Planters of colonial Virginia

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The Planters of Colonial Virginia

The PLANTERS OF
COLONIAL VIRGINIA

By THOMAS J. WERTENBAKER

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PRINCETON
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1922

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Copyrighted and Published 1922. by Princeton University Press

PRINTED AT THE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, U. S. A.

FEB -9 '23 Q^

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CONTENTS

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CHAPTER i: ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD J

CHAPTER II : THE INDIAN WEED 21

CHAPTER III : THE VIRGINIA YEOMANRY 38

CHAPTER IV : FREEMEN AND FREEDMEN DO

CHAPTER V: THE RESTORATION PERIOD 84

CHAPTER VI : THE YEOMAN IN VIRGINIA HISTORY IOI

CHAPTER VII : WORLD TRADE 115

CHAPTER VIII : BENEATH THE BLACK TIDE I34

NOTES TO CHAPTERS 1 62

APPENDIX l8l

INDEX 249

CHAPTER I

England in the New World

At the beginning of the Seventeenth century colonial ex-
pansion had become for England an economic necessity. Be-
cause of the depletion of her forests, which constituted per-
haps 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 ex-
pansion 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 lack-
ing, not only do the building, furniture, paper and other in-
dustries 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

8 THE PLANTERS OF

tor 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 declin-
ing 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

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 coun-
tries 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 neces-
sary 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."2

But this solution of her problem was obviously unsatisfac-
tory to England. The northern voyage was long, dangerous
and costly; the King of Denmark, who controlled the entrance

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 9

to the Baltic, had it within his power at any moment to exclude
the English traders; the Muscovy company no longer en-
joyed exemption from customs in Prussia, Denmark and Rus-
sia. In case war should break out among the northern na-
tions this trade might for a time be cut off entirely, resulting
in strangulation for England's basic industries. "The mer-
chant 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."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, Eng-
land 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 main-
tain 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 imquantity by England itself, and could be had
"only by the favor of forraigne potency."4 Already, it was
stated, the decay of shipping was manifest, while large num-
bers of able mariners were forced to seek employment in other
countries. "You know how many men for want of imploi-
ment, betake themselves to Tunis, Spaine and Florence," de-
clared one observer, "and to serve in courses not warrantable,
which would better beseeme our own walks and borders to
bee spread with such branches, that their native countrey and

io THE PLANTERS OF

not forreine Princes might reape their fruit, as being both
exquisite Navigators, and resolute men for service, as any
the world affords."5

It must be remembered that the merchant vessel three hun-
dred 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 ma-
rine 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 ioo tons belonging to
the whole city of Bristol, and few or none along the Severn
trom Gloucester to Land's End on one side, and to Mil ford
Haven on the other.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, return-
ing 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.7 Why, it was asked, should Eng-
lishmen 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 limit-
less 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA n

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 Hak-
luyt pointed out that the recent voyage of Sir Humphrey Gil-
bert 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."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 na-
tions 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 sup-
posed. In fact, they acted upon sound economic principles a
century and a half before Adam Smith formulated and ex-
pounded 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

12 THE PLANTERS OF

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 bar-
barous. 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 mak-
ing 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.

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 13

The trade with France had also declined greatly during the
closing years of the Sixteenth century. Not only had the re-
ligious wars proved a tremendous obstacle, but the govern-
ment 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 destruc-
tion and had so ruined industry that all foreign commerce had
greatly declined.9

There can be no surprise, then, that many English econo-
mists 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 sub-
scribed 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 singu-

i4 THE PLANTERS OF

lar 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. r. he settle-
ment at Jamestown was not the product of a selfish, private
venture, but the fruition of long years of thought and en-
deavor, 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 right-
fully was hers.

In addition to, but closely associated with, the economic
causes of Anglo-Saxon expansion was the realization in Eng-
land 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 institu-
tions expanded to embrace the garden spots of the world.10

There were still other motives for this great movement.
The English felt the prime necessity of discovering and con-
trolling 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 in-
dustrial life, restoring the merchant marine and securing eco-
nomic independence.

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 15

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 expecta-
tion. 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.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."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 ex-
pected 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.

16 THE PLANTERS OF

For this failure the reason is apparent. All the able econ-
omists and statesmen who had predicted that the colony would
become an industrial center had overlooked one vitally im-
portant 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 through-
out Europe. Thus the London Company, from the very out-
set, 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 ex-
pensive than that of Poland or Sweden or Russia. It mat-
tered 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 17

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 in-
finite 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."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 en-
thusiastically 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 £4 a ton.1* 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 difficul-
ties 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

18 THE PLANTERS OF

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.15 Here the London Company
spent from £4,000 to £5,000 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, accom-
panied 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 exclama-
tions 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 work-
men 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.16

The history of the attempts to establish glass works in Vir-
ginia 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,17 but nothing more is heard

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 19

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.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 un-
feasable, that they might by that means be dismissed for Eng-
land. 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.18

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 col-
ony with natural resources, however dense her forests, how-
ever rich her mines, however wide and deep her waterways,
she could not become an industrial community. Fate had de-
creed 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 Com-
pany had passed to their rest, we find the royal ministers urg-
ing upon the colony the necessity of producing pig iron and
silk and potash, and promising every possible encourage-
ment in the work. But the causes which operated to bring
failure in 1 610 or 1620 prevented success in 1660 and 1680.
Virginia had not the abundant supply of labor essential to the

20 THE PLANTERS OF

development of an industrial community and for many dec-
ades, perhaps for centuries, could not hope to attain it. Her
future lay in the discovery and exploitation of one staple com-
modity 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 in-
stinctively 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 under-
lying the movements of the planets, of various chemical re-
actions, 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 dis-
order 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 abso-
lute rule of the Caesars followed the anarchy of the later Ro-
man 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

21

22 THE PLANTERS OF

protection from anarchy, and the easiest form of government
to establish and operate is despotism.

Not content with generalizations of this kind, however, cer-
tain 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 stu-
dents, while not agreeing that the solution of the problem is
quite so simple, yet believe that underlying all social develop-
ment 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 ad-
ventures of this great man or that, in dwelling upon the de-
tails 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 eco-
nomic developments.

But this interpretation of history is by no means universally
accepted. While admitting readily that the conditions sur-
rounding 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 Amer-
ican history?

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 23

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 fac-
tors, the love of freedom which the settlers brought with them
from England, their affection for the mother country, the in-
fluence 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 eco-
nomic 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 them-
selves 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 funda-
mental. 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 in-

24 THE PLANTERS OF

fancy, its development, its days of misfortune, its era of pros-
perity, 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 impor-
tance, 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.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 to-
bacco as it came from the hands of the savages, decidedly in-
ferior to that of the West Indies. The leaf itself was small,
and although the flavor was weak it was biting to the tongue.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."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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 25

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.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 cultiva-
tion. The fortified areas within the palisades were crowded
with tobacco plants, while even the streets of Jamestown were
utilized by the eager planters.5 In 161 7 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.6 By 1627, the tobacco exports amounted to no less
than half a million pounds.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

26 THE PLANTERS OF

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."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. Ap-
parently 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 ob-
tained.

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 5 s. 3d. a pound, a price which
promised a rich return to the planters on the James and their
backers in England.9 And they much preferred to have a
prosperous colony, even when prosperity was founded on to-
bacco, 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 en-
couragement they could to the new product, and sought to

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 27

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 commodi-
ties.10 "The King cannot but take notice," he reiterated the
next year, "how little that colony hath advanced in Staple com-
modities 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.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 pur-
chased a small tract of land and devoted a part of their time
to its cultivation. Blacksmiths, carpenters, shipwrights,

28 THE PLANTERS OF

coopers all raised their little tobacco crop and sold it to the
British merchants,12 while even the poor minister sought to
make ends meet by planting his glebe with Orinoco or Sweet-
scented. 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 Com-
pany, even Sir Edwin Sandys himself, ever attempted to vis-
ualize 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 in-
dustry and centers of trade. The population would be di-
vided 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.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 use-
ful 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.

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 29

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.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 ser-
vant, a few slaves. Virginia in the Seventeenth century, de-
spite 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,15 but it would be of little service to him
unless he could find hands for clearing away the forests, break-
ing 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 abun-
dance, the second could readily be secured, but the last re-
mained 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 work-
ers. Of this there can be no better evidence than the remark-
ably 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

30 THE PLANTERS OF

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 him-
self fortunate if he could earn so much in a week.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.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 Vir-
ginia landowner was forced to turn elsewhere for his helpers.

