Governor, he usually had a wholesome respect for the
larger proprietors and in consequence was wary of giving offense by
holding them to too strict an account of their estates.[3-36] At times
the sheriffs themselves were the sufferers by this state of affairs, for
they were held responsible for the rents upon all land patented in their
counties, for which returns had not been made.
Although the Governors from time to time made rather feeble attempts to
remedy the prevailing laxness in this matter, nothing of importance was
accomplished before the first administration of Francis Nicholson. The
chief executive himself had much need of the good will of the richer
inhabitants, and he was not over forward in forcing them to bring in
accurate returns. Nicholson, however, who prided himself on his
executive ability and who was bent on breaking the power of the clique
which centered around the Council of State, exerted himself to the
utmost to secure full payment for every acre.
So early as 1690 we find him issuing orders to the sheriffs for the
drawing up of an accurate rent roll, through an examination of the
patent lists and the records of land transfers.[3-37] May 15, 1691, he
took up the matter again, warning the sheriffs that he expected more
accurate returns than they had yet made.[3-38] With the appointment of
Sir Edmund Andros as Governor, however, interest in the quit-rents
lapsed, and not until his removal and the reappointment of Nicholson was
the attempt resumed.
In July, 1699, Nicholson wrote the Commissioners of Trade and
Plantations that he was doing his best to improve the quit-rents and
that the auditor had been ordered to draw up a scheme for securing a
more exact list of land holdings.[3-39] But for a while the matter still
hung fire. The leading men in the Government were ready enough in making
suggestions, but they were extensive landholders themselves and
apparently rendered no real assistance. "I have considered those papers
given me by your Excellency relating to a perfect rent roll," the
auditor, William Byrd I wrote Nicholson, Oct. 21, 1703, "notwithstanding
I have, according to your repeated directions used my utmost diligence
in giving charge to sheriffs and taking their oaths to rolls, I am
sensible there is still very great abuse therein."[3-40]
Despite these discouragements Nicholson persisted and in 1704 succeeded
in obtaining the first really accurate rent roll of the colony. These
lists have long been missing, and perhaps were destroyed in one of the
several fires which have wrought so much havoc with the records of
colonial Virginia, but a true copy was made by the clerk, William
Robertson, and sent to the Board of Trade. Fortunately the British
Government has been more careful of its priceless historical manuscripts
than has Virginia, and this copy today reposes in the Public Record
Office in London, a veritable treasure trove of information concerning
economic and social conditions in the colony.[3-41]
Even a cursory examination of the rent roll is sufficient to dispel the
old belief that Virginia at this time was the land of the large
proprietor. As one glances down the list of plantations he is struck by
the number of little holdings, the complete absence of huge estates, the
comparative scarcity even of those that for a newly settled country
might be termed extensive. Here and there, especially in the frontier
counties is listed a tract of four or five or even ten thousand acres,
but such cases are very rare. In Middlesex county there is but one
plantation of more than 2,500 acres, in Charles City county the largest
holding is 3,130, in Nansemond 2,300, in Norfolk county 3,200, in
Princess Anne 3,100, in Elizabeth City county 2,140, in York 2,750, in
Essex 3,200.
On the other hand the rolls reveal the existence of thousands of little
proprietors, whose holdings of from 50 to 500 acres embraced the larger
part of the cultivated soil of the colony. Thus we find that in
Nansemond, of 376 farms 26 were of 50 acres or less, 66 were between 50
and 100 acres, 110 between 100 and 200 acres, 88 between 200 and 400
acres, 78 between 400 and 1,000 acres, and only eight over 1,000 acres.
In Middlesex county out of 122 holdings eleven were of 50 acres or less,
33 between 50 and 100 acres, 32 between 100 and 200 acres, 25 between
200 and 500 acres, 19 between 500 and 2,500 acres, one of 4,000 acres
and one of 5,200 acres. Of the 94 plantations in Charles City county 26
were of 100 acres or less, 21 between 100 and 200 acres, 25 between 200
and 500 acres, 19 between 500 and 2,500 acres and three more than 2,500
acres.[3-42]
Although the average size of the plantations varied considerably in
different counties it was everywhere comparatively small, far smaller
than the average land grant of the time, far smaller than has been
imagined by some of the closest students of the period. For Nansemond
the rolls reveal the average holding as 212 acres, for James City county
400, for York 298, for Warwick 308, for Elizabeth City county 255, for
Princess Anne 459, for Gloucester 395, for Middlesex 406, for Charles
City county 553.[3-43]
In the past few decades much has been written of the social life and
customs of the people of colonial Virginia. But except in the able works
of Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce little has been said concerning the small
planter class, the men who made up the vast bulk of the population, the
true Seventeenth century Virginians. We have long and detailed
descriptions of the residences of the small group of the well-to-do,
their libraries, their furniture, their table ware, their portraits,
their clothing, their amusements. The genealogy of the leading families
has been worked out with minute care, their histories recorded, some of
their leading members idealized by the writers of fiction. The mention
of colonial Virginia brings instantly to mind a picture of gay
cavaliers, of stately ladies, of baronial estates, of noble manors. And
the sturdy, independent class of small farmers who made up a full 90 per
cent of the freeholders at the time the rent roll was taken, have been
relegated into undeserved obscurity.
It is to be noted that the roll does not include the names of
proprietors residing in the Northern Neck, as the peninsula between the
Potomac and the Rappahannock is called. This territory, although
acknowledging the jurisdiction of the Government at Williamsburg in most
matters and sending representatives to the House of Burgesses, paid its
quit-rents, not to the Crown but to a proprietor. Nicholson, therefore,
was not concerned in their collection and took no steps to list its
landholders in his new roll. There is no reason to believe, however,
that conditions in that part of the colony were fundamentally different.
Nor can the accuracy of the rent roll be challenged. There existed
always the incentive to make false returns, of course, in order to
escape the payment of taxes, and not many sheriffs were so diligent as
the one in Henrico who unearthed 1,669 acres that had been
"concealed."[3-44] Yet it must be remembered that the Governor brought
to bear all the pressure at his disposal to make this particular roll
accurate, that the sheriffs were his appointees, that they could not
lightly defy him in so important a matter. And even though in isolated
cases they may have winked at false returns from men of wealth and rank,
from the mass of small proprietors they must have insisted upon reports
as accurate as the records or actual surveying could make them. No doubt
certain uncultivated tracts in the frontier counties were omitted, but
with these we are not immediately concerned. For conditions in the older
parts of the colony, where the slow evolution of economic factors had
been at work for a century, the roll presents unimpeachable evidence
that the bulk of the cultivated land was divided into small plantations.
But it still remains to prove that their owners were men of meagre
fortunes, men who tilled the soil with their own hands. After all a farm
of two or three hundred acres might give scope for large activities, the
employment of many servants and slaves, the acquisition of some degree
of wealth. Might it not be possible that though the acres of the planter
were limited, his estate after all corresponded somewhat with the
popular conception?
This leads us to a study of the distribution of servants and slaves
among the planters. At the outset we are faced with convincing evidence
that at the end of the Seventeenth century the average number for each
farm was very small. This is shown by a comparison of the number of
plantations listed in the rent roll of 1704 with the estimated number of
workers. In the counties for which the sheriffs made returns for
Governor Nicholson there were some 5,500 landholders. When to these is
added the proprietors of the Northern Neck the number must have
approximated 6,500. If at this time the servants numbered 4,000, as
seems probable,[3-45] and the slaves 6,000, together they would have
averaged but 1.5 workers for each plantation. A decade earlier, when the
use of slaves was still comparatively infrequent, the figure must have
been still lower.
Fortunately we have even more direct and detailed evidence. Throughout
almost all of Virginia colonial history one of the chief methods of
raising revenue for the Government was the direct poll tax. This levy
was laid, however, not only on every freeman over sixteen years of age,
but upon male servants over 14, female servants who worked in the
fields, and slaves above 16 of either sex, all of whom were officially
termed tithables.[3-46] The tax rolls in which these persons were
listed, some of which have been preserved among the county records,
throw much light upon social and economic conditions in the colony.
In one district of Surry county we find in the year 1675 that there were
75 taxpayers and only 126 tithables. In other words only 51 persons in
this district had this duty paid for them by others, whether parents,
guardians or masters. And of the taxpayers, forty-two were liable for
themselves alone, having no servants, slaves or dependent sons over 16;
fifteen were liable for one other person, eight for two others, and only
one, Lieutenant-Colonel Jordan, for so many as seven.[3-47]
In other districts the story is the same. In one there were forty
taxpayers, 75 tithables and 25 persons who paid for themselves alone; in
another 28 taxpayers, 62 tithables, fifteen who had no servants or
slaves; in a third 48 taxpayers, 83 tithables, 28 who paid only for
themselves, eleven who paid for two, five who paid for three; in a
fourth district 29 taxpayers, 63 tithables, fourteen who had no servants
or slaves; in a fifth 25 taxpayers, 45 tithables, 12 who paid only for
themselves.[3-48] Thus in Surry county in the year 1675 there were in
all 245 taxpayers and 434 tithables. In other words the men who paid
their own tax outnumbered all those whose tax was paid for them, whether
servants, slaves or relatives, at the ratio of about 4 to 3.
A study of the records of the same county ten years later leads to
almost identical results. At that time Surry seems to have been divided
into four districts. In the first there were 78 taxpayers, 132
tithables, 30 persons who paid only for themselves; in the second, 63
taxpayers, 133 tithables, 33 persons who paid for themselves alone; in
the third there were 38 taxpayers, 74 tithables and 22 persons paying
only for themselves; in the fourth 125 taxpayers, 201 tithables and 81
persons having no dependents to pay for. Thus there were 540 tithables
in all and 304 taxpayers. In the entire county there were about 122
persons who paid the poll tax for others. The largest holders of
servants or slaves were Mr. Robert Randall with seven, Lieutenant-Colonel
William Browne with nine, Mr. Robert Canfield with seven, Mr. Arthur
Allen with six, Mr. William Edwards with six, Mr. Francis Mason with
seven and Mr. Thomas Binns with eight.[3-49]
Here again is proof that the popular conception of the Virginia
plantation life of the Seventeenth century is erroneous. Instead of the
wealthy planter who surrounded himself with scores of servants and
slaves, investigation reveals hundreds of little farmers, many of them
trusting entirely to their own exertions for the cultivation of the
soil, others having but one or two servants, and a bare handful of
well-to-do men each having from five to ten, or in rare cases twenty or
thirty, servants and slaves.
A further confirmation of these conclusions is to be had by comparing
the number of plantations listed in the rent roll of 1704 with the
official returns of tithables for 1702.[3-50] Thus in Nansemond there
were 375 plantations and 1,030 tithables, Henrico with 162 plantations
had 863 tithables, Middlesex with 122 plantations had 814 tithables,
Gloucester with 381 plantations had 2,626, James City with 287
plantations had 1,193, York with 205 plantations had 1,180, Warwick with
122 plantations had 505, Elizabeth City with 116 plantations had 478,
Princess Anne with 215 plantations had 727, Surry with 273 plantations
had 739, Isle of Wight with 262 plantations had 896, Norfolk with 303
plantations had 693, New Kent with 497 plantations had 1,245, King
William with 217 plantations had 803, King and Queen with 403
plantations had 1,848, Essex with 376 plantations had 1,034, Accomac
with 392 plantations had 1,041, Northampton with 258 plantations had
693, Charles City and Prince George together with 420 plantations had
1,327.[3-51]
In Nansemond the average number of tithables as compared with the number
of plantations was 2.7, in Henrico 5.1, in Middlesex 6.7, in Gloucester
6.9, in James City 4.2, in York 5.7, in Warwick 4.1, in Elizabeth City
4, in Princess Anne 3.4, in Surry 2.7, in Isle of Wight 3.3, in Norfolk
2.3, in New Kent 2.5, in King William 3.7, in King and Queen 4.6, in
Essex 2.8, in Accomac 2.6, in Northampton 2.3, in Charles City and
Prince George combined 3.1. In all Virginia, with the exclusion of the
Northern Neck, there were 19,715 tithables and some 5,500 plantations,
an average of 3.6 tithables for each plantation. If we deduct from the
tithables all the male freeholders included in the rent roll, there
remains only some 14,700 persons south of the Rappahannock to make up
the list, not only of servants and slaves, but of professional men, wage
earners, artisans and dependent sons of landholders over 16 years of
age.
Another invaluable source of information concerning the distribution of
servants and slaves is provided by the numerous inventories, deeds, and
wills which have been preserved in the records. Thus in Surry during the
years from 1671 to 1686 we find listed the estates of fifty-nine
persons. Of these no less than fifty-two were apparently without
servants or slaves; two, William Rooking and Captain Robert Spencer, had
five each; one, Mr. William Chambers, had three; and four, Captain
William Corker, John Hoge, Mr. John Goring and Samuel Cornell, had one
each.[3-52]
In Elizabeth City of twenty-seven estates recorded during the years from
1684 to 1699 sixteen were without servants or slaves; of twenty-six
recorded in York during the period from 1694 to 1697 thirteen had no
servants or slaves; of twenty-three recorded in Henrico from 1677 to
1692 fourteen were without servants or slaves.[3-53] It is true that
these inventories and wills, since they would usually pertain to persons
of advanced age, perhaps do not furnish an absolutely accurate gauge of
the average number of servants held by each planter. On the other hand,
it is equally probable that a larger proportion of big estates than of
the small found their way into the records. At all events it is evident
that a goodly proportion of the landholders, perhaps sixty or sixty-five
per cent possessed no slaves or indentured servants, and trusted solely
to their own exertions for the cultivation of their plantations.
Thus vanishes the fabled picture of Seventeenth century Virginia. In its
place we see a colony filled with little farms a few hundred acres in
extent, owned and worked by a sturdy class of English farmers. Prior to
the slave invasion which marked the close of the Seventeenth century and
the opening of the Eighteenth, the most important factor in the life of
the Old Dominion was the white yeomanry.
_CHAPTER IV_
FREEMEN AND FREEDMEN
It is obvious that the small planter class had its origin partly in the
immigration of persons who paid their own passage, partly in the
graduation into freedmen of large numbers of indentured servants. But to
determine accurately the proportion of each is a matter of great
difficulty. Had all the records of Seventeenth century Virginia been
preserved, it would have been possible, by means of long and laborious
investigation, to arrive at strictly accurate conclusions. But with the
material in hand one has to be satisfied with an approximation of the
truth.
