USA > Virginia > The planters of colonial Virginia > Part 3
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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 po- litical prisoners, but poor persons seeking to better their con- dition in the land of promise across the Atlantic. They con- stituted 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 cen- tury, 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 re- turn. 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."
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
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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.30
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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 transporta- tion 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 informa- tion concerning the colony and the people who came to its shores.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 an- nual influx was between 1500 and 2000. Even during the Civil War and Commonwealth periods this average seems to have been maintained with surprising consistency. Appar- ently the only limit which could be set upon it was the avail- able 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,32 while in 1674 and again in 1682 the same average was maintained.33
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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.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 mo- notonous 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
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reached the colony, what rôle 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 free- holder, 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 em- ployment seemed most lucrative. And of tremendous impor- tance 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 introduc- tion 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 revo- lutionizing her industrial and social life, was her future put
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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 de- velopment.
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 am- bition has been reached, that the land of opportunity lies be- fore him. But to the indentured settler of the Seventeenth century, his arrival in the James or the York was but the be- ginning 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 him- self 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 unend- ing epidemic of dysentery and malaria. And at frequent inter- vals, especially in the early years, yellow fever, scurvy and plague swept over the infant colony, leaving behind a ghastly train of suffering and death.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 na- tion to secure a foothold upon the American continent must end in failure.2
But as the years wore on better conditions prevailed. Gov- ernor 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 This improvement
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was brought about by the use of Peruvian bark, a clearer un- derstanding of sanitary matters and the selection of more healthful sites for plantations. At the time when Sir Wil- liam wrote it is probable that 80 per cent or more of the in- dentured 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 Re- storation there was no extensive movement from Virginia to other colonies. The servant, upon attaining his freedom, usu- ally remained in the colony and sought to establish himself there.
Although it is impossible to determine accurately the aver- age length of service required by the indentures, there is rea- son 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 ex- pire, it was at first required by law that the period be fixed at five years if the age was in excess of twenty-one.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.5 This was found to work to the dis- advantage 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.6 Since the Assembly, which was so largely made up of per- sons who themselves held servants, would certainly not fix the legal term for a period shorter than that normally provided
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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 dura- tion 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 sta- tionary, the size of the freedman class grew larger with the passing of the years.
Placing the average term at five years, then, and the aver- age 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.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
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every reason to believe that these figures are substantially cor- rect,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, how- ever, 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. More- over, 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 con- ditions, more capable of resisting the Virginia climate, stronger and more vigorous, but they proved more tractable and entered upon the adventure more eagerly.9 These con- clusions 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.10 And as many of these persons were brought over as skilled artisans to take part in the in- dustrial 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
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was still in his prime when he completed his term, per- haps 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 dis- play 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 15,000,11 6,000 servants might well have performed most of the manual labor of the tobacco fields, but in 1670, when the inhabitants numbered 40,000,12 or in 1697 when they were 70,000,13 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 cen- tury Virginia in which the land was divided into large plan- tations owned by rich proprietors and tilled chiefly by inden- tured servants is entirely erroneous. Such a state of affairs was made impossible by the very nature of the system of in- dentures itself.
It becomes a matter of prime interest, then, to determine what became of the mass of freedmen, what rôle 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.
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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 labor- ers received one pound of tobacco a day in addition to their food.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 employ- ment 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 indepen- dent 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 pro- duction of tobacco the large plantation, so long as it was culti- vated only by expensive white labor, offered no marked ad- vantage 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 preëmpted, as was the case on the banks of the Hudson, the poor man might have been com- pelled to lease the soil upon which he expended his efforts or
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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 pre- sented themselves. Apparently they made no attempts to estab- lish themselves in a position similar to that of the great land- lords of England.
The records afford ample evidence that the leasing of prop- erty 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 frac- tion of the population, a fact which he explained by the unusual facilities for acquiring property in fee simple.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 va- rious factors which made it impossible to secure an adequate labor supply-the restrictions upon the slave trade, the in- sufficient 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, inven- tories-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
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in existence in certain parts of America, was but a few hun- dred acres in extent.
The land transfers of Surry county afford an interesting il- lustration. 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.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 199.17
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.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 300.19
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.20
It has been assumed by certain writers that the land grants
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preserved in the Registrar's Office in Richmond tend to con- tradict 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 hun- dred and seven acres, from 1689 to 1695 six hundred and one acres, from 1695 to 1700 six hundred and eighty-eight acres.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 eco- nomical method of transporting immigrants which would de- termine 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.22 Be- yond 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 accommoda- tion 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 Vir-
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