In 1 619 a Dutch privateer put into the James river and dis-
embarked 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 satisfac-
tory 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 hand-
some returns to their masters. But it was impossible at
this time for England to supply her plantations with this type

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 31

of labor. The slave trade was in the hands of the Dutch, who
had fortified themselves on the African coast and jealously ex-
cluded other nations. Thus while the demand for negro
slaves remained active in the colony, they increased in num-
bers very slowly. The muster of 1624-25 shows only 22.18
During the following half century there was a small influx of
negroes, but their numbers were still too small to affect seri-
ously the economic life of the colony.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 states-
men, feeling that there was need for blood letting, welcomed
an opportunity to divert the surplus population to the new
colony in America.20 The decline in English foreign trade
and the stagnation of home industry had brought unemploy-
ment 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.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 ster-

32 THE PLANTERS OF

ling, a sum far beyond the means of the thriftiest laborer.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 ad-
vancing 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 con-
cerned. The credit advanced to the immigrant made it pos-
sible 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 servi-
tude or slavery. It simply made it obligatory for the new-
comer, 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 Govern-
ment from time to time sought to lessen the expense of pro-
viding for convicted felons by sending some of them to the
colonies, among them on rare occasions a few decidedly ob-
jectionable characters. More than once the Virginians pro-
tested vigorously against this policy as dangerous to the peace
and prosperity of the colony.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 merci-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 33

ful judges in order that they might not feel the full weight
of the harsh laws of that day.2*

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 Caro-
lina. Many others succumbed to the epidemics which proved
so deadly to the newcomers from England. In fact the crimi-
nal servant was but a passing incident in the life and develop-
ment of England's greatest and most promising colony.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 repre-
sented 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.26

When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 it be-
came the turn of the Puritans to suffer, and many non-con-
formists 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.27 In 1678, after the suppression of the
Scottish Covenanters by the Highland Host, a new batch of
prisoners were sent to the plantations.28 Seven years later

34 THE PLANTERS OF

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."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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 35

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

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

36 THE PLANTERS OF

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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 37

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 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

38

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 39

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

4o THE PLANTERS OF

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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 41

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

42 THE PLANTERS OF

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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 43

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," 6,000 servants
might well have performed most of the manual labor of the
tobacco fields, but in 1670, when the inhabitants numbered
40,ooo,12 or in 1697 when they were 70,000," 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 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.

44 THE PLANTERS OF

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.1* 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 preempted, 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 45

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

46 THE PLANTERS OF

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, tne 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 47

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 li was 333' m :^48 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 J666 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 l700 six hundred and eighty-eight acres.21
Tn 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-

48 THE PLANTERS OF

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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 49

Edmund Bibbie and others are credited with 3,350 acres, Rob-
ert Ambrose and others with 6,000, George Archer and others
with 4,ooo.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-

50 THE PLANTERS OF

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 The amount collected in 1705 was £1,841.
1. 6^4. 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 ob-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 51

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."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.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.37
May 15, 1 69 1, he took up the matter again, warning the sheriffs

52 THE PLANTERS OF

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.*1

Even a cursory examination of the rent roll is sufficient to
dispel the old belief that Virginia at this time was the land

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 53

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, no
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,

54 THE PLANTERS OF

for Princess Anne 459, for Gloucester 395, for Middlesex
406, for Charles City county 553. 43

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 state.'y 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 55

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

56 THE PLANTERS OF

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 tnat
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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 57

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

THE PLANTERS OF

Nansemond there were 375 plantations and 1,030 tithables,
Henrico with 102 plantations had 863 tithables, Middlesex
with [22 plantations had 814 tithables. Gloucester with 38 1
plantations had 2,626, James City with 2S7 plantations had
[,193, York with 205 plantations had 1.1S0, Warwick with
[22 plantations had 505. Elizabeth City with 116 plantations
had 47S. Princess Anne with 215 plantations had J2j, Surry
with 2j$ plantations had 739. Isle of Wight with 262 plan-
tations had S90. Norfolk with 303 plantations had 693, New
Kent with 497 plantations had 1.245. King William with 217
plantations had S03. King- and Queen with 403 plantations
had 1.S48. Essex with 370 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

In Nansemond the average number of tithables as compared
with the number of plantations was 2~. in Henrico 5.1. in
Middlesex 0.7. in Gloucester 6.9. in James City 4.2, in York
>~. 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.^, in New
Kent 2.5, in King William ^.y, in King and Queen 4.6, in
Essex 2.8. in Accomac 2.6. in Northampton 2.^, 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 bv the numer-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 59

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

I t 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

60

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 61

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.4 An-
other writer tells us that the f reedman received "a year's pro-
vision of corne, double apparel" and a supply of tools.6

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 aris-
ing 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 f reed-
man, 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.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.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.8

In 1627 the Virginia General Court issued an order which
is significant of the attitude of the colony itself to the freed-
men. "The Court, taking into consideration that the next en-

62 THE PLANTERS OF

sueing 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."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. To-
bacco 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 accord-
ingly. 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 free-
holder, in the end the result would be the same. If the re-
turns from his labor greatly exceeded his expenses, his sav-
ings would make it possible for him to establish himself firm-
ly in the class of the colonial yeomanry. On the other hand,
if he could wring from the soil no more than a bare subsis-
tence, 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 63

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 de-
termine 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.10
To this, however, the planters entered a vigorous protest,
claiming that the quantity was "not sufficient for their main-
tenance." 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.11 Again in 1634 it was pro-
posed that the Crown purchase yearly 600,000 pounds of Vir-
ginia tobacco.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 vigor-
ously.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 Gov-
ernor 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 Govern-
ment was "forced to a strict way of destroying the bad and
halfe the goode."1*

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.15 As the pamphlet presents a somewhat opti-
mistic picture of affairs in general in the colony, this estimate

64 THE PLANTERS OF

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."16

At all events, it is evident that the planter, even when en-
tirely 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 cen-
tury the price of tobacco was very high. The first cargo, con-
sisting of 20,000 pounds consigned in the George, sold for no
less than £5,250, or 5s. 3d. a pound.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
£30 or £35, 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
1 618 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.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.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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 65

eighteen pence a pound.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.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 bar-
gain."22

Apparently not discouraged by this rebuff, in 1628 the Gov-
ernor, 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 shill-
ings."23 This valuation undoubtedly was far in advance of
the current prices, and King Charles, considering it unreason-
able would not come to terms with the planters. In fact, it
appears that for some years the price of tobacco had been de-
clining 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,24 and
two years later, in a statement sent the Virginia Commission-
ers, he claimed that the price still remained at that figure.25

It may be taken for granted, however, that this estimate
was far below the actual price. The planters showed a de-
cided 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.26 The Governor repeatedly wrote
asking for relief, while in the Assembly attempts were made

66 THE PLANTERS OF

to restore the market by restricting the size of the annual
crop.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.28 Later
the King wrote to the Governor and Council that the rate had
recently "doubly or trebly advanced."20 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.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.31 In 1649 tne
author of A Nezv Description of Virginia stated that tobacco
sold in Virginia for three pence a pound.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 per-
mitted 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 com-
mand as ready a sale throughout Europe, the trade was sub-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 67

jected to various regulations and restrictions which proved
most vexatious to the colony and elicited frequent and vigor-
ous protests. Neither James nor Charles had any idea of per-
mitting free trade. In their prolonged struggle with the lib-
eral 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 settle-
ment upon the James, which they looked upon as the begin-
ning 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 con-
sisted 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 unneces-
sary it would have been under conditions of free trade, was
felt by the planters to be a real concession, while the restric-
tions upon foreign importations saved them from dangerous
competition at the very time when they were least able to com-
bat 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 de-
rived from it. But in this they were mistaken. The duty, in

68 THE PLANTERS OF

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 Commission-
ers 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."33

But Harvey was attacking what already had become a fixed
policy of the Crown, a policy which was to remain the corner-
stone of the British colonial system for centuries. The Gov-
ernment had, therefore, not the slightest intention of yielding,
and from time to time issued strict orders that all colonial to-
bacco, whether of Virginia or the West Indies, be brought only
to England or to English colonies. When Sir William Berke-
ley 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 se-
curities be taken to his Majesty's use, to bring the same di-
rectly into his Majesty's Dominions and not elsewhere."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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 69

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."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 con-
tending armies of King and Parliament. And so the mer-
chantmen 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 tne statement was
made that "there was usually found intruding upon the plan-
tation divers ships, surruptitiously carrying away the growth
thereof to foreign ports to the prejudice of this Common-
wealth."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.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 re-

;o THE PLANTERS OF

strictions of this period alone saved the colony from the pov-
erty and distress of later days and made possible the pros-
perity 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 conse-
quence 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 re-
funded 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.38 Although this consti-
tuted 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 qualifica-
tions 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, re-
ship it to the continent and sell it there at a profit.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 coun-
try 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.