It must again be emphasized that the indentured servants were not
slaves, and that at the expiration of their terms there was no barrier,
legal, racial or social to their advancement. The Lords of Trade and
Plantations, in 1676, expressed their dissatisfaction at the word
"servitude" as applied to them, which they felt was a mark of bondage
and slavery, and thought it better "rather to use the word service,
since those servants are only apprentices for years."[4-1] "Malitious
tongues have impaired it (Virginia) much," Bullock declared in 1649,
"for it hath been a constant report among the ordinary sort of people
that all those servants who are sent to Virginia are sold into slavery,
whereas the truth is that the merchants who send servants and have no
plantations of their own doe not only transferre their time over to
others, but the servants serve no longer than the time they themselves
agreed for in England, and this is the ordinary course in England, and
no prejudice or hurt to the servant."[4-2]
The terms of indenture not only took for granted that the servant, upon
completing his contract, would establish himself as a proprietor, but
usually made it obligatory for the master to furnish him with the
equipment necessary for his new life. With rare exceptions he received a
quantity of grain sufficient to maintain him for one year; two suits,
one of Kersey, the other of cotton; a pair of canvas drawers; two
shirts; and one felt hat.[4-3] The historian Beverley states that to
this outfit was added a gun worth twenty shillings.[4-4] Another writer
tells us that the freedman received "a year's provision of corne, double
apparel" and a supply of tools.[4-5]
There existed in England a widespread impression that the servant, upon
securing his freedom, was entitled by law to fifty acres of land. This
appears to have been a mistake arising from a misapprehension of the
nature of the headright, which belonged not to the servant himself, but
to the person who paid for his transportation. In many cases the
indentures do not state the exact rewards to be received by the new
freedman, but only that they are to accord with "the custom of the
country," a very elastic term which could be construed by the master to
suit his own interest.[4-6] John Hammond, in his _Leah and Rachel_,
strongly advised the immigrant before affixing his signature to the
indenture to insist upon the inclusion of a clause specifically
providing for the payment of the fifty acres.[4-7] But the importance
which attaches to this matter lies as much in the servant's expectation
as in its fulfilment. Whether or not he received his little plantation,
he believed that he was to get a tract of land, a very extensive tract
it must have seemed to him, which would assure him a good living and
make it possible for him to rise out of the class to which he
belonged.[4-8]
In 1627 the Virginia General Court issued an order which is significant
of the attitude of the colony itself to the freedmen. "The Court, taking
into consideration that the next ensueing year there will be many
tenants and servants freed unto whom after their freedom there will be
no land due, whereby they may without some order taken to the contrary
settle and seat themselves ... have ordered that the Governor and
Council may give unto the said servants and tenants leases for terms of
years such quantities of land as shall be needful."[4-9] Thus, at this
period at least, not only was it expected in the colony that servants
would become land holders, but it was felt that for them not to do so
was a matter of such grave concern as to require the special attention
of the Government.
After all, however, the key to the situation must be sought in the
history of tobacco culture and the tobacco trade. Tobacco was the
universal crop of the colony and upon it every man depended for his
advancement and prosperity. If the market was good and the price high,
the planters flourished; if sales fell off and the price was low, they
suffered accordingly. It is evident, then, that the ability of the
freedman to secure a position of economic independence hinged upon the
profit to be derived from his little tobacco crop. It does not matter
whether he worked as a wage earner, tenant or freeholder, in the end the
result would be the same. If the returns from his labor greatly exceeded
his expenses, his savings would make it possible for him to establish
himself firmly in the class of the colonial yeomanry. On the other hand,
if he could wring from the soil no more than a bare subsistence, he
would remain always a poor laborer, or perhaps be forced to seek his
fortune in some other colony. Thus if we are to understand the status of
the freed servant and the hope which he could entertain of advancement,
it is necessary to turn our attention once more to economic conditions
in the colony. First, we must determine the amount of tobacco the
freedman could produce by his unassisted labor; second, the price he
received for it; third, how much he had to give the merchants in
exchange for their wares; and finally, the margin of profit left after
all expenses had been paid.
Despite a marked divergence of testimony regarding the amount of tobacco
one man could cultivate, we are able to determine this matter with some
degree of exactness. In 1627 the King, in outlining a plan to take into
his own hands the entire tobacco trade, proposed to limit the imports to
200 pounds for each master of a family and 125 for each servant.[4-10]
To this, however, the planters entered a vigorous protest, claiming that
the quantity was "not sufficient for their maintenance." They in turn
suggested that the King take a total of 500,000 pounds a year, which for
a population of 3,000 meant 167 pounds for each inhabitant, or perhaps
about 500 pounds for each actual laborer.[4-11] Again in 1634 it was
proposed that the Crown purchase yearly 600,000 pounds of Virginia
tobacco.[4-12] As the population of the colony at that date was about
5,000, this would have allowed only 120 pounds for each person, and once
more the planters protested vigorously.[4-13] It would seem that both of
these offers were based not so much upon the amount that one man could
raise as upon the quantity which could be sold in England at a certain
price. In fact it is probable that even so early as 1628 the average
output of one freedman was not less than 1,000 pounds. It is interesting
to note that in 1640, soon after Governor Francis Wyatt's arrival from
England, it was found that the excessive crop of the previous year had
so clogged the market that upon the advice of the merchants the
Government was "forced to a strict way of destroying the bad and halfe
the goode."[4-14]
The author of _A New Description of Virginia_, published in 1649, claims
that one man could plant from 1,600 to 2,000 pounds a year.[4-15] As the
pamphlet presents a somewhat optimistic picture of affairs in general in
the colony, this estimate must be taken with some reserve. More
trustworthy is the statement of Secretary Thomas Ludwell in 1667 that
1,200 pounds was "the medium of men's yearly crops."[4-16]
At all events, it is evident that the planter, even when entirely
dependent upon his own exertions, could produce a goodly crop. It is now
necessary to ascertain what he got for it. In the second and third
decades of the Seventeenth century the price of tobacco was very high.
The first cargo, consisting of 20,000 pounds consigned in the George,
sold for no less than L5,250, or 5s. 3d. a pound.[4-17] No wonder the
leaders of the London Company were pleased, believing that in the Indian
weed they had discovered a veritable gold mine! No wonder the settlers
deserted their pallisades and their villages to seek out the richest
soil and the spots best suited for tobacco culture! The man who could
produce 200 pounds of the plant, after all freight charges had been met,
could clear some L30 or L35, a very tidy sum indeed for those days. It
was the discovery that Virginia could produce tobacco of excellent
quality that accounts for the heavy migration in the years from 1618 to
1623. In fact, so rich were the returns that certain persons came to the
colony, not with the intention of making it their permanent residence,
but of enriching themselves "by a cropp of Tobacco," and then returning
to England to enjoy the proceeds.[4-18]
But this state of affairs was of necessity temporary. Very soon the
increasing size of the annual crop began to tell upon the price, and in
1623 Sir Nathaniel Rich declared that he had bought large quantities of
tobacco at two shillings a pound.[4-19] This gentleman felt that it
would be just to the planters were they to receive two shillings and
four pence for the best varieties, and sixteen pence for the "second
sort." In the same year Governor Wyatt and his Council, in a letter to
the Virginia Company, placed the valuation of tobacco at eighteen pence
a pound.[4-20] Three years later, however, the Governor wrote the Privy
Council advising the establishment in Virginia of a "magazine" or
entrepot, where the merchants should be compelled to take the tobacco at
three shillings a pound.[4-21] This proposal did not seem reasonable to
the King, and when Sir George Yeardley came over as Governor for the
second time he was instructed to see to it that "the merchant be not
constrained to take tobacco at 3. P. Pound in exchange for his wares,"
and to permit him to "make his own bargain."[4-22]
Apparently not discouraged by this rebuff, in 1628 the Governor, Council
and Burgesses petitioned the King, who once more was planning to take
the trade into his own hands, to grant them "for their tobacco delivered
in the colony three shillings and six pence per pound, and in England,
four shillings."[4-23] This valuation undoubtedly was far in advance of
the current prices, and King Charles, considering it unreasonable would
not come to terms with the planters. In fact, it appears that for some
years the price of tobacco had been declining rapidly. In May, 1630, Sir
John Harvey wrote the Privy Council that the merchants had bought the
last crop with their commodities at less than a penny per pound,[4-24]
and two years later, in a statement sent the Virginia Commissioners, he
claimed that the price still remained at that figure.[4-25]
It may be taken for granted, however, that this estimate was far below
the actual price. The planters showed a decided tendency to blow hot or
cold according to the purpose in view, and in these two particular
statements Sir John was pleading for better treatment from the
merchants. Yet it is reasonably certain that tobacco was at a low ebb in
the years from 1629 to 1633, and sold at a small fraction of the figures
of the preceding decade.[4-26] The Governor repeatedly wrote asking for
relief, while in the Assembly attempts were made to restore the market
by restricting the size of the annual crop.[4-27]
Yet things must have taken a favorable turn soon after, for in 1634 the
planters informed the King's Commissioners that they would not sell him
their tobacco at less than six pence in Virginia and fourteen pence
delivered in England.[4-28] Later the King wrote to the Governor and
Council that the rate had recently "doubly or trebly advanced."[4-29]
This is substantiated by the fact that the Commissioners, in 1638,
allowed the planters "4d. a pound clear of all charges," despite which
they complained that in an open market they could do better.[4-30]
In 1638 several prominent Virginians estimated that on an average during
the preceding eleven years they had received not more than two pence for
their tobacco, but here again it is probable that there was some
exaggeration.[4-31] In 1649 the author of _A New Description of
Virginia_ stated that tobacco sold in Virginia for three pence a
pound.[4-32] All in all it seems that prices in the early years of the
settlement varied from five shillings to a few pence, that a disastrous
slump occurred at the end of the third decade, followed by a rapid
recovery which brought the rate to about three pence, at which figure it
remained fairly constant for twenty-five years or more throughout the
Civil War and most of the Commonwealth periods.
The return which the Virginia farmer received from his one staple crop
was determined by a number of factors over which he himself had but
little control. Had he been permitted to seek his own market and drive
his own bargain free from the restraining hand of the British
Government, no doubt he would have secured a much better price. But from
the moment it became apparent that the Virginia tobacco rivalled in
flavor that of the Spanish colonies and could command as ready a sale
throughout Europe, the trade was subjected to various regulations and
restrictions which proved most vexatious to the colony and elicited
frequent and vigorous protests. Neither James nor Charles had any idea
of permitting free trade. In their prolonged struggle with the liberal
party both saw in tobacco a ready means of aiding the Exchequer, and so
of advancing toward the goal of financial independence. These monarchs
were by no means hostile to Virginia. In fact, both took great interest
in the tiny settlement upon the James, which they looked upon as the
beginning of the future British colonial empire. Yet they lent too
willing an ear to those who argued that tobacco might be made to yield a
goodly revenue to the Crown without injury to the planters.
The policy adopted by the early Stuart kings and adhered to with but
minor changes throughout the colonial period consisted of four essential
features. First, the tobacco raised in the plantations should be sent
only to England; second, upon entering the mother country it must pay a
duty to the Crown; third, Spanish tobacco should be excluded or its
importation strictly limited; lastly, the cultivation of the plant in
England itself was forbidden.
In the years when the colony was still weak and dependent upon the
mother country this program was not unfair. The prohibition of tobacco
growing in England, however unnecessary it would have been under
conditions of free trade, was felt by the planters to be a real
concession, while the restrictions upon foreign importations saved them
from dangerous competition at the very time when they were least able to
combat it. Nor were they seriously injured by the imposition of the
customs duties. The planters themselves imagined that the incidence of
this tax fell upon their own shoulders and that they were impoverished
to the full extent of the revenues derived from it. But in this they
were mistaken. The duty, in the last resort, was paid not by the
planters but by the British consumers. The colonists were affected
adversely only in so far as the enhanced price of tobacco in England
restricted the market.
On the other hand, the prohibition of foreign trade was a very real
grievance and elicited frequent protests from the planters. Dutch
merchants paid high prices for the Virginia tobacco and offered their
manufactured goods in return at figures far below those of the British
traders. The Virginians could not understand why they should not take
advantage of this opportunity. "I humbly desire to be informed from your
honors," wrote Governor Harvey to the Virginia Commissioners in 1632,
"whether there be any obstacle why we may not have the same freedome of
his Majesties other subjects to seek our best market."[4-33]
But Harvey was attacking what already had become a fixed policy of the
Crown, a policy which was to remain the cornerstone of the British
colonial system for centuries. The Government had, therefore, not the
slightest intention of yielding, and from time to time issued strict
orders that all colonial tobacco, whether of Virginia or the West
Indies, be brought only to England or to English colonies. When Sir
William Berkeley was appointed Governor in 1642 he was instructed to
"bee verry careful that no ships or other vessels whatsoever depart from
thence, freighted with tobacco or other commodities which that country
shall afford, before bond with sufficient securities be taken to his
Majesty's use, to bring the same directly into his Majesty's Dominions
and not elsewhere."[4-34]
Despite the insistence of the British Government in this matter, there
is abundant evidence to show that the Virginians continued to indulge in
direct trade with the continent for many years after the overthrow of
the Company. In 1632 Governor Harvey wrote that "our intrudinge
neighbours, the Dutch, doe allow us eighteen peance p. pound" for
tobacco, while a few months later we find him reporting the attempt of
John Constable and others "to defraud his Majesty of his duties by
unloading in the Netherlands."[4-35]
With the advent of the English Civil War and throughout the Commonwealth
period Virginia enjoyed a large degree of independence and found it
possible to trade with the Dutch almost with impunity. Even the strict
Berkeley seems to have felt it no disloyalty for the planters to seek
foreign markets for their staple while the mother country was torn by
the contending armies of King and Parliament. And so the merchantmen of
Flushing and Amsterdam pushed their prows into every river and creek in
Virginia and Maryland, taking off large quantities of tobacco and giving
in return the celebrated manufactured goods of their own country. At
Christmas 1648, if we may believe the testimony of the author of _A New
Description of Virginia_, there were trading in the colony ten ships
from London, two from Bristol, seven from New England and twelve from
Holland. In 1655 the statement was made that "there was usually found
intruding upon the plantation divers ships, surruptitiously carrying
away the growth thereof to foreign ports to the prejudice of this
Commonwealth."[4-36]
Thus in the years prior to the Restoration Virginia was never fully
subjected to the operation of the British colonial system. When the
price of tobacco in the London market fell lower and lower, the planters
might and often did find relief by defying the King's commands and
trading directly with the Dutch.[4-37] And this benefitted them doubly,
for not only did they strike a better bargain with the foreign traders,
but every cargo of tobacco diverted from England tended to relieve the
market there and restore prices. In fact there can be little doubt that
the frequent violations of the trade restrictions of this period alone
saved the colony from the poverty and distress of later days and made
possible the prosperity enjoyed by the planters.
