USA > Virginia > The planters of colonial Virginia > Part 4
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ginia to send orders to their agents in England to procure and ship one or more servants as need for them arose.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 1639.24 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 ex- tensive 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 Bev- erley. 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.25
Often partnerships were formed for the importation of ser- vants, 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
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Edmund Bibbie and others are credited with 3,350 acres, Rob- ert Ambrose and others with 6,000, George Archer and others with 4,000.26
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 re- gardless 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 ne- cessity 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 origi- nally 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." "'27 Similarly we find John Johnson in 1653 sell- ing to Robert Roberts half of 900 acres which he had received by patent.28 In 1693 John Brushood sold to James Grey 200 acres, a part of 5,100 acres originally granted to Mr. Henry Awbrey.29 Such cases could be multiplied indefinitely.
Perhaps the most instructive instance left us of this de- velopment 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 1666.30 The original patentee transferred the entire tract to his brother Robert Button, who in turn sold it to John Baker. The lat-
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ter, 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 for- tunately, a fairly complete record. To Captain William Mose- ley 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 prob- able 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.31
Important as are these gleanings from the county records, we have at our disposal even better and more conclusive evi- dence that colonial Virginia was divided, not into baronial estates of vast proportions, but into a large number of com- paratively 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 be- yond 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.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 to- bacco, the revenue derived from this source was of consider- able importance. 33 33 The amount collected in 1705 was £1,841. I. 634. 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 ob-
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jected 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 emer- gency that may happen in Virginia.
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.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 of- fense by holding them to too strict an account of their estates.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 mat- ter, 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 inhabi- tants, 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 exami- nation of the patent lists and the records of land transfers.87 May 15, 1691, he took up the matter again, warning the sheriffs
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that he expected more accurate returns than they had yet made.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.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."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 per- haps 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 Govern- ment has been more careful of its priceless historical manu- scripts 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.41
Even a cursory examination of the rent roll is sufficient to dispel the old belief that Virginia at this time was the land
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of the large proprietor. As one glances down the list of plan- tations he is struck by the number of little holdings, the com- plete absence of huge estates, the comparative scarcity even of those that for a newly settled country might be termed ex- tensive. 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, IIO 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.42
Although the average size of the plantations varied con- siderably 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 stu- dents of the period. For Nansemond the rolls reveal the aver- age holding as 212 acres, for James City county 400, for York 298, for Warwick 308, for Elizabeth City county 255,
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for Princess Anne 459, for Gloucester 395, for Middlesex 406, for Charles City county 553.4
In the past few decades much has been written of the social life and customs of the people of colonial Virginia. But ex- cept 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 li- braries, 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 writ- ers of fiction. The mention of colonial Virginia brings in- stantly to mind a picture of gay cavaliers, of stately ladies, of baronial estates, of noble manors. And the sturdy, indepen- dent 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 be- tween the Potomac and the Rappahannock is called. This ter- ritory, although acknowledging the jurisdiction of the Gov- ernment at Williamsburg in most matters and sending repre- sentatives 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 funda- mentally 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
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were so diligent as the one in Henrico who unearthed 1,669 acres that had been "concealed."44 Yet it must be remembered that the Governor brought to bear all the pressure at his dis- posal 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 in- sisted upon reports as accurate as the records or actual sur- veying 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 unimpeach- able 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 Gov- ernor Nicholson there were some 5,500 landholders. When to these is added the proprietors of the Northern Neck the
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number must have approximated 6,500. If at this time the servants numbered 4,000, as seems probable,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.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.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 tax- payers, 63 tithables, fourteen who had no servants or slaves; in a fifth 25 taxpayers, 45 tithables, 12 who paid only for
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themselves. 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 per- sons 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.49
Here again is proof that the popular conception of the Vir- ginia 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, ser- vants 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 1702.50 Thus in
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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 I22 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 plan- tations 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 plan- tations had 693, Charles City and Prince George together with 420 plantations had 1,327.51
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 tith- ables 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 landhold- ers over 16 years of age.
Another invaluable source of information concerning the distribution of servants and slaves is provided by the numer-
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ous 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.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.53 It is true that these inventories and wills, since they would usually pertain to persons of ad- vanced 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 propor- tion 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 propor- tion of each is a matter of great difficulty. Had all the rec- ords of Seventeenth century Virginia been preserved, it would have been possible, by means of long and laborious investiga- tion, 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 dis- satisfaction 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."1 "Malitious tongues have im- paired it (Virginia) much," Bullock declared in 1649, "for it hath been a constant report among the ordinary sort of peo- ple 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."2
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The terms of indenture not only took for granted that the servant, upon completing his contract, would establish him- self 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.3 The historian Beverley states that to this outfit was added a gun worth twenty shillings.+ An- other writer tells us that the freedman received "a year's pro- vision of corne, double apparel" and a supply of tools.5
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