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 71

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 inden-
ture or as a freeman, found it quite possible to establish him-
self 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 ap-
plied 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 £10 to £40.40

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 off-
set by larger crops. If our freedman in 1635 could raise
800 pounds of leaf and dispose of it for four pence, his in-
come would be £13.6.8; in 1649, by producing 1,000 pounds,
he could sell it at three pence for £12.10.0. 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 £12. 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

72 THE PLANTERS OF

made the freight rates excessive, while the merchants did not
scruple to drive a hard bargain whenever possible. The let-
ters 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."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."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 uncon-
scionable and cruel merchants by the excessive rates of their
commodities."43 Six years later Governor Harvey stated that
all things which "come hither" are sold at "thrice the value
they cost in England."44

It is obvious, however, that after all expenses had been paid,
a goodly margin of profit was left, a margin perhaps averag-
ing 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 ad-
vance 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, per-
haps 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 73

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 la-
borers who were imported by the London Company to culti-
vate 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 re-
ceived 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.45

The guiding hand of the Company was missed by the f reed-
men 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 dis-
tinguished from freemen.46 By following, as well as the im-
perfect records of the period permit, the after careers of the
former, it is possible to determine with a fair degree of ac-
curacy 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, Wil-
liam Popleton, Anthony Pagett, Richard Townsend, Adam
Thoroughgood and Lionell Rowlston — were listed as servants
in the muster of 1624.47 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 work-

74 THE PLANTERS OF

ing 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 ob-
tained competent estates, yet by reason of their poor and mean
condition, were unskilful in judging of a good estate, either
of church or Commonwealth."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, be-
came 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.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 be-
came landowners. Some light is thrown on the matter by a
search through the patent books. Here are found a surpris-
ingly 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,

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 75

James Hatfield, Adam Thoroughgood, John Robinson, John
Hill, John Seaward, William Ramshaw, Samuel Weaver, John
Upton, John Watson, Thomas Crompe and John Russell.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 uni-
versity, and his father had been a fletcher.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.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 indi-
viduals. Perhaps it would not be unfair to estimate this pro-
portion at from thirty to forty per cent, but it must be dis-
tinctly 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 hun-
dreds of examples testified to the fact that no man in Vir-
ginia was denied the opportunity to rise and to acquire both
property and honor.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 con-
tinued unabated. But the difficulties of the investigator in

76 THE PLANTERS OF

studying this period arc 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 i(>.i6 to i(>5<) no less than
twenty five appear as headrights for others. Of these the
major part became landowners, some of them men of influ-
ence in Virginia." The Rappahannock wills for the years
from [656 to 1664 show a like result. Thirty-nine persons
appear in the records, of whom seven came in as headrights.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
arc apt to occur because of the transfer of headrights by sale.
The free immigrant to whom was due fifty acres for his "per-
sonal 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 be is listed as a headlight. 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 hcadright for
which the land was granted usually came in under terms of
indenture.

Tn Volume ITT of the land patents are listed in the years
from [635 to [653 patents to fifty-seven persons in James
City county.88 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 77

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 Vol-
ume IV, covering the years from [653 to 1663, leads to simi-
lar results, for of the eighty-five names which appear there,
forty-five are listed as headlights 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;" Thomas Warburton
patented 1,664 acres;" George Gilbert 1,000 acres; Francis
Burwell 1,000 and John Underwood 2,000 acres/'0 The num-
ber 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, se-
cured 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 in-
cluded in the various lists are freemen or servants. But oc-
casionally the newcomers are specifically described as "ser-
vants," in which case, of course, there can be no doubt what-
ever as to their status. By selecting at random a number of
names from those so termed, avoiding for convenience sake

78 THE PLANTERS OF

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 Court-
ney, 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, be-
came 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.60 Although he became a landowner
so early as 1638,61 his family arrived from England only in
165 1. Francis Gray, brought to Virginia at the age of fif-
teen by Joseph Johnson, also became prominent, securing a

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 79

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.62 His
will was recorded in 1667.63

George Archer became an extensive landowner, patenting
250 acres in 1663, 550 acres in 1665, 784 acres in 1671 and
1,395 acres in 1673.6* In 1691 he received, in conjunction
with others, title to a tract of 2,827 acres in Henrico.65 John
Holding patented in York county 850 acres in 1649 and 389
acres in 1653.66 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.67

Thomas Pattison, transported by Francis Epes in 1635,
took up in Lancaster two tracts, one for 200 acres and one
for 400.68 He also became part owner of two more tracts,
one for 220 acres and the other for 504.69 John Dodman se-
cured a patent for 350 acres in Westmoreland in the year
1662.70 Thomas Warden is mentioned as a landowner in
James City county in 1643.71 George Gilbert, transported in
io35 by Joseph Johnson, took up fifty acres in James City
county in 1643. 72 I*1 J663, in partnership with Richard
Scruely, he patented 1,000 acres in the same county north of
the Chickahominy river.73 John Blackstone acquired two
tracts, one for ioo acres and the other for 151 acres,74 while
William Burcher received a grant for 300 acres.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. 76
Henry Arnetrading was the owner of 300 acres of land.77

80 THE PLANTERS OF

Armstrong Foster was the official tobacco viewer for Hungers,
a position entailing no little responsibility.78 Sampson Robins
received a patent for a tract of land in Northampton in 1655.79
Thomas Clayton is listed among the Northampton tithables
of 1666.80

In the case of John Day some uncertainty arises. Appar-
ently 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.81 A
John Day later secured 400 acres in Gloucester county,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 con-
clusions 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 farm-
ers, 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 rec-
ords of some of the sixty-one have been lost, or that our re-
search has failed to reveal them, we once more come to the
conclusion that a full thirty or forty per cent of the land-
owners of the period from 1635 to J666 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 rec-
ords furnish ample testimony. Thus in 1636 we find that

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 81

Richard Young was granted ioo acres in Warwick "due him
for his personal adventure and for the transportation of his
wife Dorothy Young."83 A year later Roger Symonds re-
ceived ioo acres in Charles City "due him for the transporta-
tion of his wife, Alice, and one servant, Richard Key."84
Similarly in May 1636, Thomas Wray was allowed 50 acres
for his "personal adventure." Such cases could be multiplied
indefinitely.85

A careful analysis of the patent rolls from 1623 to July 14,
1637, published in the Virginia Magazine of History and Bi-
ography for April, 1901, shows conclusively that the lists con-
tain 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 head-
rights 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."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."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

82 THE PLANTERS 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 per-
centage oi 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 to-
bacco fields. In 163S Richard Kemp wrote Secretary Winde-
banke that "of hundreds which are yearly transported, scarce
any but are brought in as merchandise to make sale of."88

Yet it must not be forgotten that any immigration of poor
treemen, 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, quali-
ties by no means universal among the classes in England from
which the sen-ants were chiefly drawn. But for the free im-
migrant 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 ser-
vant 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 Com-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 83

monwealth 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 unaf-
fected 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, dis-
content 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 favor-
able economic conditions alone could make it possible for the
newcomer to establish himself as a member of the Virginia

84

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 85

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 con-
veyed 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 produc-
ing, not the articles which England especially needed, but
those for which they had the greatest natural aptitude, espe-
cially 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

86 THE PLANTERS OF

delusive. The colonies were developing interests and com-
mercial connections hostile to those of the mother country,
were nourishing the manufactures and shipping of foreign na-
tions almost as much as those of England. And this the Gov-
ernment at London would not tolerate. The colonial trade
with strangers must come to an end. If Virginia and Mary-
land 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 Parlia-
ment, 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 con-
sumed 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 regula-
tions 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 Co-
lonial System, "is equally applicable to the arrangement by

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 87

means of which the tobacco planter secured exlusive privileges
in the home market."1 Yet it is certain that the tobacco grow-
ers of England could never have competed with Maryland and
Virginia had there been free trade. The prohibition of plant-
ing 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 exaggera-
tion 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.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 ex-
change 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 dis-
aster. 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 with-
drawn.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 Hoi-

88 THE PLANTERS OF

land 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 dis-
tributors of the Virginia and Maryland tobacco, and if they
refused to take it, now that it could be secured only in Eng-
land, 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 de-
pendence 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 re-
sult 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 nigher 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 Com-
merce."