It must be noted also that of the tobacco sent to England itself, a part
was reshipped to foreign countries. In 1610 a law was enacted for the
refunding of all import duties upon articles that were re-exported. This
drawback applied also to colonial products, but under Charles I an
exception was made in their case and the privilege withdrawn. In
consequence the importers made a vigorous protest in Parliament, and the
King, in 1631, modified his policy by ordering that of the nine pence
duty then in operation, six pence should be refunded when the tobacco
was shipped abroad. In 1632 the drawback was increased to seven pence
leaving the total duty paid by the merchants who traded through England
to foreign countries two pence a pound only.[4-38] Although this
constituted a most serious obstacle to trade and at times aroused the
merchants to bitter protest, it by no means completely blocked
re-exportation. So great were the natural qualifications of Virginia for
producing tobacco, that it was possible to purchase a cargo from the
planters on the James, proceed with it to London, pay there the two
pence a pound duty, reship it to the continent and sell it there at a
profit.[4-39] Although this trade was not extensive, it must have had an
important influence in maintaining prices and in bringing prosperity to
all classes in the colony.
Thus Virginia, contrary to the wishes of the mother country and in
defiance of her regulations, enjoyed for its staple product in the years
prior to 1660, a world market. Whether by direct trade or by
re-exportation from England a goodly share of the annual crop was
consumed in foreign countries, a share which had it been left in England
to clog the market, would have reacted disastrously upon all concerned.
It is apparent, then, that in the first half century of its existence
Virginia was the land of opportunity. The poor man who came to her
shores, whether under terms of indenture or as a freeman, found it quite
possible to establish himself as a person of some property and
consideration. We may imagine the case of the servant who had completed
his term and secured his freedom at any time during the third decade of
the Seventeenth century. As we have seen, it was an easy matter for him
to secure a small patch of land and the tools with which to cultivate
it. By his unassisted efforts, if he applied himself steadily to the
task, he could produce a good crop of tobacco, consisting perhaps of
some 400 pounds. This he could sell to the merchants for from two
shillings to six pence a pound, or a total of from L10 to L40.[4-40]
In the years from 1630 to 1640, when the price of tobacco seems to have
stabilized itself at from two to three pence, cases of such
extraordinary returns must have been of less frequent occurrence, but to
some extent lower prices were offset by larger crops. If our freedman in
1635 could raise 800 pounds of leaf and dispose of it for four pence,
his income would be L13.6.8; in 1649, by producing 1,000 pounds, he
could sell it at three pence for L12.10.0. In fact, it is not too much
to say that the average annual income from the labor of one able worker
at any time prior to 1660 was not less than L12. When we take into
consideration the fact that the planter produced his own food, and that
out of the proceeds of his tobacco crop he paid only his taxes and his
bills to the English importers, it is evident that he had a goodly
margin of profit to lay aside as working capital.
It must not be forgotten, however, that this margin was greatly reduced
by the high cost of clothing, farm implements and all other articles
brought from across the ocean. The long and dangerous voyage from London
to the Chesapeake made the freight rates excessive, while the merchants
did not scruple to drive a hard bargain whenever possible. The letters
of the Governors are filled with complaints against the exactions of
these men. "This year the Merchants have bought our tobacco with their
commodities at less than a penny the pounde," Harvey wrote in 1630, "and
have not shamed to make the planters pay twelve pounds Sterlinge the
tunn freight home."[4-41] Two years later he complained that a certain
Captain Tucker had just sailed leaving his stores well stocked with
goods, but with "instructions to his factors not to sell but at most
excessive rates."[4-42] In 1628, the Governor, Council and Burgesses, in
a petition to the King, declared that for years they had "groaned under
the oppression of unconscionable and cruel merchants by the excessive
rates of their commodities."[4-43] Six years later Governor Harvey
stated that all things which "come hither" are sold at "thrice the value
they cost in England."[4-44]
It is obvious, however, that after all expenses had been paid, a goodly
margin of profit was left, a margin perhaps averaging some three or four
pounds sterling. The provident and industrious immigrant, a few years
after the conclusion of his term, might well lay aside enough to make it
possible for him in turn to secure a servant from England. This
accomplished, he at once rose into the class of employers and his future
advance was limited only by his capabilities and his ambition.
We would naturally expect to find, then, that during these years a large
percentage of those who came to the colony under terms of indenture,
sooner or later acquired land, perhaps bought servants, and became
persons of some standing in the colony. Certainly the opportunity was
theirs. It will be interesting therefore to study the early records in
order to glean what evidence we may concerning this matter. If the
servants graduated in any appreciable numbers into the planter class,
the patents, wills, inventories, land transfers and muster rolls could
hardly fail to yield some evidence of the fact.
Turning first to the earliest period, we find that of the laborers who
were imported by the London Company to cultivate the public lands, a
fair proportion became proprietors and were regarded by later comers
with especial esteem as "ancient planters." At the termination of their
service they were granted 100 acres and when this was fully cultivated
received another tract of the same extent. To the apprentices bound out
to tenants even more liberal treatment was accorded, for they were
provided with a year's store of corn, a house, a cow, clothing, armor,
household utensils, farm tools and as much land as they could
till.[4-45]
The guiding hand of the Company was missed by the freedmen after the
revoking of the charter, for the Governors seem to have left them to
shift for themselves. Yet this fact did not prevent many from forging
ahead, acquiring land, and in some cases positions of trust in the
Government itself. In Hotten's _Immigrants_ is published a muster roll
for the year 1624 of all the settlers in Virginia, in which servants are
carefully distinguished from freemen.[4-46] By following, as well as the
imperfect records of the period permit, the after careers of the former,
it is possible to determine with a fair degree of accuracy to what
extent the small farmer class at this period was recruited from persons
coming to the colony under terms of indenture.
Of the forty-four Burgesses who sat in the Assembly of 1629, no less
than seven--John Harris, William Allen, William Popleton, Anthony
Pagett, Richard Townsend, Adam Thoroughgood and Lionell Rowlston--were
listed as servants in the muster of 1624.[4-47] Thus some sixteen per
cent of this important body, the Virginia House of Commons, at this time
was made up of men who five years previously had been working out their
passage money. Among the thirty-nine members of the House of 1632, six
appear as servants in the muster--Thomas Barnett, Adam Thoroughgood,
Lionell Rowlston, Thomas Crump, Roger Webster and Robert Scotchmon.
Whether there were other members who came over under terms of indenture
but secured their freedom before 1624, we have no means of determining.
The author of _Virginia's Cure_, published in 1662, asserted that the
Burgesses "were usual such as went over as servants thither; and though
by time, and industry, they may have obtained competent estates, yet by
reason of their poor and mean condition, were unskilful in judging of a
good estate, either of church or Commonwealth."[4-48] This statement is
a gross exaggeration both as to the composition of the Burgesses and
their abilities. Instances of the election of freedmen to the House,
fairly frequent in the early years of the colony, became rarer as the
century advanced and the field of selection widened. Yet in the Assembly
of 1652, of the thirty-five members, eight or nine appear on the patent
rolls as headrights brought over by others.[4-49] It is evident that
even so late as the middle of the century the door of opportunity was
still open to the freedmen.
In the absence of a complete census for the decades after 1624, it is
very difficult to determine what proportion of the servants listed in
the muster roll of that year subsequently became landowners. Some light
is thrown on the matter by a search through the patent books. Here are
found a surprisingly large number of persons who in 1624 were servants.
Among these are Anthony Jones, John Sparkes, John Cooke, Roger Delk,
John Trussell, William Woolritch, Pettyplace Cloyse, Edward Sparshott,
William Dawson, Richard Bell, Robert Browne, Nicholas Browne, John
Chandler, Lionell Rowlston, Thomas Savadge, Samuel Bennett, Daniel
Shurley, James Hatfield, Adam Thoroughgood, John Robinson, John Hill,
John Seaward, William Ramshaw, Samuel Weaver, John Upton, John Watson,
Thomas Crompe and John Russell.[4-50]
Of these persons several acquired a fair degree of wealth and became of
importance in the early life of the colony. It is interesting to note
also, that some were men of good condition in England, the case of Adam
Thoroughgood, whose brother Sir John Thoroughgood was at one time
secretary to the Earl of Pembroke, is notable in this respect. John
Hill, before coming to Virginia, had been a book binder in Oxford
university, and his father had been a fletcher.[4-51] The patents of
Thomas Crompe and John Russell state that fifty acres was due in each
case for the "personal adventure" of the patentee, but since they are
distinctly listed as servants in 1624 it seems probable that
subsequently each made a visit to England and put in claims for the
headright for the return voyage.[4-52]
Thus it is evident that a large proportion of the landholders during and
prior to 1635 had come to the colony under terms of indenture, either
under the Company or with private individuals. Perhaps it would not be
unfair to estimate this proportion at from thirty to forty per cent, but
it must be distinctly understood that the matter cannot be determined
with any degree of accuracy or finality. Some years later Governor
Berkeley in an address before the Assembly, stated that hundreds of
examples testified to the fact that no man in Virginia was denied the
opportunity to rise and to acquire both property and honor.[4-53]
Careful research tends to corroborate this assertion but it does not and
cannot show whether the bulk of the early planters came to the colony as
freemen or as indentured servants.
During the years from 1635 to 1660 the process of building up a class of
small farmers in large part from freedmen continued unabated. But the
difficulties of the investigator in studying this period are also very
great. Yet it is possible, by examining the names that appear in the
land patents and wills, and comparing them with the list of headrights,
to arrive at fairly satisfactory results. We find that of the 131
persons listed in the York county wills from 1646 to 1659 no less than
twenty-five appear as headrights for others. Of these the major part
became landowners, some of them men of influence in Virginia.[4-54] The
Rappahannock wills for the years from 1656 to 1664 show a like result.
Thirty-nine persons appear in the records, of whom seven came in as
headrights.[4-55]
There is always the possibility of error in identifying these persons
for the recurrence of such names as Smith, Jones, Turner, Davis, Hall,
the monotonous repetition of a few common given names, and the universal
omission of middle names add greatly to our difficulties. Moreover,
mistakes are apt to occur because of the transfer of headrights by sale.
The free immigrant to whom was due fifty acres for his "personal
adventure" might not care to settle on the frontier where alone
unpatented land could usually be found. At times he sold his right and
purchased a plantation in some one of the older and more advanced
counties. It is not conclusively proved, then, that a certain person
came as a servant merely because he is listed as a headright. On the
other hand, the fact that it was the custom to set forth such transfers
clearly in the patent itself, justifies the conclusion that in the cases
where no statement of the kind is made, the headright for which the land
was granted usually came in under terms of indenture.
In Volume III of the land patents are listed in the years from 1635 to
1653 patents to fifty-seven persons in James City county.[4-56] Of these
no less than thirty-one are found also as headrights belonging to
others, although a duplication of names in several cases makes
identification uncertain. One person only claimed the fifty acres for
having paid his own passage to Virginia. When all possible allowance is
made for transfers of rights it is obvious that at this time freedmen
were still entering freely into the class of landowners.
An examination of the James City county patents in Volume IV, covering
the years from 1653 to 1663, leads to similar results, for of the
eighty-five names which appear there, forty-five are listed as
headrights belonging to others. And although the tracts granted these
men were usually small in size, in certain cases they were far in excess
of the average plantation. Thus Edward Cole, who appears as a headright
in 1642, patented 900 acres in 1655;[4-57] Thomas Warburton patented
1,664 acres;[4-58] George Gilbert 1,000 acres; Francis Burwell 1,000 and
John Underwood 2,000 acres.[4-59] The number of years which elapsed
between the listing of the headrights and the granting of the patents
varied from two to twenty-eight. The average for the thirty-five cases
in which the dates are given is twelve years. As the claims for
headrights were often made long after the actual arrival of the servant,
it may be assumed that the average was even greater than this. Once
more, however, it must be remembered that these lists do not record
personal transfers of land, while it is quite certain that many
freedmen, instead of patenting unoccupied tracts, secured their little
farms by purchase. Some probably became proprietors in the very first
year of their freedom and set to work with hoe and plow to wrest their
living from the soil.
In the patent rolls the bulk of the headrights are alluded to simply as
"persons," leaving it undecided whether those included in the various
lists are freemen or servants. But occasionally the newcomers are
specifically described as "servants," in which case, of course, there
can be no doubt whatever as to their status. By selecting at random a
number of names from those so termed, avoiding for convenience sake all
Smiths, Joneses and others the frequent recurrence of whose names would
make identification difficult, it is possible to arrive at definite
conclusions by following, as best we can, their careers in after life.
With this in view we have made up the following list of servants: Henry
Arnetrading, George Archer, Silvester Atkins, Nicholas Atwell, Edward
Ames, John Aram, Robert Arnall, Peter Asheley, William Baldwin, Edward
Burt, Francis Baile, John Bauchees, John Bishop, John Blackstone,
Anthony Box, Michael Brichley, Peter Buck, William Burcher, John Causey,
Robert Chesheire, Thomas Chilcott, Thomas Clayton, Annanias Coplestone,
James Courtney, Thomas Cropp, Thomas Connagrave, John Day, John Dodman,
Jonathan Ellison, Edward Eastwood, James Fletcher, Thomas Foanes, John
Fouke, Francis Francklin, Armstrong Foster, Robert Fossett, John Farr,
Robert Garsell, George Gilbert, Henry Giles, Hector Godbear, Francis
Gray, Reginald Griffin, Thomas Halcock, Thomas Hand, Henry Hartwell,
Hugh Hayes, John Hedler, Richard Huett, John Hodgbins, John Holdin,
William Hankinson, John Hether, Lazarus Manning, Thomas Pattison, John
Pullapin, Sampson Robins, George Walton, Francis Withers, Robert Webstie
and Thomas Warden. A search through the patent rolls, wills, tithable
lists and other data found in the records of the period, has led to the
more or less positive identification of fifteen of these persons.