"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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 89

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, prin-
ciple 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."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 citi-
zens 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 sub-

90 THE PLANTERS OF

sistence to the inhabitants."1' In 1666 Secretary Thomas
Ludwell told Lord Arlington that tobacco was "worth noth-
ing."10 Later in the same year the planters complained that
the price was so low that they were not able to live by it.11
"For the merchants, knowing both our necessities and the un-
consumable quantities of tobacco we had by us," they said,
"gave us not the twentieth part of what they sold it for in
England."12 Tobacco had so glutted the markets, it was de-
clared, 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.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 at-
tribute it to nothing but the great mercy of God . . . that
keeps them from mutiny and confusion."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.15

The Governor and Council declared that the merchant "al-
lows 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 £12 to £17 per ton freight,
which usually was but at seven pounds."10 "A large part of
the people are so desperately poor," wrote Berkeley in 1673,
"that they may reasonably be expected upon any small ad-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 91

vantage of the enemy to revolt to them in hopes of bettering
their condition by sharing the plunder of the colony with
them."17 That matters had not changed in 1681 is attested
by the statement of the Council that the impossibility of dis-
posing of their tobacco without a heavy loss overwhelmed
both Virginia and Maryland, and brought upon them a "vast
poverty and infinite necessity."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."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 to-
bacco.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.21 "The poverty of Virginia is such," said a
certain John Good in 1676, "that the major part of the in-
habitants can scarce supply their wants from hand to mouth,
and many there are besides can hardly shift without supply
one year."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.23 In 1680 they again re-
ported that "the indigency of the Inhabitants is such that they
are in noe manner capacitated to support themselves."2*
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."25

92 THE PLANTERS OF

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."28

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 Govern-
ment. Bacon's men were just the type of miserably poor free-
men that Berkeley several years before had feared would rebel.
He himself, in his proclamation of Feb. 10, 1677, spoke of

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 93

them as "men of mean and desperate fortunes."27 William
Sherwood called the rebels rude and indigent persons, allud-
ing to them as "tag, rag and bobtayle."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 antagon-
ism 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 Navi-
gation 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 muti-
nous— to desire a thing contrary to his Majesty's royal pleas-
ure and benefit and also against an act of Parliament."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,

94 THE PLANTERS OF

"there was virtually no complaint against the system of trade
enjoined by the Navigation Acts. While the Barbados As-
sembly and that colony's governors were vociferous in their
protests, the Virginia legislature remained strangely mute."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 in-
jurious 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 mem-
bers of both Houses were his creatures and his henchmen.
Over and over again it is testified that the Assembly did noth-
ing more than register his will.31 If then it did not pro-
test, 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 95

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."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 con-
ditions no matter how bitter was the experience. Sir Wil-
liam 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.33

Although he set to work with his accustomed vigor to make
good this boast, he met with but scant success. Lack of effi-
cient 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 na-

96 THE PLANTERS OF

tion 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."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."36 This is corroborated by the Council
itself, in an official letter to the King. "For in this very con-
juncture 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."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 con-
ditions in the colony hardly more favorable for his advance-
ment 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 cor-
rect in estimating the return from the average crop at fifty

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 97

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 re-
turn for his tobacco — clothing, farm implements, household
furnishings — he had to content himself with the scantiest sup-
ply. 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 impos-
sible of accomplishment.

It would be expected, then, that even the most exhaustive
investigation could reveal but a few indentured servants, com-
ing 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 impos-
sible 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 de-
gree of certainty upon the rent roll. Of 11 16 names examined
in the years from 1671 to 1674 inclusive, only 26 are positively
those of persons listed as landowners in 1704. After making

98 THE PLANTERS OF

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 pas-
sage of the Navigation Acts. In the Commonwealth period
the colony had advanced by leaps and bounds, and the inhabi-
tants, estimated at 15,000 in 1649,38 were Placed by Berkeley
thirteen years later at 40,ooo.39 Under the system which ex-
isted during these years, when the colonists enjoyed a compar-
atively 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.*° 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.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 fol-
lowing, 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 prob-
able 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.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 sur-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 99

prised 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 ser-
vants and others had been transported thither."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 earn-
ing 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 develop-
ment, 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 Vir-

ioo THE PLANTERS OF

ginia yeomanry that it survived to enter the Eighteenth cen-
tury, 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 Vir-
ginia from the Atlantic to the Alleghanies.

CHAPTER VI

The Yeoman in Virginia History

Perhaps it would have been impossible for the Virginia yeo-
man 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 restric-
tions. 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."1 Fifteen years later the number had in-
creased to 1 00,000. 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.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.4 The inventory of the goods of
Richard Avery, another poor planter, shows three steers, one
heifer, three small cattle and one calf.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

101

102 THE PLANTERS OF

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

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 Per-
fect Discription says that the poultry — "Hens, Turkies, Ducks,
Geece" — were without number.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 canvas-
back appeared regularly in season upon every table.8

The planter always devoted a part of his land to the pro-
duction of the grain which was needed for his personal require-
ments. "They yearly plow and sow many hundred acres of
Wheat," it was said, "as good and faire as any in the world."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.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 £30 from his bees.11 There were also many wild swarms
in the woods, which yielded a delicious return to the colonial
bee-hunters.12

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 103

It is easy to understand, then, why there were no complaints
of hunger even in the days when poverty was almost uni-
versal. 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."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.14 But with the return of
better conditions they laid aside the loom and the wheel, and
resumed their purchase of English cloth.

104 THE PLANTERS OF

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.15 The
author of New Albion thought that each adventurer should
provide himself with canvas or linen clothes, with shoes and
a hat.16

The houses of the small planters were small but comfortable.
"Pleasant in their building," says John Hammond, "which al-
though 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 flow-
ered, and if not glazed windows, shutters which are made very
pritty and convenient."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."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.19
But the period of which Butler wrote was exceptional, and
before long the growing prosperity of the colony made pos-
sible 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 105

apartment, one used as a study, the other as a buttery.20 For
the poor man this was far too pretentious, and he had to con-
tent himself with a home perhaps thirty by twenty feet, con-
taining 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 de-
tached kitchen. In some cases wells were sunk, but the use of
natural springs was more common.21

Of the plantation itself, only a fraction was under cultiva-
tion 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 diminish-
ing 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 require-
ments. They had to look forward to the day when their land
would become useless, and if they were provident, would pur-
chase 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

106 THE PLANTERS OF

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."2

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 pos-
sessed 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.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.24 In better circumstances was Richard Avery,
who seems to have been a tanner by profession. The inven-
tory 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, 1 18 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.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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 107

his death in 1677, possessed eight cows, one bull, four year-
lings, 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 to-
bacco.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.27

Of similar estate was Christopher Pearson, of York county.
His personal property included bedding valued at £7, linen at
18 shillings, pewter at £1.18.0, brass at six shillings, wooden
ware at £4.13.6 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 £2.12.0, including
three pots, two pot-rocks, a pestal, a frying pan, a looking
glass; three cows appraised at £6.5.0, a yearling at ten shill-
ings, a colt at two pounds sterling. The entire estate was
valued at £25.icj.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 fel-
lows. The New Description mentions several such cases.

108 THE PLANTERS OF

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 Tan-
house, 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."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 readi-
ness 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 Sev-
enteenth 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 flow-
ers; 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."30

In the second half of the century the class of the well-to-do,

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 109

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 Beverely, Giles Brent,
Joseph Bridger, William Byrd I, John Carter, John Custis I,
Dudley Digges, William Fitzhugh, Lewis Burwell, Philip Lud-
well I, William Moseley, Daniel Parke, Ralph Wormeley,
Benjamin Harrison, Edward Hill, Edmund Jennings and
Matthew Page. But so few were their numbers that the Gov-
ernors 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 ex-
press 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."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.32 Many of the best
known members of the Council of State served their appren-
ticeship 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 in-
deed did he betray his trust.33 This no doubt was with him
in part a matter of honor, but it also was the result of a con-
sciousness 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

no THE PLANTERS OF

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.34 Although the Assembly must have real-
ized that its very existence might depend upon its compliance
with the King's wishes, it refused to accept his proposal.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.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.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 plan-
tation to plantation, inciting the people to resistance and se-
curing their signatures to a paper demanding a redress of
grievances.38

The attitude of the small planters during the English civil
war and Commonwealth period is equally instructive. Cer-
tain 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 plant-
ers, that the colony became a refuge for English cavaliers,

COLONIAL VIRGINIA in

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 an<^
passed laws making it high treason for any person to uphold
the legality of the dethronement and execution of his father.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 neces-
sary 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.40 How
many of the small planters were at heart friendly to Parlia-
ment 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.*1

Nor can it be said that Virginia was forced into an unwill-
ing 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.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 Parlia-
mentary faction in Virginia, who made it clear to the Com-
monwealth 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.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.44 And

ii2 THE PLANTERS OF

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-gov-
ernment was disappointed by the usurpation of Oliver Crom-
well. 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 func-
tion they usually felt it wise to delegate to the Governor.45
In fact, Virginia was governed during this period, the hap-
piest 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 be-
fore 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.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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 113

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.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 in-
surrection in 1676. It is notable that in the course of Bacon's
Rebellion the great mass of the people turned against the Gov-
ernor, either approving passively of his expulsion, or actually
aiding his enemies. When Sir William appealed for volun-
teers in Gloucester county while Bacon was upon the Pamun-
key expedition, he could hardly muster a man.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 Bev-
erley, 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 in-
variably 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 op-
pressive Navigation Acts remained in force, though taxes
were heavier than ever, though the governors continued to en-
croach upon their liberties, they were by no means crushed
and they continued in their legislative halls the conflict that

ii4 THE PLANTERS OF

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 at:
tempt to crush Anglo-Saxon liberty, an attempt fully as dan-
gerous 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 gov-
ernment in America. It was not a mere coincidence that the
attack upon the Massachusetts charter, the misrule of Nichol-
son in New York, the oppressions of the proprietor in Mary-
land 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 il-
legal; 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 Vir-
ginia yeoman reckoned not with slavery, however, and slavery
was to prove, in part at least, his undoing.