John Bishop, who was transported by Thomas Gray, became a man of
influence and means. He represented Charles City county in the House of
Burgesses in the sessions of 1644, 1652 and 1653, and was variously
known as Captain Bishop or Mr. Bishop.[4-60] Although he became a
landowner so early as 1638,[4-61] his family arrived from England only
in 1651. Francis Gray, brought to Virginia at the age of fifteen by
Joseph Johnson, also became prominent, securing a seat in the Assembly
and acquiring a fair estate. In 1653 he took up 750 acres in Charles
City county, while ten years later he is credited with 374 acres more in
Westmoreland.[4-62] His will was recorded in 1667.[4-63]
George Archer became an extensive landowner, patenting 250 acres in
1663, 550 acres in 1665, 784 acres in 1671 and 1,395 acres in
1673.[4-64] In 1691 he received, in conjunction with others, title to a
tract of 2,827 acres in Henrico.[4-65] John Holding patented in York
county 850 acres in 1649 and 389 acres in 1653.[4-66] William Baldwin,
who came in the Plaine Joan when he was twenty-four years of age,
received three grants of land, one for 600 acres in York county, one for
67 acres in Isle of Wight, and one, in conjunction with Richard
Lawrence, for 300 in Rappahannock.[4-67]
Thomas Pattison, transported by Francis Epes in 1635, took up in
Lancaster two tracts, one for 200 acres and one for 400.[4-68] He also
became part owner of two more tracts, one for 220 acres and the other
for 504.[4-69] John Dodman secured a patent for 350 acres in
Westmoreland in the year 1662.[4-70] Thomas Warden is mentioned as a
landowner in James City county in 1643.[4-71] George Gilbert,
transported in 1635 by Joseph Johnson, took up fifty acres in James City
county in 1643.[4-72] In 1663, in partnership with Richard Scruely, he
patented 1,000 acres in the same county north of the Chickahominy
river.[4-73] John Blackstone acquired two tracts, one for 100 acres and
the other for 151 acres,[4-74] while William Burcher received a grant
for 300 acres.[4-75]
Several of these men who came as servants to the Eastern Shore are found
in succeeding years among the yeomanry of Accomac and Northampton. Henry
Arnetrading, Armstrong Foster, William Burcher and Sampson Robins were
signers of the Northampton submission to the Commonwealth in 1652.[4-76]
Henry Arnetrading was the owner of 300 acres of land.[4-77] Armstrong
Foster was the official tobacco viewer for Hungers, a position entailing
no little responsibility.[4-78] Sampson Robins received a patent for a
tract of land in Northampton in 1655.[4-79] Thomas Clayton is listed
among the Northampton tithables of 1666.[4-80]
In the case of John Day some uncertainty arises. Apparently there were
two men of this name in the colony, one transported by John Slaughter,
and the other not only paying for his own passage, but for that of a
servant as well.[4-81] A John Day later secured 400 acres in Gloucester
county,[4-82] but whether it was the one who had come as a servant or
the one who had entered the colony as a freeman, apparently there is no
way of ascertaining.
All in all the story of these men tends to confirm the conclusions
hitherto arrived at. It must be remembered that the mortality among the
servants in the tobacco fields in the early days of the colony was
extremely heavy. It is not improbable that of our sixty-one servants,
twenty or more succumbed before the completion of their first year. That
of the remaining forty-one, fourteen or fifteen established themselves
as solid farmers, while several became men of influence in the colony,
is a striking proof that at this period many freedmen had the
opportunity to advance. Taking it for granted that the records of some
of the sixty-one have been lost, or that our research has failed to
reveal them, we once more come to the conclusion that a full thirty or
forty per cent of the landowners of the period from 1635 to 1666 came to
the colony under terms of indenture.
On the other hand, it is equally positive that the class of poor
planters was recruited in part from free immigrants, men who paid their
own passage across the ocean and at once established themselves as
freeholders. Of this too, the records furnish ample testimony. Thus in
1636 we find that Richard Young was granted 100 acres in Warwick "due
him for his personal adventure and for the transportation of his wife
Dorothy Young."[4-83] A year later Roger Symonds received 100 acres in
Charles City "due him for the transportation of his wife, Alice, and one
servant, Richard Key."[4-84] Similarly in May 1636, Thomas Wray was
allowed 50 acres for his "personal adventure." Such cases could be
multiplied indefinitely.[4-85]
A careful analysis of the patent rolls from 1623 to July 14, 1637,
published in the _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_ for April,
1901, shows conclusively that the lists contain the names of many
persons who at no time were under terms of indenture. Of the 2,675 names
appearing in the records, the editor states that 336 are positively
known to have come over as freemen, many of them being heads of
families. "There are 245 persons whose names do not occur as headrights
and yet of whom it is not positively shown that they were freemen,
though the probability seems to be that by far the greater number were.
And there were 2,094 persons whose transportation charges were paid by
others. This last number includes some negroes, all those specifically
termed 'servants' and all others.... It would probably be a fair
estimate to say that of the names represented in the patents cited,
there were about 675 free men, women and children who came to Virginia
and about 2000 servants and slaves."[4-86] Similarly in the issue of the
magazine for January, 1902, the editor says that "for some years, about
this period, it is probable (from the best calculations which can be
made) that seventy-five per cent of the emigrants to Virginia were
indentured servants."[4-87]
There seems to be no reason to doubt the accuracy of these conclusions.
Certainly any study of immigration to Virginia in the Seventeenth
century is woefully incomplete if it fails to take into consideration
the very considerable proportion of free settlers. On the other hand,
it is probable that a similar study of the lists for a later date would
show a smaller percentage of freemen. However this may be, it is evident
that by far the larger part of the newcomers at all periods must have
been indentured servants intended for service in the tobacco fields. In
1638 Richard Kemp wrote Secretary Windebanke that "of hundreds which are
yearly transported, scarce any but are brought in as merchandise to make
sale of."[4-88]
Yet it must not be forgotten that any immigration of poor freemen,
however small, would have a very marked influence upon the formation of
the small farmer class. Of the host of servants a certain proportion
only, a proportion probably less than fifty per cent, could hope even in
the most favorable times to become freeholders. If they survived the
hardships and dangers of the service with their masters, it still
remained for them to acquire property and win for themselves a place in
the life of the colony. And to accomplish this they must display
determination, intelligence, industry and thrift, qualities by no means
universal among the classes in England from which the servants were
chiefly drawn. But for the free immigrant there need be no period of
probation. He might at once purchase his farm, erect his home, secure
all necessary tools and put out his crop of tobacco. And whereas the
servant usually found it possible to maintain a family only after many
years of hard work, perhaps not at all, the free settler often married
before leaving England and brought his wife and children with him.
In conclusion it may be said that in the first fifty years of the
colony's existence conditions were very favorable for the graduation of
the servant into the class of small freeholders, that the records amply
prove that many succeeded in doing so, but that at this period a fair
proportion of free immigrants also came to the colony. Before the
expiration of the Commonwealth period was formed from these two
sources, perhaps in not unequal proportions, a vigorous, intelligent,
independent yeomanry, comprising fully 90 percent of all the
landowners.
_CHAPTER V_
THE RESTORATION PERIOD
The people of Virginia hailed the Restoration with unaffected joy. Not
only did they anticipate that the termination of the long period of
civil war and unrest in England would react favorably upon their own
prosperity, but they felt that Sir William Berkeley's well known loyalty
and his action in proclaiming Charles II immediately after the execution
of his father, might assure them the King's especial favor now that he
at last had come into undisputed possession of his throne. They were
doomed to bitter disappointment, however, for the Restoration brought
them only hardship and suffering, discontent and rebellion.
No sooner had the royal Government been safely installed than it set to
work to perfect and to enforce the colonial policy which in principle
had been accepted from the first. The ties which united the colonies
with the mother country were strengthened, those which gave them a
common interest with foreign nations in so far as possible were snapped.
The British empire was to become a unit, closely knit by economic bonds
and presenting to all other nations a hostile front. With this in view
Parliament passed a series of Navigation Acts, under which the trade of
the colonies was regulated for many years to come.
It is necessary for us to enquire, therefore, into the effects of these
laws upon the tobacco trade, for tobacco, as we have seen, was the key
to the prosperity of the colony, and favorable economic conditions alone
could make it possible for the newcomer to establish himself as a member
of the Virginia yeomanry. If the strict enforcement of the Navigation
Acts should bring low prices for tobacco and wipe out the margin of
profit for the man who tilled the soil with his own hands, not only
would the small planter class not expand, but might actually decline in
numbers.
There were three main features of the colonial legislation of Parliament
during this period, all of them interrelated and all tending toward the
one great object of keeping the English plantations for the English. It
was provided that the chief colonial products such as tobacco and sugar
should be sent only to England or to English colonies, that the colonies
should with few exceptions import goods only from British territory,
that all products taken to or from any colony should be conveyed only in
English vessels manned by crews composed mainly of Englishmen.
In committing itself to this policy the royal Government felt that the
plantations would play a useful and necessary part in the great system
which was planned, and in so doing would find prosperity. It had been
the hope of the English people that their colonies would produce the
articles which were so badly needed by the mother country to revive her
waning industry and permit a greater measure of economic independence.
Although more than half a century had passed since the first foothold
had been gained upon the American continent, this expectation was as far
from realization as ever. The colonies, from Massachusetts to Barbados
were producing, not the articles which England especially needed, but
those for which they had the greatest natural aptitude, especially
tobacco and sugar. And these staples they sent, not to England alone,
but to various foreign countries as well.
In short the vision of a closely knit, self-sustaining empire, the
vision which had been in men's minds for many decades before the
founding of Jamestown, seemed to have proved delusive. The colonies
were developing interests and commercial connections hostile to those of
the mother country, were nourishing the manufactures and shipping of
foreign nations almost as much as those of England. And this the
Government at London would not tolerate. The colonial trade with
strangers must come to an end. If Virginia and Maryland produced more
tobacco than the English market could absorb, they could find ready
relief by turning their energies into other channels. Let them furnish
the old country with pig iron or potash or silk or ship-stores and they
would find ready and eager purchasers. So reasoned the English, and as
their views were backed by the mandates of Crown and Parliament, the
colonists were forced to submit. If they could fit themselves into the
system prescribed for them, all would be well and good; if they found
this impossible, they would have to suffer without hope of redress.
And suffer Virginia did for a full quarter of a century. The tobacco of
the Chesapeake bay colonies had long since reached the point where it
required a world market. If confined to England alone, only a fraction
of the output could be consumed and disaster was certain. It was well
enough for the Government to restrict the importation of Spanish leaf
and to prohibit the planting of tobacco in England, these regulations
could do no more than give the colonists undisputed possession of the
home market, and the home market was not enough. This point seems to
have been ignored by those writers who have contended that the strict
enforcement of the British colonial system in itself entailed no
hardship upon the tobacco colonies.
"It is obvious that any criticism of England's regulation of the
colonial tobacco trade, which is based on a laissez-faire social
philosophy," says George Lewis Beer, in _The Old Colonial System_, "is
equally applicable to the arrangement by means of which the tobacco
planter secured exclusive privileges in the home market."[5-1] Yet it is
certain that the tobacco growers of England could never have competed
with Maryland and Virginia had there been free trade. The prohibition of
planting in the old country was necessary only because of the tariff,
varying from 200 per cent in 1660 to 600 per cent in 1705, upon the
colonial product. And though the exclusion of Spanish tobacco was a more
real benefit, for the Spaniard produced varieties unknown in Virginia,
there is exaggeration here also. This is clearly shown by the fact that
at the end of the Seventeenth century England was sending millions of
pounds of her colonial tobacco to Spain itself.[5-2] The leaf was
brought from Virginia and Maryland, forced to pay a duty of about fifty
per cent, and re-exported to the Spanish ports, where it found a ready
sale. Had there been free exchange of commodities, the English colonies
would have sold to Spain more tobacco than the Spanish colonies to
England.
In truth the loss of the foreign market was a terrible disaster. In
framing the Navigation Acts it was not the intention of the Government
to stop entirely the flow of tobacco to the continent of Europe, but to
divert it from the old channels and make it pass through England. It was
therefore provided that in case the leaf was shipped out again to
foreign ports, all the duties, except one half of the Old Subsidy,
should be withdrawn.[5-7] The remaining half penny, however, amounted to
forty or fifty per cent of the original cost of the goods, and proved at
first an almost insuperable barrier to the European trade. Moreover, the
shortage of ships which resulted from the exclusion of the Dutch
merchants, the expense of putting in at the English ports, the long and
troublesome procedure of reshipping, all tended to discourage the
merchants and hamper re-exportation.
We may take for granted also that the resentment of Holland at the
Navigation Acts, which struck a telling blow at her maritime prestige,
played an important part in blocking foreign trade. The Dutch had been
the chief European distributors of the Virginia and Maryland tobacco,
and if they refused to take it, now that it could be secured only in
England, it would pile up uselessly in the London warehouses. They
understood well enough that the half penny a pound duty was a tribute
levied upon them by their most dangerous rival. It is not surprising
that instead of bowing to the new restrictions, they sought to free
their trade entirely from dependence on British tobacco, by fostering
the cultivation of the plant in their own country.
The colonists found an able defender in the merchant John Bland. In a
Remonstrance addressed to the King this man set forth with remarkable
clearness the evils which would result from the Navigation Acts, and
pleaded for their repeal. The Hollander was already beginning to plant
tobacco, he said, and would soon be able to supply all his needs at
home. "Will he, after accustomed to the tobacco of his own growth," he
asked, "ever regard that which is in Virginia? Will he ever afterwards
be induced to fetch it thence, when he finds his profit higher at home?
Will he ever buy that of us, when by passing so many hands, and so much
charge contracted thereon, is made so dear, that he can have it cheaper
in his own territories? (Surely no.) Therefore it clearly appears, that
being so, of necessity we must lose that Trade and Commerce."
"If the Hollanders must not trade to Virginia, how shall the Planters
dispose of their Tobacco? The English will not buy it, for what the
Hollander carried thence was a sort of tobacco not desired by any other
people, nor used by us in England but merely to transport for Holland.
Will it not then perish on the Planters hands?... Can it be believed
that from England more ships will be sent than are able to bring thence
what tobacco England will spent? If they do bring more, must they not
lose thereby both stock and Block, principle and charges? The tobacco
will not vend in England, the Hollanders will not fetch it from England;
what must become thereof?... Is not this a destruction to the commerce?
For if men lose their Estates, certainly trade cannot be
encreased."[5-8]
The enforcement of the trade laws was indirectly the cause of still
another misfortune to the colonies, for the two wars with Holland which
grew out of it reacted disastrously upon their trade. In fact, on each
occasion the small stream of tobacco which had trickled over the dam of
restrictions into foreign countries was for a time almost entirely cut
off. Not only did the tobacco exports to Holland itself come to an end,
but the Dutch war vessels played havoc with the trade between England
and other countries and even between England and her colonies.