CHAPTER VII

World Trade

I n 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 plant-
ers," wrote Secretary Spencer to the Board of Trade in May,
1683.1 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.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.* 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 £198,115, which at
a penny a pound would indicate about 47,000,000 pounds.5 In
fact, the production of tobacco in the ten years from 1689

115

n6 THE PLANTERS OF

to 1699 seems to have tripled, in the years from 1669 to 1699
to have quadrupled. In 1669 the planters considered them-
selves fortunate if their industry yielded them a return of
£30,000; 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 £10,000; in 1699 it was estimated at £100,000.
Even if we accept the conservative statement that the aver-
age number of hogsheads exported from Virginia in the last
decade of the century varied from 35,000 to 40,000/ the
planters still would have received £75,000 or £80,000. 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 de-
signed 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 un-
fortunate consequence which to some extent had been fore-
seen, 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 Eng-
land and from England to all the countries of Europe. Prior
to 1660 Holland had been the distributing centre for the to-
bacco 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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 117

difficulties encountered in effecting this change and the un-
fortunate 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 conquer-
ing 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 re-
fused 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 This argu-
ment 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 Euro-
pean 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 hap-
pened. Since tobacco was piling up uselessly in the warehouses
and much of it could not be disposed of at any price, it was in-
evitable 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 ex-
ported at excessively low prices. This margin was a weapon
of conquest, a means of ousting the merchants of other na-
tions 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.

n8 THE PLANTERS OF

It is improbable that the English economists of the Seven-
teenth 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 plant-
ers 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 £15,000,
which would indicate that about 7,200,000 pounds were leav-
ing for foreign ports.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.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.10 The
Baltic trade alone amounted to from 5,000 to 10,000 hogs-
heads, and added from £10,000 to £24,000 to the income of
the planters. The chief Russian port of entry was Narva,

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 119

which took annually some 500 hogsheads, but large quantities
were shipped also to Riga and Raval.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
f 60,000 to £i30,ooo.12 As the English were still largely de-
pendent upon the Baltic for potash and ship stores, this con-
stituted 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.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.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 com-
merce to continue. The obvious course for the Spaniards un-
der the economic theories of the day would have been to ex-
clude 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 en-
tered Spain each year.15 A pamphlet published in 1708 en-
titled 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.16

120 THE PLANTERS OF

The Dutch, too, despite their bitter rivalry with the British,
found it impossible to do without Virginia tobacco. Purchas-
ing 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 em-
ployment to hundreds of poor workers. In all the Dutch
seem to have purchased from England about 5,000 hogsheads
a year.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 £200,000 an-
nually. In 1698, which was an exceptionally good year, their
purchases were no less than £310,133. 1S

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 Ex-
chequer.

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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 121

two pence a pound, the yield must have varied from £75,000
to £100,000. 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 £81,250. 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 £173,515. When to this is added £15,000
from the half penny a pound on the 7,200,000 pounds of leaf
sent abroad, the total reaches £188,515.

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 in-
crease in the foreign trade, enriched the Exchequer by another
£100,000. In 1699, if we assume that 12,000,000 pounds
were consumed in England, the return would have been £300,-
000; while half a penny a pound on 36,000,000 pounds of re-
exported leaf, would have brought the total to £375,000.
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 £400,ooo.19 This sum constituted a very appreciable pro-
portion 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

122 THE PLANTERS OF

by creating a new English industry. For most of the tobacco,
before it was sent abroad, was subjected to a process of manu-
facture, 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 con-
siderable outlay of capital.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.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 consti-
tuted 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 estab-
lished, but adding new recruits from the ranks of the inden-
tured 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 pre-
vented 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 estab-
lishing themselves as landowners. In four lists examined for
the year 1689, comprising 332 names, but seven persons can

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 123

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.22 All in all
not more than five per cent, of the newcomers during this
period prospered and became independent planters. Appar-
ently, 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, d^pite 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.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, al-
though 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

124 THE PLANTERS OF

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 James-
town, and sold there to the planters.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
butt wenty in all — was not the real beginning of the slave sys-
tem 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.25 Sixteen years later the black population
probably did not exceed 150.26 In 1649, when Virginia was
growing rapidly and the whites numbered 15,000, there were
but 300 negroes in the colony.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 free-
holders.

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.28 Eleven years later the number of blacks was esti-
mated at 3,ooo.29 In 1635 twenty-six negroes were brought
in, the largest purchaser being Charles Harmar.80 In 1636

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 125

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.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.32

It is evident, then, that during the larger part of the Sev-j
enteenth century slavery played but an unimportant role inl
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.33

The Dutch had established trading stations along the Afri-
can 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 neces-
sary 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.34

This was but the beginning of the struggle, however. The
Dutch resisted strenuously, stirring up the native chieftians

126 THE PLANTERS OF

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 Netherlander an acknowl-
edgment 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 ne-
groes 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 Eight-
eenth 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 inden-
tured 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 ser-
vants, 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.

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 127

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 £i2.35 A servant of Robert
Leightenhouse, having two years to serve, was put at £gf6
while on the other hand we find another listed in the estate of
Colonel Francis Epes, also having two years to serve, at only
£5." A white lad under indenture for seven years to Mr.
Ralph Graves was valued at £io.38 On the whole it would
seem that the price of a sturdy man servant varied from £2
to £4 for each year of his service. On the other hand a vigor-
ous slave could be had at from £18 to £30. 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.

It is true that the negro was none too efficient as a laborer.
Born in savagery, unacquainted with the English tongue,
knowing little of agriculture, it was a matter of some difficulty
for him to accustom himself to his task in the tobacco fields.
Yet when his lesson had been learned, when a few years of
experience had taught him what his master expected him to
do, the slave showed himself quite adequate to the require-
ments of the one staple crop. The culture of tobacco is not
essentially difficult, especially when pursued in the unscientific
manner of the colonial period. It required many, but not
skilled hands. The slave, untutored and unintelligent, proved
inadequate to the industrial needs of the northern colonies.
The niceties of shipbuilding were beyond his capacities, he
was not needed as a fisherman, he was not a good sailor, he
was useless in the system of intensive agriculture in vogue

128 THE PLANTERS OF

north of Maryland. But in the tobacco field he would do.
He could not at first tend so many plants as his white rival,
he could not produce tobacco of such fine quality, but what
he lacked in efficiency he more than made up for in cheapness.

The African seems to have withstood remarkably well the
diseases indigenous to eastern Virginia. There are occasional
reports of epidemics among the slaves, but usually they were
fairly immune both to malaria and dysentery. A census taken
in 1 714, when there were perhaps 15,000 negroes in the col-
ony, records burials for sixty-two slaves only.39 The births
of slaves for the same year totalled 253. *° These figures indi-
cate not only the excellent physical condition in which these
black workers were kept by their masters, but the rapidity with
which they were multiplying. The low death rate is in part
explained by the fact that only strong men and women were
transported to the colonies, but it is none the less clearly in-
dicative of the ease with which the African accustomed him-
self to the climate of tidewater Virginia.

As a rule the negro was more docile than the white servant,
especially if the latter happened to be from the ruder elements
of English society. He was not so apt to resist his master
or to run away to the mountains. Yet plots among the blacks
were not unknown. In 1710 a conspiracy was discovered
among the slaves of Surry and James City counties which
was to have been put into execution on Easter day. The
negroes planned to rise simultaneously, destroy any who stood
in their way, and make good their escape out of the colony.
Among the chief conspirators were Jamy, belonging to Mr.
John Broadnax, Mr. Samuel Thompson's Peter, Tom and Cato
of Mr. William Edwards, Great Jack and Little Jack of Mr.
John Edwards, and Will belonging to Mr. Henry Hart. "Two
or three of these were tried this general court," wrote Colonel
Jennings, "found guilty and will be executed. And I hope

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 129

their fate will strike such a terror in the other Negroes as
will keep them from forming such designs for the future."41
The lesson did not prove lasting, however, for in 1 730 a num-
ber of slaves from Norfolk and Princess Anne counties as-
sembled while the whites were at church, and chose officers
to command them in a bold stroke for freedom. As in the
previous attempt they were discovered, many arrested and
several of the ringleaders executed.42

Neither the merchants nor the planters seem to have been
conscious of any wrong in the seizure and sale of negroes.
They regarded the native Africans as hardly human, mere
savages that were no more deserving of consideration than
oxen or horses. And as it was right and proper to hitch the
ox or the horse to the plow, so it was equally legitimate to put
the negro to work in the fields of sugar cane or tobacco.
Whatever hardships he had to endure upon the voyage to
America or by reason of his enforced labor, they considered
amply compensated by his conversion to Christianity.

It is true that the colony of Virginia early in the Eighteenth
century imposed a heavy duty upon the importation of slaves,
but it did so neither from any consciousness of wrong in
slavery itself or a perception of the social problems which
were to grow out of it. At the time the price of tobacco was
declining rapidly and many planters were losing money.
Feeling that their misfortunes arose from overproduction,
which in turri was the result of the recent purchases of ne-
groes, the colonial legislators decided to check the trade. "The
great number of negroes imported here and solely employed
in making tobacco," wrote Governor Spotswood in 171 1,
"hath produced for some years past an increase in tobacco far
disproportionate to the consumption of it . . . and conse-
quently lowered the price of it."43 "The people of Virginia
will not now be so fond of purchasing negroes as of late,"

i3o THE PLANTERS OF

declared President Jennings of the Virginia Council in 1708,
"being sensibly convinced of their error, which has in a man-
ner ruined the credit of the country."44

During the years from 1680 to 1700 slaves arrived in the
colony in increasing numbers. In 1681 William Fitzhugh, in
a letter to Ralph Wormcley, refers to the fact that several slave
ships were expected that year in the York river.45 At this
period, for the first time in Virginia history, we find negroes
in large numbers entered as headrights upon the patent rolls.
In 1693 Captain John Storey received a grant of land for the
importation of 79 negroes, in 1694 Robert Beverley brought
in seventy, in 1695 William Randolph twenty-five.46 Before
the end of the century it is probable that the slaves in Virginia
numbered nearly 6,000, and had already become more impor-
tant to the economic life of the colony than the indentured
servants.47

The chief purchasers at this time were men of large estates.
The advantages of slave labor were manifest to planters of
the type of William Byrd or William Fitzhugh, men who had
built up fortunes by their business ability. It is but natural
that they should have turned early from the indentured ser-
vant to stock their plantations with the cheaper and more
remunerative African workers.

As the English secured a stronger hold upon the African
trade slaves arrived in ever increasing numbers. During the
years from 1699 to I7°^ no less than 6,843 came in, a num-
ber perhaps exceeding the entire importations of the Seven-
teenth century.48 In the summer of 1705 alone 1,800 negroes
arrived.40 With what rapidity the black man was taking the
place of the indentured servant and the poor freeman as the
chief laborer of the colony is shown by the fact that in 1708,
in a total tithable list of 30,000, no less than 12,000 were
slaves. President Jennings at the same time reported that

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 131

the number of servants was inconsiderable.50 "Before the
year 1680 what negroes came to Virginia were usually from
Barbadoes," Jennings told the Board of Trade in 1708.
''Between 1680 and 1698 the negro trade become more fre-
quent, tho not in any proportion to what it hath been of
late, during which the African Company have sent several
ships and others by their licence having bought their slaves
of the Company brought them here for sale, among which
lately Alderman Jeffreys and Sir Jeffry Jeffreys were princi-
pally concerned."51

The wars of Charles XII, however, which proved disas-
trous to the Baltic trade, and the War of the Spanish Succes-
sion which cut off exports of tobacco to France and Spain,
caused a serious decline in prices and made it impossible for
the planters to continue the large purchases of slaves. This
fact, together with the duty which had been imposed with the
express purpose of keeping them out, reduced the importations
to a minimum during the years from 1710 to 1718.52 But
with the reopening of the tobacco market and the return of
prosperity to Virginia, the black stream set in again with re-
doubled force. In 1730, out of a total population of 114,000,
no less than 30,000 were negroes.53 In other words the slaves,
who in 1670 had constituted but five per cent of the people,
now comprised twenty-six per cent. Slavery, from being an
insignificant factor in the economic life of the colony, had
become the very foundation upon which it was established.

As we have seen it was not slavery but the protracted ac-
cumulation of surplus stocks of tobacco in England which
had broken the long continued deadlock of the tobacco trade
during the Restoration period and caused the overflow into
continental markets. That the labor of blacks at first played
no essential part in the movement is evident from the fact
that in 1682 when it first became pronounced, the slave popula-

132 THE PLANTERS OF

tion of Virginia and Maryland was still insignificant. But
that the trade not only continued after the glut in England
had been cleared up, but increased with startling rapidity, was
unquestionably the result of more universal use of negroes in
the years immediately preceding the War of the Spanish
Succession. Slavery so cheapened the cost of production that
it was now quite possible for those who used them to pay the
half penny a pound duty on reexported tobacco in England,
and still undersell all rivals in the European market. Before
many years had passed the tobacco trade, with all that it meant
both to England and to the colonies, rested almost entirely upon
the labor of the savage black man so recently brought from
the African wilds.

That this fact was fully understood at the time is attested
by various persons interested in the colony and the trade. In
1728 Francis Fane, in protesting against the imposition of a
new tax in Virginia on the importation of slaves declared
"that Laying a Duty on Negroes can only tend to make them
scarcer and dearer, the two things that for the good of our
Trade and for the Benefit of Virginia ought chiefly to be
guarded against, since it is well known that the cheepness of
Virginia tobacco in European Marketts is the true Cause of
the great Consumption thereof in Europe, and one would have
therefore Expected rather to have seen an Act allowing a
premium on the Importation of Negroes to have Encouraged
the bringing them in, than an Act laying so large a Duty to
discourage their Importation."54 Similarly Colonel Spencer
wrote to the Board of Trade. "The low price of tobacco re-
quires it should be made as cheap as possible. The Blacks can
make it cheaper than Whites, so I conceive it is for his
Majesty's interest full as much as the Country's or rather much
more, to have Blacks as cheap as possible in Virginia."55

It is evident, then, that the opening of the European market

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 133

and the vast expansion of the tobacco trade, while bringing
prosperity to the larger planters, was no great boon to the
man who tilled his fields with his own hands. It assured him
a ready sale for his crop, it is true, but at prices so low as to
leave him a very narrow margin of profit. The new era
which was opening, the so-called golden era of Virginia his-
tory, was not for him. Virginia in the Eighteenth century
was to be the land of the slave holder, not of the little planter.

CHAPTER VIII

Beneath the Black Tide

The importation of slaves in large numbers reacted almost
immediately upon the migration of whites to Virginia. As
we have seen, the stream of indentured servants that poured
across the Atlantic remained remarkably constant throughout
almost all of the Seventeenth century. The larger planters
were always in need of laborers, and they looked to the
surplus population of England to supply them. But with the
coming of the blacks all was changed. The Virginians saw
in the slave ships which now so frequently entered their rivers
the solution of all their problems. And so the influx of white
men and women from the mother country dwindled and al-
most died out, while in its place came a still greater stream
from the coast of Africa.

At the time of Bacon's Rebellion the annual importation of
servants was between 1,500 and 2,000. The headrights for
1674 show 1 93 1 names.1 Seven years later the whites .were
still arriving in large nurnbers, the rolls for 1682 having 1,565
names. As the century drew to a close, however, the effect
of the slave trade upon white immigration is reflected in the
dwindling number of headrights. The change that was taking
place is illustrated by a patent of 13,500 acres to Ralph
Wormleley for the transportation of 249 persons, 149 of whom
were white and 100 black.2 Yet so late as 1704 the servants
were still coming in appreciable numbers. In 1 708 however, the
number of servants at work in the colony had dwindled away
almost entirely.3 In 171 5 the names of white persons listed as
headrights was but ninety-one; in 171 8 but 101.* In other

134

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 135

words, the first great migration of Englishmen to continental
America, a migration extending over a century and comprising
from 100,000 to 150,000 men, women and children, had practi-
cally come to an end.