The loss of their foreign exports was calamitous to the planters. Had
the demand for tobacco been more elastic, the consequences might not
have been so fatal, for declining prices would have stimulated
consumption and made it possible for England to absorb most of the
output. But the duty kept up the price and the result was a ruinous glut
in the English market. Tobacco sufficient for a continent poured into
the kingdom, where since the normal outlet was blocked by the half penny
a pound on re-exported leaf, it piled up uselessly.
The effect upon prices was immediate. The planters were forced to take
for their crops half of what they had formerly received and had reason
for rejoicing if they could dispose of it at all. In 1662 Governor
Berkeley and other leading citizens stated that the price of tobacco had
fallen so low that it would not "bear the charge of freight and customs,
answer the adventure, give encouragement to the traders and subsistence
to the inhabitants."[5-9] In 1666 Secretary Thomas Ludwell told Lord
Arlington that tobacco was "worth nothing."[5-10] Later in the same year
the planters complained that the price was so low that they were not
able to live by it.[5-11] "For the merchants, knowing both our
necessities and the unconsumable quantities of tobacco we had by us,"
they said, "gave us not the twentieth part of what they sold it for in
England."[5-12] Tobacco had so glutted the markets, it was declared, and
brought the planter so small a return, that he could "live but poorly
upon it." In fact, the merchants in 1666 had left the greater part of
the two preceding crops upon their hands.[5-13]
"Twelve hundred pounds of tobacco is the medium of men's crops," wrote
Secretary Ludwell to Lord John Berkeley in 1667, "and half a penny per
pound is certainly the full medium of the price given for it, which is
fifty shillings out of which when the taxes ... shall be deducted, is
very little to a poor man who hath perhaps a wife and children to cloath
and other necessities to buy. Truly so much too little that I can
attribute it to nothing but the great mercy of God ... that keeps them
from mutiny and confusion."[5-14] The following year he wrote in similar
vein. The market was glutted; a third of the planters' tobacco was left
on their hands; the rest sold for nothing.[5-15]
The Governor and Council declared that the merchant "allows not much
above a farthing a pound for that which the planter brings to his door.
And if there shall be any amongst us who shall be able to ship his
tobacco on his own account, it will be at such a rate as the tobacco
will never repay him, since they are inforced to pay from L12 to L17 per
ton freight, which usually was but at seven pounds."[5-16] "A large part
of the people are so desperately poor," wrote Berkeley in 1673, "that
they may reasonably be expected upon any small advantage of the enemy
to revolt to them in hopes of bettering their condition by sharing the
plunder of the colony with them."[5-17] That matters had not changed in
1681 is attested by the statement of the Council that the impossibility
of disposing of their tobacco without a heavy loss overwhelmed both
Virginia and Maryland, and brought upon them a "vast poverty and
infinite necessity."[5-18] "The low price of tobacco staggers the
imagination," Lord Culpeper wrote to Secretary Coventry, "and the
continuance of it will be the speedy and fatal ruin of this noble
Colony."[5-19]
These distressing conditions bore with telling weight upon the small
planters. The margin of profit which formerly had made it possible for
the freedman to advance rapidly was now wiped out entirely and the poor
man found it impossible to keep out of debt. In 1668 Secretary Ludwell
declared that no one could longer hope to better himself by planting
tobacco.[5-20] Eight years later Nathaniel Bacon, in justifying his
rebellion declared that the small farmers were deeply in debt and that
it was "not in the power of labor or industry" to extricate them.[5-21]
"The poverty of Virginia is such," said a certain John Good in 1676,
"that the major part of the inhabitants can scarce supply their wants
from hand to mouth, and many there are besides can hardly shift without
supply one year."[5-22] In 1673 the Governor and Council reported that
of the planters, "at least one third are single persons (whose labor
will hardly maintain them) or men much in debt," who might reasonably be
expected to revolt to the Dutch upon any small advantage gained by
them.[5-23] In 1680 they again reported that "the indigency of the
Inhabitants is such that they are in noe manner capacitated to support
themselves."[5-24] Three years later they wrote that "the people of
Virginia are generally, some few excepted, extremely poor, not being
able to provide against the pressing necessities of their
families."[5-25]
Despite this repeated and explicit testimony of the misery and poverty
of the colony during this period, which resulted from the stagnation of
the tobacco market after the passage of the Navigation Acts, the
surprising statement is made by Mr. George Lewis Beer, in _The Old
Colonial System_, that England's trade restrictions had nothing to do
with Bacon's Rebellion. "It has been at various times contended," he
says, "that the uprising was, in part at least, one against the laws of
trade and navigation. If there had existed in Virginia any widespread
and well defined feeling of antagonism to these laws, it would
unquestionably have found expression in the county grievances. Most of
these reports were drawn up in a number of articles, and in all there
were nearly two hundred of such separate subdivisions, yet only three of
this number refer in any way to these statutes. There is no valid reason
for assuming that the commercial system played any part whatsoever, or
was in any degree, an issue, in the upheaval of 1676."[5-26]
If by this statement it is meant that Bacon and his men did not rebel in
order to force the repeal of the Navigation Acts, or even that they did
not have the acts in mind at the time, there are many students of
Virginia history who will agree with it. But if Mr. Beer means that
these laws, with their baleful effect upon the prosperity of Virginia,
did not produce the conditions fundamental to the rising, he is
certainly wrong. The evidence is overwhelming.
Surely no one will deny that misery, poverty and nakedness are breeders
of sedition. Had it not been for the Navigation Acts there would not
have been so many desperate persons in Virginia ready at any excuse to
fly in the face of the Government. Bacon's men were just the type of
miserably poor freemen that Berkeley several years before had feared
would rebel. He himself, in his proclamation of Feb. 10, 1677, spoke of
them as "men of mean and desperate fortunes."[5-27] William Sherwood
called the rebels rude and indigent persons, alluding to them as "tag,
rag and bobtayle."[5-28] Over and over again they are described as the
multitude, the rabble, the skum.
Exception must be taken also to the statement that had there existed in
Virginia any well-defined feeling of antagonism to the Navigation Acts
it would have found expression in the county grievances. It should be
remembered that these reports had been called for by the commissioners
sent over by Charles II to investigate the troubles. The men who drew
them up occupied the position of defeated rebels, and the grievances
were primarily a list of excuses for their treason. They all stood
trembling for their property, if they had any, and for their miserable
lives. The memory of the fate of Drummond and Bland and Arnold and many
others of their fellow rebels was fresh in their minds. It is not
reasonable to suppose that they would tell the King that they had risen
in arms against his authority in order to secure the overthrow of laws
which his Majesty considered of such vital importance, laws which
concerned intimately the royal revenue. Such a declaration would not
have seconded successfully their plea for mercy. This is made amply
clear by the reception accorded one of the few complaints which did
actually touch the Navigation Acts. The commissioners report it to the
King as "an extravagant request for liberty to transport their tobacco
to any of his Majesty's plantations without paying the imposts, payable
by act of Parliament, etc. This head is wholly mutinous--to desire a
thing contrary to his Majesty's royal pleasure and benefit and also
against an act of Parliament."[5-29]
Despite the obviously ruinous effects of the Navigation Acts upon
Virginia, Mr. Beer makes the assertion that there was no very serious
and general opposition to them in Virginia. "Apart from the criticisms
of Bland and Berkeley," he says, "there was virtually no complaint
against the system of trade enjoined by the Navigation Acts. While the
Barbados Assembly and that colony's governors were vociferous in their
protests, the Virginia legislature remained strangely mute."[5-30]
This silence on the part of the Virginia Assembly can by no means be
interpreted as an indication that the people of the colony felt the
Navigation Acts to be equitable and not injurious to their interests. It
meant only that no Assembly under Sir William Berkeley would dare
protest against an act which had received the royal sanction. That would
have seemed the veriest treason to the fiery old loyalist. And the
Assembly was entirely under Sir William's control. The members of both
Houses were his creatures and his henchmen. Over and over again it is
testified that the Assembly did nothing more than register his
will.[5-31] If then it did not protest, it was because Sir William did
not wish it to protest.
But this does not prove that the planters were not angered and alarmed
at the stringent acts. That they considered them baleful is amply proved
by their continuous complaints of the economic ruin which had overtaken
the colony. The method they chose of combatting the trade laws, a method
apt to be far more effective than the angry protests of the Barbados
Assembly, was to send the Governor to England to use his influence at
Court to have the acts modified or repealed. And Berkeley did what he
could. While in England he wrote a paper called _A Discourse and View of
Virginia_, which he hoped would induce the Government to change its
policy in regard to the colonies. "Wee cannot but resent," he said,
"that 40,000 people should be impoverished to enrich little more than 40
merchants, who being the whole buyers of our tobacco, give us what they
please for it. And after it is here sell as they please, and indeed have
40,000 servants in us at cheaper rates, than other men have slaves, for
they find them meat and drink and clothes. We furnish ourselves and
their seamen with meat and drink, and all our sweat and labor as they
order us, will hardly procure us coarse clothes to keep us from the
extremities of heat and cold."[5-32] That Sir William was but the
mouthpiece of the colony in this protest there can be no doubt.
But his pleadings were in vain. England would not change the laws which
were the expression of her settled colonial policy. The planters must
adjust themselves to changed conditions no matter how bitter was the
experience. Sir William was told to go home to report to the Virginians
that they need not kick against the pricks, but that England would be
most pleased could they turn from the all-absorbing culture of tobacco
to the production of the raw materials she so greatly desired. And
Berkeley did return determined to exert every effort to lead the
colonists into new prosperity by inducing them to devote a part of their
energies to basic commodities. In fact he promised that in seven years
he would flood the British market with new Virginia goods.[5-33]
Although he set to work with his accustomed vigor to make good this
boast, he met with but scant success. Lack of efficient and skilled
labor, high wages, and not very favorable natural conditions, made it
impossible for him to compete with the long-established industries of
Europe. After a few years all attempts to make silk and potash and naval
stores were abandoned, and the planters continued to put their trust in
tobacco.
That Berkeley was never persuaded that the Navigation Acts were just or
beneficial is shown by his answer to the query of the Lords of Trade in
1671, when they asked him what impediments there were to the colony's
trade. "Mighty and destructive," he replied, "by that severe act of
Parliament which excludes us from having any commerce with any nation
in Europe but our own, so that we cannot add to our plantation any
commodity that grows out of it ... for it is not lawful for us to carry
a pipe-staff or a bushel of corn to any place in Europe out of the
King's dominions. If this were for his Majesty's service or the good of
his subjects we should not repine, whatever our sufferings are for it.
But on my soul it is the contrary of both."[5-35]
Nor is this the only direct testimony that the colonists were filled
with bitterness against the Navigation Acts. In 1673, during the war
with Holland, Sir John Knight declared that "the planters there do
generally desire a trade with the Dutch and all other nations, and speak
openly there that they are in the nature of slaves, so that the hearts
of the greatest part of them are taken away from his Majesty and
consequently his Majesty's best, greatest and richest plantation is in
danger, with the planters' consent, to fall into the enemy's hands, if
not timely prevented."[5-36] This is corroborated by the Council itself,
in an official letter to the King. "For in this very conjuncture had the
people had a distasteful Governor," they wrote, "they would have
hazarded the loss of this Country, and the rather because they doe
believe their Condicon would not be soe bad under the Dutch in Point of
Traffique as it is under the Merchants who now use them hardly, even to
extremity."[5-37]
It is evident, then, that throughout the entire reign of Charles II the
unhappy effects of the trade restrictions made of Virginia, which
formerly had been the land of opportunity for the poor man, a place of
suffering, poverty and discontent. The indentured servant who came over
after 1660 found conditions in the colony hardly more favorable for his
advancement than in England. The price of tobacco was now so low that it
was not possible for a man, by his unassisted efforts, to make a profit
by its cultivation. If Thomas Ludewell is correct in estimating the
return from the average crop at fifty shillings, the lot of the poor
man must have been hard indeed. Hungry he need not be, for food
continued to be abundant and easy to obtain, but of all that the
merchants gave him in return for his tobacco--clothing, farm implements,
household furnishings--he had to content himself with the scantiest
supply. And only too often his pressing needs brought him into hopeless
debt. As for imitating his predecessors of the earlier period in saving
money, purchasing land and servants and becoming a substantial citizen,
the task was well nigh impossible of accomplishment.
It would be expected, then, that even the most exhaustive investigation
could reveal but a few indentured servants, coming over after 1660, who
succeeded in establishing themselves in the Virginia yeomanry. And such,
indeed, is the case. Fortunately we have at hand for the period in
question the means of determining this matter with an exactness
impossible for the first half of the century. Nicholson's rent roll of
1704 supplies a complete list, with the exception of those in the
Northern Neck, of every landowner in Virginia. At the same time we have
in the Land Office at Richmond, the names of many thousands of persons
listed as headrights, constituting almost all the immigrants who came in
during the years from 1666 to the end of the century. Thus by comparing
the two lists and trying to identify on the rent roll the names found in
the patents, it is possible to fix the proportion of servants who won
for themselves at this time places among the landowning class.
Selecting the year 1672 as typical of the Restoration period, we find
that an examination of 672 of the names which are listed as headrights,
eleven only can be identified with any degree of certainty upon the rent
roll. Of 1116 names examined in the years from 1671 to 1674 inclusive,
only 26 are positively those of persons listed as landowners in 1704.
After making due allowance for the fact that uncertainty exists in a
number of other cases, and that some who prospered must have died in the
intervening years, it is safe to say that not more than five or six per
cent of the indentured servants of this period succeeded in establishing
themselves as independent planters.
These conclusions are borne out by the slowness with which the
population increased during the years following the passage of the
Navigation Acts. In the Commonwealth period the colony had advanced by
leaps and bounds, and the inhabitants, estimated at 15,000 in
1649,[5-38] were placed by Berkeley thirteen years later at
40,000.[5-39] Under the system which existed during these years, when
the colonists enjoyed a comparatively free trade, the population had
tripled. But after 1660, while the Virginia tobacco was dumped upon the
restricted English market and prices fell lower and lower, no such rapid
growth is noted. In 1671, nine years after his first estimate, Governor
Berkeley still placed the population at 40,000.[5-40] And even if we
accept the statement of the Virginia agents sent to England to secure a
charter for the colony that in 1675 the number of inhabitants was
50,000, it is evident that some pernicious influence was at work to
retard the development of England's most important American
province.[5-41] A drop in the rate of increase from 200 per cent during
the thirteen years prior to 1662, to 25 per cent in the thirteen years
following, is a clear index to the startling change brought about in the
colony by the British trade regulations.
These figures are the more significant in that there was no appreciable
slackening of the stream of servants. It is probable that in the period
from 1662 to 1675, which marked this estimated increase of 10,000
persons, fully 20,000 immigrants had come to the colony.[5-42] The
patent rolls for 1674 alone give the names of 1931 headrights, and this
year is by no means exceptional. No wonder Edward Randolph was
surprised at the smallness of the population and wrote to the Board of
Trade that it should be investigated why Virginia had not grown more,
"considering what vast numbers of servants and others had been
transported thither."[5-43]
But Randolph failed to realize that it is not the volume of immigration
but the number of people a country will support which in the end
determines the size of the population. It was not enough to pour into
the colony tens of thousands of poor settlers; opportunity had also to
be afforded them for earning an adequate living. And this opportunity,
because of the enforcement of the Navigation Acts and the consequent
ruin of trade, they did not have in Virginia. Throughout the Restoration
period not more than forty or fifty thousand people could exist upon the
returns from the tobacco crop, and beyond that the population could
hardly rise. If more poured in, they must of necessity live in misery
and rags, or migrate to other colonies where more favorable conditions
existed.
We are not at present concerned with what become of this surplus
population, but only with the fact that the Navigation Acts brought to a
dead halt the process of moulding freedmen and other poor settlers into
a prosperous yeomanry. By the year 1660 this class seems to have reached
its highest development, and had a rent roll of land owners been drawn
up at that date it would doubtless have shown almost as many names as
that of 1704. In fact it is fortunate that in the bitter years from 1660
to 1685 it did not succumb entirely. With the price of tobacco so low
that no profit was to be derived from it, with his family in rags, the
small planter might well have sold his land to his more wealthy neighbor
and joined the newly freed servants in moving on to western Carolina or
to the northern colonies.
In fact it is an indication of the solid character of the Virginia
yeomanry that it survived to enter the Eighteenth century, that under
Andros and Nicholson as well as under Sir William Berkeley it was the
soundest element in the life of the colony. Had it not been for the
crowning misfortune of the introduction of great swarms of negro slaves,
sooner or later it would have come once more into its own, would have
carved out for itself a new prosperity, would have filled Virginia from
the Atlantic to the Alleghanies.
_CHAPTER VI_
THE YEOMAN IN VIRGINIA HISTORY
Perhaps it would have been impossible for the Virginia yeoman to survive
the dark days of the Restoration period had it not been for the fact
that in the matter of his food supply he was independent of England and
her vexatious trade restrictions. He might be in rags, but there was no
reason why he should ever feel the pangs of hunger. Seldom in any
climate, in any age has food existed in such extraordinary variety and
in such lavish abundance.
Almost every planter, even the poorest, was possessed of cattle. The
_Perfect Discription_ states that in 1649 there were in the colony "of
Kine, Oxen, Bulls, Calves, twenty thousand, large and good."[6-1]
Fifteen years later the number had increased to 100,000.[6-2] Many a
little farmer, too poor to afford the help of a servant or a slave, had
cattle more than sufficient for his every need. John Splitimber, a
planter of meagre means, died in 1677 owning eight cows and one
bull.[6-3] John Gray, whose entire personal estate was valued only at
9,340 pounds of tobacco, possessed at his death six cows, six calves,
two steers and one heifer.[6-4] The inventory of the goods of Richard
Avery, another poor planter, shows three steers, one heifer, three small
cattle and one calf.[6-5] The yeoman not only secured from these animals
a goodly supply of beef, but milk in abundance from which he made butter
and cheese. The steers he used as beasts of burden.
The meat which most frequently appeared upon the table of the poor man
was that of swine. The planter marked his hogs and turned them loose in
the woods to feed upon roots and acorns. On the other hand, sheep did
not multiply in the colony, for the woods were not suited for their
maintenance, and those areas which had been cleared of trees could more
profitably be utilized for agriculture than for pasture lands. Mutton
was a rare delicacy even with the well-to-do.[6-6]
Poultry were exceedingly numerous. At the time of the Company it was
stated that the planter who failed to breed one hundred a year was
considered a poor manager. The _Perfect Discription_ says that the
poultry--"Hens, Turkies, Ducks, Geece"--were without number.[6-7]
Moreover, the wild fowls of the inland waterways were so numerous that
even the least skilful of huntsmen could readily bring down enough for
the needs of his family, and the mallard, the goose, the canvasback
appeared regularly in season upon every table.[6-8]
The planter always devoted a part of his land to the production of the
grain which was needed for his personal requirements. "They yearly plow
and sow many hundred acres of Wheat," it was said, "as good and faire as
any in the world."[6-9] At the same time maize grew so readily and its
cultivation proved so cheap, that cornbread formed a part of the diet
not only of the planters themselves, but of their servants and slaves.
From his garden, an inevitable accompaniment of every plantation, the
farmer secured a large variety of vegetables--potatoes, asparagus,
carrots, turnips, onions, parsnips, besides such fruits as strawberries,
gooseberries, raspberries; from his orchard he had apples, pears,
quinces, apricots, peaches.[6-10] Honey was abundant, and there were few
householders who did not have hives under the eaves of their
outbuildings. One planter, a Mr. George Pelton, is said to have made a
profit of L30 from his bees.[6-11] There were also many wild swarms in
the woods, which yielded a delicious return to the colonial
bee-hunters.[6-12]
It is easy to understand, then, why there were no complaints of hunger
even in the days when poverty was almost universal. The Virginia yeoman
spread always an abundant table. "He that is lazy and will not work,"
said the author of _New Albion_, "needs not fear starving, but may live
as an Indian, sometimes Oysters, Cockles, Wilkes, Clams, Scollons two
moneths together; sometimes wilde Pease and Vetches, and Long Oates,
sometimes Tuckaho, Cuttenoman ground, Nuts, Marhonions, sometimes small
nuts, Filbirds, Wallnuts, Pokeberries, ten sorts of Berries, Egs of
Foul, small Fish in Coves at low water will teach him to live idly." "It
must needs follow then that diet cannot be scarce, since both rivers and
woods afford it, and that such plenty of Cattle and Hogs are every
where, which yield beef, veal, milk, butter, cheese and other made
dishes, porke, bacon and pigs, and that as sweet and savoury meat as the
world affords, these with the help of Orchards and Gardens, Oysters,
Fish, Fowle and Venison, certainly cannot but be sufficient for a good
diet and wholsom accommodation, considering how plentifully they are,
and how easie with industry to be had."[6-13]
But the little planter, with the advent of the Navigation Acts, often
suffered keenly from a lack of adequate clothing. Again and again the
letters of the period state that the poor man was reduced to rags, that
he could not protect his family from the winter's cold. There was some
manufacture of cloth in the home, but the planter usually trusted to the
foreign trader to bring him every article of clothing. He had neither
the implements nor the skill to supply his own needs. During the
Restoration period, and again at the time of the war of the Spanish
Succession, when the price of tobacco fell so very low, many families
succeeded in producing enough homespun to supply their most pressing
needs.[6-14] But with the return of better conditions they laid aside
the loom and the wheel, and resumed their purchase of English cloth.
In normal times the poor planter was comfortably clad. Edward Williams,
in _Virginia Richly Valued_, advised every new immigrant to bring a
monmouth cap, a waistcoat, a suit of canvas, with bands, shirts,
stockings and shoes.[6-15] The author of _New Albion_ thought that each
adventurer should provide himself with canvas or linen clothes, with
shoes and a hat.[6-16]
The houses of the small planters were small but comfortable. "Pleasant
in their building," says John Hammond, "which although for most part
they are but one story besides the loft, and built of wood, yet
contrived so delightfully that your ordinary houses in England are not
so handsome, for usually the rooms are large, daubed and whitelimed,
glazed and flowered, and if not glazed windows, shutters which are made
very pritty and convenient."[6-17] _The New Description of Virginia_,
published in 1649, says: "They have Lime in abundance for their houses,
store of bricks made, and House and Chimnies built of Brick, and some of
Wood high and fair, covered with Shingell for Tyle."[6-18]
In the days of the Company most of the houses seem to have been made of
logs, and Butler, in his _Virginia Unmasked_, declared that they were
the "worst in the world," and that the most wretched cottages in England
were superior to them.[6-19] But the period of which Butler wrote was
exceptional, and before long the growing prosperity of the colony made
possible a great improvement in the dwellings of the people. The rough
log cabin gave way to the little framed cottage with chimneys at each
end.
A residence erected in one of the parishes of the Eastern Shore in 1635
to serve as a parsonage may be accepted as typical of the better class
of houses in Virginia at this time. It was made of wood, was forty feet
wide, eighteen deep and had a chimney at each end. On either side was an
additional apartment, one used as a study, the other as a
buttery.[6-20] For the poor man this was far too pretentious, and he had
to content himself with a home perhaps thirty by twenty feet, containing
at times two or three apartments, at times only one.
But such as it was it gave him ample protection against the heat of
summer and the cold of winter. Fuel he never lacked. When the frosts of
December and January came upon him, he had only to repair to the nearest
forest, axe in hand, to supply himself with wood in abundance. In this
way, not only would he keep a roaring blaze in his open fireplace, but
would widen the space available for the next summer's tobacco crop.
The surroundings of the planter's residence were severely plain. In the
yard, which usually was uninclosed, towered a cluster of trees, a
survival of the primeval forest. Nearby was the garden, with its flowers
and vegetables, the dove-cote, the barn, the hen house, perhaps a milk
house or even a detached kitchen. In some cases wells were sunk, but the
use of natural springs was more common.[6-21]
Of the plantation itself, only a fraction was under cultivation at one
time. Tobacco was exceedingly exhausting to the soil, but the cheapness
of land led the planters to neglect the most ordinary precautions to
preserve its fertility. They sowed year after year upon the same spot,
until the diminishing yield warned them of approaching sterility, and
then would desert it to clear a new field. This system made it necessary
for them to provide for the future by securing farms far larger in
extent than was dictated by their immediate requirements. They had to
look forward to the day when their land would become useless, and if
they were provident, would purchase ten times more than they could
cultivate at any one time. Thomas Whitlock, in his will dated 1659,
says: "I give to my son Thomas Whitlock the land I live on, 600 acres,
when he is of the age 21, and during his minority to my wife. The land
not to be further made use of or by planting or seating than the first
deep branch that is commonly rid over, that my son may have some fresh
land when he attains to age."[6-22]
One may gain an idea of the condition of the very poorest class of
freemen by an examination of the inventory of the estate of Walter
Dorch, drawn up in 1684. This man possessed two pairs of woollen cards,
and one spinning wheel, valued at 100 pounds of tobacco, one chest at
eighty pounds, four old trays at twenty pounds, two runletts at forty
pounds, one pail and one skillet at sixty pounds, one bowl at two
pounds, one feather bed, two pillows and three old blankets at 120
pounds of tobacco, three glass bottles at twenty pounds, one couch frame
at forty pounds, one pair of pot-hooks at forty, 800 tenpenny nails at
forty-five, and one old table and one sifter at twenty pounds. In all
the estate was valued at 587 pounds of tobacco.[6-23]
John Gray, who died in 1685, left personal property worth 9,340 pounds
of tobacco, consisting in part of six cows and six calves, four
yearlings, two steers, one heifer, one barrel of corn, one bull, ten
hogs and one horse. He had no servants and no slaves.[6-24] In better
circumstances was Richard Avery, who seems to have been a tanner by
profession. The inventory of his estate, recorded in 1686, includes one
horse with bridle and saddle, a cart and a yoke of steers, eight head of
cattle, 25 hogs, 118 hides, various kinds of tools, lumber to the value
of 400 pounds of tobacco, four pieces of earthenware, four beds with
mattresses and covers, poultry to the value of 180 pounds of tobacco,
some wheat in the ground and a batch of wearing linen. The entire
personal estate was valued at 14,050 pounds of tobacco. It included no
servants or slaves.[6-25]
John Splitimber, who is entered as a headright to Thomas Harwood in
1635, is typical of the planter who rose from small beginnings to a
state of comparative prosperity. This man, at his death in 1677,
possessed eight cows, one bull, four yearlings, four mares, 35 hogs, two
horses, two bolsters, a pillow, two blankets, a mattress, two bedsteads,
two guns, fifty-six pounds of pewter, two rugs, a table, three chests,
one old couch, two iron pots, two kettles, two stilyards, shovel and
tongs, two smothering irons, two axes, a few carpenter's tools, a saddle
and bridle, four casks, clothing to the value of 1,100 pounds of
tobacco, a frying pan, a butter pat, a jar, a looking glass, two milk
pans, one table cloth, nine spoons, a churn, a bible. The appraisers
placed the total value at 18,277 pounds of tobacco.[6-26] The inventory
records no servants or slaves, but it is probable that Splitimber at
times made use of indentured labor, as in November 1648 and again in
1652, we find him taking up land due for the transportation of certain
persons to the colony.[6-27]
Of similar estate was Christopher Pearson, of York county. His personal
property included bedding valued at L7, linen at 18 shillings, pewter at
L1.18.0, brass at six shillings, wooden ware at L4.13.6 comprising three
chairs and one table, a couch, four old chests, a cask, two ten gallon
rundletts, a cheese press, a box of drawers, an old table, three pails,
a spinning wheel with cards, two sifting trays, a corn barrel, three
bedsteads, four sives, a funnel; iron ware valued at L2.12.0, including
three pots, two pot-rocks, a pestal, a frying pan, a looking glass;
three cows appraised at L6.5.0, a yearling at ten shillings, a colt at
two pounds sterling. The entire estate was valued at L25.19.6.[6-28]
It must not be imagined, however, that Virginia, even in the early years
of its settlement, contained no men of wealth or rank. Industry and
intelligence bore their inevitable fruit in the little colony, with the
result that here and there certain planters acquired an enviable
pre-eminence among their fellows. The _New Description_ mentions several
such cases. Captain Matthews "hath a fine house," it says, "and all
things answerable to it; he sowes yeerly store of Hempe and Flax, and
causes it to be spun; he keeps Weavers, and hath a Tanhouse, causes
Leather to be dressed, hath eight Shoemakers employed in their trade,
hath forty Negro servants, brings them up to Trades in his house. He
yeerly sowes abundance of Wheat, Barley, &c. The Wheat he selleth at
four shillings the bushell; kills store of Beeves, and sells them to
victuall the Ships when they come thither; hath abundance of Kine, a
brave Dairy, Swine great store, and Poltery; he married a Daughter of
Sir Thomas Hinton, and in a word, keeps a good house, lives bravely, and
a true lover of Virginia; he is worthy of much honor."[6-29]
This description is interesting because it shows not only the extent of
the holdings of certain planters at this early date, but that their
prosperity had the same foundation as that of the more numerous class of
wealthy men of the Eighteenth century. In both cases slavery and
plantation manufacture would seem to have been the open sesame to
success. It is notable that of the very limited number of men in
Virginia prior to 1700 who stand out above their fellows in the
readiness with which they acquired property, almost all gathered around
them a goodly number of negroes.