English statesmen at the time looked upon this event as an
unalloyed blessing. The day had passed when they felt that
there existed a surplus of labor at home and that the country
was in need of blood letting. The proper policy was to keep
Englishmen in England, to devote their energies to local in-
dustries and so strengthen the economic and military sinews
of the nation. And if unemployment existed, it was the cor-
rect policy to bring work to the idle rather than send the idle
out of the country in quest of work.5 And the colonies were
to be utilized, no longer as outlets for the population, but as a
means to the upbuilding of local industry. They were to
supply a market for English goods, keep employed English
mariners and furnish the tobacco and sugar which when re-
exported weighed so heavily in the balance of trade. And
since these great staple crops could be produced by the work
of slaves, it was thought highly advantageous for all concerned
that the negro should replace the white servant in both the
tobacco and the sugar fields. The planters would profit by the
lowered cost of production, English industry would gain by
the increased volume of traffic, the Crown revenues would be
enhanced and English laborers would be kept at home.6

Apparently the deeper significance of this great movement
was entirely lost upon the British economists and ministers.
They had no conception of the advantage of having their
colonies inhabited by one race alone and that race their own.
From the first their vision was too restricted to embrace
the idea of a new and greater Britain in its fullest sense.
They could not bring themselves to look upon the soil of
Virginia and Maryland as a part of the soil of an extended

136 THE PLANTERS OF

England, upon the Virginians and Marylanders as English-
men, enjoying privileges equal to their own. They could not
realize the strength that would come from such an empire as
this, the mighty future it would insure to the Anglo-Saxon
race.

Their conception was different. The British empire must
consist of two distinct parts — mother country and colonies.
And in any clash of interest between the two, the former must
prevail. It was not their intent that the colonies should be
purposely sacrificed, that they should be made to pay tribute
to a tyrannical parent. In fact, they earnestly desired that the
plantations should prosper, for when they languished English
industry suffered. But in their eyes the colonies existed pri-
marily for the benefit of England. England had given them
birth, had defended them, had nurtured them; she was amply
justified, therefore, in subordinating them to her own indus-
trial needs.

Thus they viewed the substitution of the importation of
slaves to the tobacco colonies for the importation of white men
purely from an English, not an Anglo-Saxon, point of view.
Had it been a question of bringing thousands of negroes to
England itself to drive the white laborers from the fields, they
would have interposed an emphatic veto. But with the struc-
ture of colonial life they were not greatly concerned. In 1693,
when James Blair secured from the King and Queen a gift
for his new college at Williamsburg, Attorney-General Sey-
mour objected vigorously, stating that there was not the least
occasion for such an institution in Virginia. Blair reminded
him that the chief purpose of the college was to educate young
men for the ministry and begged him to consider that the
people of the colony had souls to be saved as well as the people
of England. "Souls! Damn your souls," snapped the Attor-
ney-General, "make tobacco."7 It would be unfair to say that

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 137

the British Government took just the same view of the colonists
as did Seymour, but there can be no doubt that their chief con-
cern in the plantations was centered upon the size of their ex-
ports to England and of their purchases of English goods.
And as the slaves could make more tobacco than the indentured
servants, it became the settled policy of the Crown to encourage
the African trade in every possible way.

The influx of slaves not only put almost a complete end to
the importation of white servants, but it reacted disastrously
upon the Virginia yeomanry. In this respect we find a close
parallel with the experience of ancient Rome with slave labor.
In the third and second centuries before Christ the glory of
the republic lay in its peasantry. The self-reliant, sturdy,
liberty -loving yeoman formed the backbone of the conquer-
ing legion and added to the life of the republic that rugged
strength that made it so irresistible. "To say that a citizen
is a good farmer is to reach the extreme limit of praise," said
Cato. Some of the ablest of the early Roman generals were
recruited from the small farmer class. Fabius Maximus, the
Dictator, in need of money, sent his son to Rome to sell his
sole possession, a little farm of seven jugera. Regulus, while
in Africa, asked that he be recalled from his command because
the hired man he had left to cultivate his fields had fled with
all his farm implements, and he feared his wife and children
would starve.8 N

This vigorous peasantry was destroyed by the importation
of hordes of slaves and the purchase of cheap foreign grain.
So long as the wars of Rome were limited to Italy the number
of slaves was comparatively small, but as her armies swept
over the Mediterranean countries one after another and even
subdued the wild Gauls and Britains, an unending stream of
captives poured into the city and filled to overflowing the
slave markets. Cicero, during his short campaign against the

138 THE PLANTERS OF

Parthians wrote to Atticus that the sale of his prisoners had
netted no less than 12,000,000 sestercias. In Epirus 100,000
men were captured; 60,000 Cimbries and 100,000 Germans
graced the triumph of Marius; Caesar is said to have taken
in Gaul another 100,000 prisoners. Soon the slave became
the cheapest of commodities, and he who possessed even the
most extensive lands could readily supply himself with the
labor requisite for their cultivation.

Thus thrown into competition with slave labor the peasant
proprietor found it impossible to sustain himself. The grain
which he produced with his own hands had to compete in the
same market with that made by slaves. It must, therefore,
sell for the same price, a price so low that it did not suffice to
feed and clothe him and his family. So he was forced to give
up his little estate, an estate perhaps handed down to him by
generations of farmers, and migrate to the city of Rome, to
swell the idle and plebeian population. And once there he
demanded bread, a demand which the authorities dared not
refuse. So the public treasury laid out the funds for the
purchase of wheat from all parts of the world, from Spain,
from Africa, from Sicily, wheat which was given away or
sold for a song. This in turn reacted unfavorably upon the
peasants who still clung to the soil in a desperate effort to*
wring from it a bare subsistence, and accelerated the move-
ment to the city.

Thus Italy was transformed from the land of the little
farmer into the land of big estates cultivated by slaves. A
sad development surely, a development which had much to do
with the decay and final overthrow of the mighty structure of
the Roman Empire. In former times, Titus Livius tells us,
"there was a multitude of free men in this country where today
we can hardly find a handful of soldiers, and which would be
a wilderness were it not for our slaves." "The plough is

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 139

everywhere bereft of honor," wrote Virgil, while Lucian be-
wailed the departed peasants whose places were taken by fet-
tered slaves.9

The importation of slaves to Virginia had somewhat simi-
lar results. While not destroying entirely the little farmer
class, it exerted a baleful influence upon it, driving many
families out of the colony, making the rich man richer, re-
ducing the poor man to dire poverty. Against this unfor-
tunate development the Virginia yeoman was helpless. In-
stinctively he must have felt that the slave was his enemy,
and the hatred and rivalry which even today exists between
the negro and the lowest class of whites, the so-called "poor
white trash," dates back to the Seventeenth century.

The emigration of poor persons, usually servants just freed,
from Virginia to neighboring colonies was well under way
even at the time of Bacon's Rebellion. In 1677 complaint was
made of "the inconvenience which arose from the neighbor-
hood of Maryland and North Carolina," in that Virginia was
daily deprived of its inhabitants by the removal of poor men
hither. Runaway servants were welcomed in both places, it
was asserted, while the debtor was accorded protection against
prosecution.10 This early emigration was caused, of course,
not by the importation of slaves, for that movement had not
yet assumed important proportions, but by the evil conse-
quences of the Navigation Acts. The Virginia yeoman moved
on to other colonies because he found it impossible to main-
tain himself at the current price of tobacco.

The continuance of the movement, for it persisted for a
full half century, must be ascribed to the competition of negro
labor. Like the Roman peasant, the Virginia yeoman, to an
extent at least, found it impossible to maintain himself in the
face of slave competition. The servant, upon the expiration
of his term, no longer staked off his little farm and settled

140 THE PLANTERS OF

clown to a life of usefulness and industry. The poor planter
who had not yet fully established himself, sold or deserted his
fields and moved away in search of better opportunities and
higher returns.

This migration was not the first of its kind in the English
colonies, for the movement of Massachusetts congregations
into the valley of the Connecticut antedated it by several dec-
ades. Yet it furnishes an interesting illustration of the lack
of permanency in American life, of the facility with which
populations urged on by economic pressure of one kind or
another change localities. The great movement westward
over the Appalachian range which followed the War of 1812,
the pilgrimages of homesteaders to the northwest and the
Pacific coast, find their precedent in the exodus of these poor
families from the tobacco fields of Virginia.

In the last decade of the Seventeenth century the migration
assumed such large proportions that the Board of Trade be-
came alarmed and directed Francis Nicholson to enquire into
its cause in order that steps might be taken to stop it. The
emigrant stream that directed itself northward did not halt
in eastern Maryland, for conditions there differed little from
those in Virginia itself. The settlers went on to the unoc-
cupied lands in the western part of the colony, or made their
way into Delaware or Pennsylvania. "The reason why in-
habitants leave this province," wrote Nicholson, while Gover-
nor of Maryland, "is, I think, the encouragement which they
receive from the Carolinas, the Jerseys, and above all from
Pennsylvania, which is so nigh that it is easy to remove thither.
There handicraft tradesmen have encouragement when they
endeavor to set up woolen manufactures."11

Although this explanation does not go to the root of the
matter, it was in part correct. The northern colonies held out
far greater opportunities for the poor man than the slave

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 141

choked fields of tidewater Maryland and Virginia. The in-
dustries of Pennsylvania and Delaware and the Jerseys de-
manded a certain degree of skill and yielded in return a very
fair living. In other words, the poor settlers in Virginia,
finding that tobacco culture was now based upon the cheap
labor of African slaves, moved away to other localities where
intelligence still brought an adequate reward.