Among the prominent planters of the first half of the Seventeenth
century was George Menefie, famous for his orchard which abounded in
apple, pear and cherry trees, and for his garden which yielded all kinds
of fruits, vegetables, and flowers; Richard Bennett, a man of large
property who had in one year "out of his Orchard as many Apples as he
made 20 Butts of Excellent Cider"; Richard Kinsman, who for three or
four years in succession secured "forty or fifty Butts of Perry made out
of his Orchard, pure and good."[6-30]
In the second half of the century the class of the well-to-do, although
somewhat more numerous, was still restricted to a small group of
prominent families, many of them connected by marriage. Among the best
known men are Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Thomas Ballard, Robert Severely,
Giles Brent, Joseph Bridger, William Byrd I, John Carter, John Custis I,
Dudley Digges, William Fitzhugh, Lewis Burwell, Philip Ludwell I,
William Moseley, Daniel Parke, Ralph Wormeley, Benjamin Harrison, Edward
Hill, Edmund Jennings and Matthew Page. But so few were their numbers
that the Governors more than once complained that they could not find
men for the Council of State qualified for that post by their wealth and
influence.
The depository of power for the Virginia yeomanry was the House of
Burgesses. This important body was elected by the votes of the
freeholders, and faithfully represented their interests. Here they would
bring their grievances, here express their wishes, here defend
themselves against injustice, here demand the enactment of legislation
favorable to their class. The hope of the people lay always in the
Burgesses, Bacon the rebel tells us, "as their Trusts, and Sanctuary to
fly to."[6-31] And though the commons usually elected to this body the
leading men of each county, men of education and wealth if such were to
be found, they held them to a strict accountability for their every
action.[6-32] Many of the best known members of the Council of State
served their apprenticeship in the Burgesses. But whatever the social
status of the Burgess, he felt always that he was the representative of
the poor planter, the defender of his interests, and seldom indeed did
he betray his trust.[6-33] This no doubt was with him in part a matter
of honor, but it also was the result of a consciousness that unless he
obeyed the behests of his constituency he would be defeated if he came
up for re-election.
The House of Burgesses, even in the days when the colony was but an
infant settlement stretching along the banks of the James, did not
hesitate to oppose the wishes of the King himself. In 1627 Charles I
sent instructions for an election of Burgesses that he might gain the
assent of the planters through their representatives to an offer which
he made to buy their tobacco.[6-34] Although the Assembly must have
realized that its very existence might depend upon its compliance with
the King's wishes, it refused to accept his proposal.[6-35] In 1634
Charles again made an offer for the tobacco, but again he encountered
stubborn opposition. The Secretary of the colony forwarded a report in
which he frankly told the British Government that in his opinion the
matter would never go through if it depended upon the yielding of the
Assembly.[6-36]
In 1635 the people again showed their independent spirit by ejecting Sir
John Harvey from the Government and sending him back to England. It is
true that the Council members took the lead in this bold step, but they
would hardly have gone to such lengths had they not been supported by
the mass of small planters.[6-37] In fact, one of the chief grievances
against the Governor was his refusal to send to the King a petition of
the Burgesses, which he considered offensive because they had made it "a
popular business, by subscribing a multitude of hands thereto." And some
days before the actual expulsion Dr. John Pott, Harvey's chief enemy,
was going from plantation to plantation, inciting the people to
resistance and securing their signatures to a paper demanding a redress
of grievances.[6-38]
The attitude of the small planters during the English civil war and
Commonwealth period is equally instructive. Certain writers have
maintained that the people of Virginia were a unit for the King, that
upon the execution of Charles I his son was proclaimed with the
unanimous consent of the planters, that the colony became a refuge for
English cavaliers, that it surrendered to Parliament only when
conquered by an armed expedition and that it restored Charles II as King
of Virginia even before he had regained his power in England.
All of this is either misleading or entirely false. It is true that the
Assembly proclaimed Charles II King in 1649 and passed laws making it
high treason for any person to uphold the legality of the dethronement
and execution of his father.[6-39] But this was largely the work of Sir
William Berkeley and the small group of well-to-do men who were
dependent upon him for their welfare. The very fact that it was felt
necessary to threaten with dire punishment all who spread abroad reports
"tending to a change of government," shows that there existed a fear
that such a change might be effected.[6-40] How many of the small
planters were at heart friendly to Parliament it is impossible to say,
but the number was large enough to cause Sir William Berkeley such
serious misgivings as to his own personal safety that he obtained from
the Assembly a guard of ten men to protect him from assassination.[6-41]
Nor can it be said that Virginia was forced into an unwilling submission
to Parliament. It is true that an expedition was sent to conquer the
colony, which entered the capes, sailed up to the forts at Jamestown and
there received the formal surrender of the colony.[6-42] But this
surrender was forced upon the Governor as much by the wishes of the
people as by the guns of the British fleet. In fact, the expedition had
been sent at the request of certain representatives of the Parliamentary
faction in Virginia, who made it clear to the Commonwealth leaders that
the colony was by no means unanimous for the King, and that it was held
to its allegiance only by the authority and firm will of the
Governor.[6-43] That the British Council of State expected to receive
active assistance from their friends in Virginia is evident, for they
gave directions for raising troops there and for appointing
officers.[6-44] And there can be no doubt that the imposing military
force which had been gathered to defend Jamestown was not called into
action chiefly because Berkeley became convinced that it could not be
relied upon to fight against the Commonwealth soldiers.
The new regime which was introduced with the articles of surrender made
of Virginia virtually a little republic. In England the long cherished
hope of the patriots for self-government was disappointed by the
usurpation of Oliver Cromwell. But the commons of Virginia reaped the
reward which was denied their brothers of the old country. For a period
of eight years all power resided in the House of Burgesses. This body,
so truly representative of the small planter class, elected the Governor
and specified his duties. If his administration proved unsatisfactory
they could remove him from office. The Burgesses also chose the members
of the Council. Even the appointing of officials was largely theirs,
although this function they usually felt it wise to delegate to the
Governor.[6-45] In fact, Virginia was governed during this period, the
happiest and most prosperous of its early history, by the small
proprietor class which constituted the bulk of the population.
Nor is it true that the people voluntarily surrendered this power by
acknowledging the authority of Charles II before the actual restoration
in England. After the death of Cromwell, when the affairs of the mother
country were in chaos and no man knew which faction would secure
possession of the government, the Virginia Assembly asked Sir William
Berkeley to act again as their chief executive. But it was specifically
stipulated that he was to hold his authority, not from Charles, but from
themselves alone.[6-46] In this step the people were doubtless actuated
by an apprehension that the monarchy might be restored, in which case it
would be much to their advantage to have as the chief executive of the
colony the former royal Governor; but they expressly stated that they
held themselves in readiness to acknowledge the authority of any
Government, whatever it might be, which succeeded in establishing itself
in England. So far was Sir William from considering himself a royal
Governor, that when the King actually regained his throne, he wrote with
no little apprehension, begging forgiveness for having accepted a
commission from any other source than himself.[6-47]
It was the small farmer class which suffered most from the despotic
methods of Berkeley during the Restoration period--the corrupting of the
House of Burgesses, the heavy taxes, the usurpation of power in local
government, the distribution of lucrative offices--and it was this class
which rose in insurrection in 1676. It is notable that in the course of
Bacon's Rebellion the great mass of the people turned against the
Governor, either approving passively of his expulsion, or actually
aiding his enemies. When Sir William appealed for volunteers in
Gloucester county while Bacon was upon the Pamunkey expedition, he could
hardly muster a man.[6-48] And the forces which eventually he gathered
around him seem to have included only a handful of leading citizens,
such men as Philip Ludwell, Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Giles Brent and Robert
Beverley, together with a mass of indentured servants and others who had
been forced into service. It is this which explains the apparent
cowardice of the loyal forces, who almost invariably took to their heels
at the first approach of the rebels, for men will not risk their lives
for a cause in which their hearts are not enlisted.
And though the small farmers lost their desperate fight, though their
leaders died upon the scaffold, though the oppressive Navigation Acts
remained in force, though taxes were heavier than ever, though the
governors continued to encroach upon their liberties, they were by no
means crushed and they continued in their legislative halls the conflict
that had gone against them upon the field of battle. But the political
struggle too was severe. It was in the decade from 1678 to 1688 that the
Stuart monarchs made their second attempt to crush Anglo-Saxon liberty,
an attempt fully as dangerous for the colonies as for England. The
dissolving of the three Whig Parliaments, and the acceptance of a
pension from Louis XIV were followed not only by the execution of
liberal leaders and the withdrawal of town charters in the mother
country, but by a deliberate attempt to suppress popular government in
America. It was not a mere coincidence that the attack upon the
Massachusetts charter, the misrule of Nicholson in New York, the
oppressions of the proprietor in Maryland and the tyranny of Culpeper
and Effingham in Virginia occurred simultaneously. They were all part
and parcel of the policy of Charles II and James II.
These attempts met with failure in Virginia because of the stubborn
resistance they encountered from the small farmer class and their
representatives in the House of Burgesses. The annulling of statutes by
proclamation they denounced as illegal; they protested bitterly against
the appointment of their clerk by the Governor; they fought long to
retain their ancient judicial privileges; they defeated all attempts of
the King and his representatives in Virginia to deprive them of the
right to initiate legislation and to control taxation. And with the
Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, which put an end forever to Stuart
aggressions, they could feel that their efforts alone had preserved
liberty in Virginia, that they might now look forward to long years of
happiness and prosperity. The Virginia yeoman reckoned not with slavery,
however, and slavery was to prove, in part at least, his undoing.
_CHAPTER VII_
WORLD TRADE
In 1682 the depression which for nearly a quarter of a century had
gripped the tobacco trade, somewhat abruptly came to an end. "Our only
commodity, tobacco, having the last winter a pretty quick market, hath
encouraged ye planters," wrote Secretary Spencer to the Board of Trade
in May, 1683.[7-1] Apparently the tide had turned. From this time until
the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession more than two decades
later we hear little complaint from Virginia, while there are excellent
reasons to suppose that the colony was experiencing a period of growth
and prosperity.
In truth the tobacco trade, upon which the planters staked their all,
now expanded with startling rapidity, and each year the merchants were
forced to add more bottoms to the fleet which sailed for England from
the Chesapeake. During the early years of the Restoration period tobacco
exports from Virginia and Maryland had made but little advance. In 1663
they amounted to 7,367,140 pounds, six years later they were 9,026,046
pounds.[7-2] In 1698, however, the output of Virginia and Maryland was
estimated by the merchant John Linton to be from 70,000 to 80,000
hogsheads.[7-4] Since the hogshead usually contained from 500 to 600
pounds, these figures mean that the planters were then raising from
35,000,000 to 48,000,000 pounds of tobacco. And this conclusion is
supported by the fact that the crop of 1699 is valued at L198,115, which
at a penny a pound would indicate about 47,000,000 pounds.[7-5] In fact,
the production of tobacco in the ten years from 1689 to 1699 seems to
have tripled, in the years from 1669 to 1699 to have quadrupled. In 1669
the planters considered themselves fortunate if their industry yielded
them a return of L30,000; at the end of the century they could count
with a fair degree of certainty upon six times that amount.
For Virginia this startling development was all-important. During the
darkest days of the Restoration period her share of the total returns
from the tobacco crop could hardly have exceeded L10,000; in 1699 it was
estimated at L100,000. Even if we accept the conservative statement that
the average number of hogsheads exported from Virginia in the last
decade of the century varied from 35,000 to 40,000,[7-6] the planters
still would have received L75,000 or L80,000. From dire poverty and
distress the colony, almost in the twinkling of an eye, found itself in
comparative ease and plenty.
Nor is the reason difficult to discover. It had never been the intention
of the British Government to destroy the foreign trade of the colonies,
the Navigation Acts having been designed only to force that trade
through English channels. The planters were still at liberty to send
their tobacco where they would, provided it went by way of England and
paid the duty of a half penny a pound. That these restrictions so nearly
put an end to shipments to the continent of Europe was an unfortunate
consequence which to some extent had been foreseen, but which for the
time being it was impossible to avoid.
It was undoubtedly the hope of the Government that the foreign market
would eventually be regained and that the colonial tobacco would flow
from the colonies into England and from England to all the countries of
Europe. Prior to 1660 Holland had been the distributing centre for the
tobacco of Virginia and Maryland; now England insisted upon taking this
role upon herself. But the authorities at London were hardly less
concerned than the planters themselves at the difficulties encountered
in effecting this change and the unfortunate glut in the home markets
which followed.
None the less they persisted in the policy they had adopted, even
clinging stubbornly to the half penny a pound re-export duty, and
trusting that in time they could succeed in conquering for their tobacco
the lost continental markets. In this they were bitterly opposed by the
Dutch with whom it became necessary to fight two wars within the short
space of seven years. Yet steadily, although at first slowly, they made
headway. In 1681 the commissioners of the customs refused the request
for a cessation of tobacco planting in the colonies, on the ground that
to lessen the crop would but stimulate production in foreign countries
and so restrict the sale abroad of the Virginia and Maryland leaf.[7-7]
This argument has been denounced by some as both specious and selfish,
yet it was fully justified by the situation then existing. After all,
the only hope for the planters lay in conquering the European market and
the way to do this was to flood England with tobacco until it overflowed
all artificial barriers and poured across the Channel. And eventually
this is just what happened. Since tobacco was piling up uselessly in the
warehouses and much of it could not be disposed of at any price, it was
inevitable that it should be dumped upon the other nations of Europe.
There is in this development a close parallel with the commercial policy
of Germany in the years prior to the world war, when no effort was
spared to produce a margin of all kinds of wares over the home needs,
which was to be exported at excessively low prices. This margin was a
weapon of conquest, a means of ousting the merchants of other nations
from this market or that. And when once this conquest had been effected,
the price could be raised again in order to assure a profit to the
German manufacturers.
It is improbable that the English economists of the Seventeenth century,
like those of modern Germany, had foreseen exactly what would happen,
but the results were none the less similar. When once the English leaf
had secured a strong hold upon the Baltic and upon France and Spain, it
was a matter of the greatest difficulty to oust it, especially as the
ever increasing influx of slaves made it possible for the planters to
meet the lower prices of foreign competitors and still clear a profit.
Thus it was that during the years from 1680 to 1708 the Chesapeake
tobacco succeeded in surmounting all the difficulties placed in its way
by the Navigation Acts, the necessity of the double voyage, the
re-export duty of a half penny a pound, and so gradually flooded the
continental market.
It is unfortunate that figures for re-exported tobacco during the
earlier years of the Restoration period are lacking. In 1688, however,
it is stated that the duty of a half penny a pound was yielding the
Crown an annual revenue of L15,000, which would indicate that about
7,200,000 pounds were leaving for foreign ports.[7-8] Ten years later,
if we may believe the testimony of John Linton, exports of tobacco
totalled 50,000 or 60,000 hogsheads, or from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000
pounds. Not more than a fourth of the colonial leaf, he tells us, was
consumed in England itself.[7-9] Once more Virginia and Maryland were
producing tobacco for all Europe, once more they enjoyed a world market.
This trade was extended from one end of the continent to the other.
Vessels laden with American tobacco found their way not only to the
ports of France and Holland and Spain, but even to the distant cities of
Sweden and Russia.[7-10] The Baltic trade alone amounted to from 5,000
to 10,000 hogsheads, and added from L10,000 to L24,000 to the income of
the planters. The chief Russian port of entry was Narva, which took
annually some 500 hogsheads, but large quantities were shipped also to
Riga and Raval.[7-11] The northern nations bought the cheaper varieties,
for no tobacco could be too strong for the hardy men of Sweden and
Russia.
The trade was of great importance to England, as the leaf, after it had
gone through the process of manufacture, sold for about six pence a
pound, yielding to the nation in all from L60,000 to L130,000.[7-12] As
the English were still largely dependent upon the Baltic for potash and
ship stores, this constituted a most welcome addition to the balance of
trade. To the colonies also it was vital, carrying off a large part of
the annual crop, and so tending to sustain prices.
France, too, proved a good customer for English tobacco, and in the
years prior to the War of the Spanish Succession took annually from
8,000 to 10,000 hogsheads, or from 4,000,000 to 6,000,000 pounds.[7-13]
Micajah Perry reported to the Lords of Trade that from 6,000 to 10,000
hogsheads went to France from London alone, while a very considerable
amount was sent also from other ports.[7-14]
Far more surprising is the fact that even Spain consumed millions of
pounds of English leaf. With her own colonies producing the best tobacco
in the world and in the face of its practical exclusion from the English
market, it is strange that the Government at Madrid should have
permitted this commerce to continue. The obvious course for the
Spaniards under the economic theories of the day would have been to
exclude English tobacco, both in order to protect their own planters and
to retaliate for the restrictions upon their product. Yet it is
estimated that from 6,000 to 10,000 hogsheads entered Spain each
year.[7-15] A pamphlet published in 1708 entitled _The Present State of
Tobacco Plantations in America_ stated that before the outbreak of the
war then raging, France and Spain together had taken annually about
20,000 hogsheads.[7-16]
The Dutch, too, despite their bitter rivalry with the British, found it
impossible to do without Virginia tobacco. Purchasing the finest bright
Orinoco, they mixed it with leaf of their own growth in the proportion
of one to four, and sold it to other European nations. In this way they
sought to retain their position as a distributing center for the trade
and to give employment to hundreds of poor workers. In all the Dutch
seem to have purchased from England about 5,000 hogsheads a year.[7-17]
The enhanced importance of the tobacco trade is reflected in a steady
increase of British exports to Virginia and Maryland. The planters, now
that they found it possible to market their leaf, laid out the proceeds
in the manufactured products of England. At the end of the Seventeenth
century the two colonies were importing goods to the value of L200,000
annually. In 1698, which was an exceptionally good year, their purchases
were no less than L310,133.[7-18]
In short the tobacco colonies had at last found their proper place in
the British colonial system. Both they and the mother country, after
long years of experimentation, years of misfortune and recrimination,
had reached a common ground upon which to stand. Although Maryland and
Virginia still fell short of the ideal set for the British colonies,
although they failed to furnish the raw stuffs so urgently needed by the
home industries, at least they yielded a product which added materially
to shipping, weighed heavily in the balance of trade and brought a
welcome revenue to the royal Exchequer.
The Crown reaped a rich return from tobacco, a return which grew not
only with the expansion of the trade, but by the imposition from time to
time of heavier duties. In the period from 1660 to 1685, when the tariff
remained at two pence a pound, the yield must have varied from L75,000
to L100,000. If we assume that the average consumption in England was
9,000,000 pounds and the average exports 3,000,000 the total revenue
would have been L81,250. In 1685, however, an additional duty of three
pence a pound was placed upon tobacco upon its arrival in England, all
of which was refunded when the product was re-exported. In 1688, when
the tobacco consumed in England was 8,328,800 pounds, the old and new
duties, amounting in all to five pence, must have yielded L173,515. When
to this is added L15,000 from the half penny a pound on the 7,200,000
pounds of leaf sent abroad, the total reaches L188,515.
In 1698 still another penny a pound was added to the tax, making a grand
total of six pence on colonial tobacco disposed of in England. This new
duty, together with the rapid increase in the foreign trade, enriched
the Exchequer by another L100,000. In 1699, if we assume that 12,000,000
pounds were consumed in England, the return would have been L300,000;
while half a penny a pound on 36,000,000 pounds of re-exported leaf,
would have brought the total to L375,000. That this figure was
approximately correct we have evidence in the statement of the author of
_The Present State of the Tobacco Plantations_, written in 1705, that
the revenue yielded by the tobacco of Virginia and Maryland amounted
annually to L400,000.[7-19] This sum constituted a very appreciable
proportion of the royal income, so appreciable in fact as to make the
tobacco trade a matter of vital importance in the eyes of the King's
ministers. They were charged at all times to avoid any contingency which
might lessen the imports and reduce the customs.
The increase in the tobacco trade stimulated industry, not only by
increasing exports to Virginia and Maryland, but also by creating a new
English industry. For most of the tobacco, before it was sent abroad,
was subjected to a process of manufacture, by which the leaf was cut and
rolled and otherwise prepared for the consumer. This industry gave
employment to hundreds of poor persons in England and required a
considerable outlay of capital.[7-20]
To British navigation the trade was vital. Each year scores of
merchantmen crossed to the Chesapeake and swarmed in every river and
creek, delivering their English goods to the planters and taking in
return the hogsheads of tobacco. In 1690 the tobacco fleet numbered
about 100 ships, aggregating 13,715 tons; in 1706 it counted no less
than 300 sails.[7-21] Nor must it be forgotten that re-exported tobacco
also added many a goodly merchantman to the navy and gave employment to
many a seaman. Altogether Virginia and Maryland constituted an
invaluable asset, an asset which ranked in importance secondly only to
the sugar plantations.
It would naturally be supposed that the fortunate turn of events which
restored to the tobacco colonies their European market would have
reacted favorably upon the small planters of Virginia, not only insuring
plenty to those already established, but adding new recruits from the
ranks of the indentured servants; that the process of making prosperous
freemen from the poor immigrants who flocked to the colony, the process
interrupted by the passage of the Navigation Acts, would have been
resumed now that these laws no longer prevented the flow of tobacco into
the continental countries.
Such was not the case, however. A comparison of the lists of immigrants
with the rent roll of 1704 shows that but an insignificant proportion of
the newcomers succeeded in establishing themselves as landowners. In
four lists examined for the year 1689, comprising 332 names, but seven
persons can be positively identified upon the rent roll. In 1690, eight
lists of 933 names, reveal but twenty-eight persons who were landowners
in 1704. Of 274 immigrants listed in 1691, six only appear on the Roll.
In 1695, seven lists comprising 711 names, show but ten who possessed
farms nine years later. Of 74 headrights appearing in 1696, but two are
listed on the roll; of 119 in 1697 only nine; of 169 in 1698 one only;
of 454 in 1699, only seven; of 223 in 1700 but six.[7-22] All in all not
more than five per cent. of the newcomers during this period prospered
and became independent planters. Apparently, then, the restored
prosperity of the colony was not shared by the poorer classes, the
increased market for tobacco did not better materially the chances of
the incoming flood of indentured servants.
The explanation of this state of affairs is found in the fact that
tobacco, despite its widened market, experienced no very pronounced rise
in price. The average return to the planters during the good years seems
to have been one penny a pound.[7-23] This, it is true, constituted an
advance over the worst days of the Restoration period, but it was far
from approaching the prices of the Civil war and Commonwealth periods.
For the poor freedman, it was not sufficient to provide for his support
and at the same time make it possible to accumulate a working capital.
He could not, as he had done a half century earlier, lay aside enough to
purchase a farm, stock it with cattle, hogs and poultry, perhaps even
secure a servant or two. Now, although no longer reduced to misery and
rags as in the years from 1660 to 1682, he could consider himself
fortunate if his labor sufficed to provide wholesome food and warm
clothing. How, it may be asked, could Virginia and Maryland produce the
vast crops now required by the foreign trade, if the price was still so
low? Prior to and just after Bacon's Rebellion the planters repeatedly
asserted that their labors only served to bring them into debt, that to
produce an extensive crop was the surest way for one to ruin himself.
Why was it that twenty years later, although prices were still far below
the old level, they could flood the markets of the world?
The answer can be summed up in one word--slavery. The first cargo of
negroes arrived in the colony in 1619 upon a Dutch privateer. Presumably
they were landed at Jamestown, and sold there to the planters.[7-24] The
vessel which won fame for itself by this ill-starred action, was sailing
under letters of marque from the Prince of Orange and had been scouring
the seas in search of Spanish prizes. Although the Dutch master could
have had no information that slaves were wanted in the colony, he seems
to have taken it for granted that he would not be forbidden to dispose
of his human freight.
The introduction of this handful of negroes--there were but twenty in
all--was not the real beginning of the slave system in the colonies. For
many years the institution which was to play so sinister a part in
American history did not flourish, and the slaves grew in numbers but
slowly. In the Muster Roll of Settlers in Virginia, taken in 1624, there
were listed only 22 negroes.[7-25] Sixteen years later the black
population probably did not exceed 150.[7-26] In 1649, when Virginia was
growing rapidly and the whites numbered 15,000, there were but 300
negroes in the colony.[7-27] A sporadic importation of slaves continued
during the Commonwealth period, but still the number was insignificant,
still the bulk of the labor in the tobacco fields was done by indentured
servants and poor freeholders.
In 1670 Governor Berkeley reported to the Board of Trade that out of a
total population of 40,000, but five per cent were slaves.[7-28] Eleven
years later the number of blacks was estimated at 3,000.[7-29] In 1635
twenty-six negroes were brought in, the largest purchaser being Charles
Harmar.[7-30] In 1636 the importations were but seven, in 1637 they
were 28, in 1638 thirty, in 1639 forty-six, in 1642 seven only, in 1643
eighteen, in 1649 seventeen.[7-31] But with the passage of the years
somewhat larger cargoes began to arrive. In 1662 Richard Lee claimed
among his headrights no less than 80 negroes, in 1665 the Scarboroughs
imported thirty-nine. In 1670, however, Berkeley declared that "not
above two or three ships of Negroes" had arrived in the province in the
previous seven years.[7-32]
It is evident, then, that during the larger part of the Seventeenth
century slavery played but an unimportant role in the economic and
social life of the colony. The planters were exceedingly anxious to make
use of slave labor, which they considered the foundation of the
prosperity of their rivals of the Spanish tobacco colonies, but slave
labor was most difficult to obtain. The trade had for many years been
chiefly in the hands of the Dutch, and these enterprising navigators
sold most of their negroes to the Spanish plantations. Ever since the
days of Henry VIII the English had made efforts to secure a share of
this profitable traffic, but with very meagre success.[7-33]
The Dutch had established trading stations along the African coast,
guarded by forts and war vessels. Any attempts of outsiders to intrude
upon the commerce was regarded by them as an act of open aggression to
be resisted by force of arms. To enter the trade with any hope of
success it became necessary for the English to organize a company rich
enough to furnish armed protection to their merchantmen. But no such
organization could be established during the Civil War and Commonwealth
periods, and it was not until 1660 that the African Company, under the
leadership of the Duke of York entered the field.[7-34]
This was but the beginning of the struggle, however. The Dutch resisted
strenuously, stirring up the native chieftains against the English,
seizing their vessels and breaking up their stations. Not until two wars
had been fought was England able to wring from the stubborn
Netherlanders an acknowledgment of her right to a share in the trade.
Even then the Virginians were not adequately supplied, for the sugar
islands were clamoring for slaves, and as they occupied so important a
place in the colonial system they were the first to be served.
Throughout the last quarter of the Seventeenth century negroes in fairly
large numbers began to arrive in the Chesapeake, but it was only in the
years from 1700 to 1720 that they actually accomplished the overthrow of
the old system of labor and laid the foundations of a new social
structure. Throughout the Seventeenth century the economic system of the
tobacco colonies depended upon the labor of the poor white man, whether
free or under terms of indenture; in the Eighteenth century it rested
chiefly upon the black shoulders of the African slave.
There could be no manner of doubt as to the desirability of the slaves
from an economic standpoint, apparently the only standpoint that
received serious consideration. The indentured servant could be held
usually for but a few years. Hardly had he reached his greatest
usefulness for his master than he demanded his freedom. Thus for the man
of large means to keep his fields always in cultivation it was necessary
constantly to renew his supply of laborers. If he required twenty hands,
he must import each year some five or six servants, or run the risk of
finding himself running behind. But the slave served for life. The
planter who had purchased a full supply of negroes could feel that his
labor problems were settled once and for all. Not only could he hold the
slaves themselves for life, but their children also became his property
and took their places in the tobacco fields as soon as they approached
maturity.
Thus in the end the slave was far cheaper. The price of a servant
depended largely upon the cost of his passage across the ocean. We find
that William Matthews, having three years and nine months to serve, was
rated in the inventory of his master, John Thomas, at L12.[7-35] A
servant of Robert Leightenhouse, having two years to serve, was put at
L9;[7-36] while on the other hand we find another listed in the estate
of Colonel Francis Epes, also having two years to serve, at only
L5.[7-37] A white lad under indenture for seven years to Mr. Ralph
Graves was valued at L10.[7-38] On the whole it would seem that the
price of a sturdy man servant varied from L2 to L4 for each year of his
service. On the other hand a vigorous slave could be had at from L18 to
L30. Assuming that he gave his master twenty-five years of service, the
cost for each year would be but one pound sterling. There could be no
doubt, then, that in the mere matter of cost he was much cheaper than
the indentured white man.