The Maryland House of Delegates, when asked to give
their opinion in this matter, thought that it was a desire to
escape the payment of debts which made some of the "meaner
inhabitants" seek shelter in Delaware Bay and the Carolinas.
They came nearer the real cause when they added that the
low price paid by the merchants for tobacco obliged many to
leave.12 Nicholson was not satisfied with this answer. "They
will not directly own," he wrote, "that setting up manufactures
and handicraft-trades in Pennsylvania, the large tracts of land
held by some persons here and the encouragement given to
illegal traders are the causes that make people leave this prov-
ince. They would have it that they wish to avoid the persecu-
tion of their creditors, which causes them to shelter themselves
among the inhabitants of the Lower Counties of Delaware Bay
and of Carolina. The low price of tobacco has obliged many
of the planters to try their fortune elsewhere, and the cur-
rency of money in Pennsylvania, which here is not, draws
them to that province from this."13

In Virginia the difficulty of securing desirable land because
of the large tracts patented by rich planters was usually as-
signed as the reason for the migration of poor families. This
view of the matter was taken by Edward Randolph, the man
who had won the undying hatred of the people of Massachus-
etts by his attempts to enforce the Navigation Acts there and
by his attacks upon their charter. In 1696 Randolph did
Virginia the honor of a visit, and although encountering there

142 THE PLANTERS OF

none of the opposition which had so angered him in New
England, he sent to the Board of Trade a memorial concern-
ing the colony, criticising the government severely. It should
be inquired into, he said, how it comes to pass that the colony
(the first English settlement on the continent of America, be-
gun above 80 years ago) is not better inhabited, considering
what vast numbers of servants and others have yearly been
transported thither. . . . The chief and only reason is the
Inhabitants and Planters have been and at this time are dis-
couraged and hindered from planting tobacco in that colony,
and servants are not so willing to go there as formerly, be-
cause the members of the Council and others, who make an
interest in the Government, have from time to time procured
grants of very large Tracts of land, so that there has not for
many years been any waste land to be taken up by those who
bring with them servants, or by such Servants, who have
served their time faithfully with their Masters, but it is taken
up and ingrossed beforehand, whereby they are forced to hyer
and pay a yearly rent for some of those Lands, or go to the
utmost bounds of the Colony for Land, exposed to danger
and often times proves the Occasion of Warr with the In-
dians."14

For their large holdings the wealthy men paid not one penny
of quit rents, Randolph said, and failed to comply with the
regulations for seating new lands. The law demanded that
upon receipt of a patent one must build a house upon the
ground, improve and plant the soil and keep a good stock of
cattle or hogs. But in their frontier holdings the wealthy men
merely erected a little bark hut and turned two or three hogs
into the woods by it. Or else they would clear one acre of
land and plant a little Indian corn for one year, trusting that
this evasion would square them with the letter of the law. By
such means, Randolph adds, vast tracts were held, all of

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 143

which had been procured on easy terms and much by means
of false certificates of rights. ''Which drives away the in-
habitants and servants, brought up only to planting, to seek
their fortunes in Carolina or other places."15

Randolph suggested that the evil might be remedied by re-
quiring a strict survey of lands in every county, by demanding
all arrears of quit rents, by giving strict orders that in the
future no grant should exceed 500 acres. These measures,
he believed, would cause 100,000 acres to revert to the Crown,
and "invite home those who for want of Land left Virginia."
It would encourage other persons to come from neighboring
colonies to take up holdings and "mightily increase the num-
ber of Planters." This would augment the production of to-
bacco by many thousands of hogsheads, stimulate trade and
industry in England, and aid his Majesty's revenue.

The Board of Trade was deeply impressed. They wrote to
Governor Andros explaining to him the substance of Ran-
dolph's report and asking what steps should be taken to remedy
the evils he had pointed out. "But this seeming to us a mat-
ter of very great consequence," they added, "we have not been
willing to meddle in it without your advice, which we now
desire you to give fully and plainly." But Andros knew full
well that it was no easy matter to make the large landowners
disgorge. The thing had been attempted by Nicholson several
years earlier, when suit was instituted against Colonel Law-
rence Smith for arrears of quit rents upon tracts of land which
had never been under cultivation.16 But before the case came
to trial Nicholson had been recalled and it was afterward com-
pounded for a nominal sum. The proceedings had caused
great resentment among the powerful clique which centered
around the Council of State, and Andros was reluctant to re-
open the matter. He knew of no frauds in granting patents
of land, he wrote the Board, and could suggest no remedy

i44 THE PLANTERS OF

for what was past, "being a matter of Property." He agreed,
however, that to limit the size of future patents would tend to
"the more regular planting and thicker seating of the frontier
lands."17

Consequently when Francis Nicholson was commissioned as
Governor in 1698, he received strict instructions to advise
with the Council and the Assembly upon this matter and to
report back to the Board.18 That nothing was accomplished,
however, may clearly be inferred from a letter of a certain
George Larkin written December 22, 1701. "There is no en-
couragement for anyone to come to the Plantation," he de-
clared, "most of the land lying at all convenient being taken
up. Some have 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 acres, the greater
part of which is unimployed."19 Two years later Nicholson
himself wrote that certain recent grants were for ten or twenty
thousand acres each, so that privileged persons had engrossed
all the good land in those parts, by which means they kept
others from settling it or else made them pay for it.20

Despite all the concern which this matter created, it is
doubtful whether it was to any appreciable extent responsible
for the continued emigration of poor families. The mere
granting of patents for large tracts of land could not of itself
fix the economic structure of the colony, could not, if all other
conditions were favorable, prevent the establishment of small
freeholds. Rather than have their fields lie idle while the
poor men who should have been cultivating them trooped out
of the colony, the rich would gladly have sold them in small
parcels at nominal prices. In the first half century after the
settlement at Jamestown, as we have seen, such a breakup of
extensive holdings into little farms actually occurred. Had
similar conditions prevailed in the later period a like develop-
ment would have followed. But in 1630 or 1650, when slaves
were seldom employed and when tobacco was high, the poor

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 145

man's toil yielded a return so large that he could well afford
to purchase a little farm and make himself independent. In
1680 or 1700, in the face of the competition of slave labor,
he was almost helpless. Even had he found a bit of unoccupied
ground to which he could secure a title, he could not make it
yield enough to sustain him and his family.21

In 1728 Governor Gooch wrote the Board of Trade that the
former belief that large holdings of frontier land had been an
impediment to settlement was entirely erroneous. It was his
opinion, in fact, that extensive grants made it to the interest
of the owners to bring in settlers and so populate the country.
In confirmation of this he pointed to the fact that Spotsylvania
country, where many large patents had been issued, had filled
up more rapidly than Brunswick, where they had been re-
stricted in size.22

In the first decade of the new century the emigration out
of the tobacco colonies continued without abatement. With
another disastrous decline in the price of tobacco following the
outbreak of the wars of Charles XII and Louis XIV, so many
families moved over the border that the Board of Trade, once
more becoming seriously alarmed, questioned the Council as
to the causes of the evil and what steps should be taken to
remedy it. In their reply the Councillors repeated the old
arguments, declaring that the lack of land in Virginia and
the immunity of debtors from prosecution in the proprietory
colonies were responsible for the movement. But they touched
the heart of the matter in their further statement that the great
stream of negroes that was pouring into the colony had so in-
creased the size of the tobacco crop that prices had declined
and the poor found it difficult to subsist. Not only "servants
just free go to North Carolina," they wrote, "but old planters
whose farms are worn out."23

A year later President Jennings stated that the migration

146 THE PLANTERS OF

was continuing and that during- the summer of 1709 "many
entire families" had moved out of the colony.24 In fact, al-
though but few indentured servants arrived from England
after the first decade of the century, poor whites were still
departing for the north or for western Carolina so late as 1730.
William Byrd II tells us that in 1728, when he was running
the dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina, he
was entertained by a man who "was lately removed, Bag and
Baggage from Maryland, thro a strong Antipathy he had to
work and paying his Debts." Indeed he thought it a "thor-
ough Aversion to Labor" which made "People file off to North
Carolina."25

It is impossible to estimate the numbers involved in this
movement, but they must have run into the thousands. For
a full half century a large proportion of the white immigrants
to Virginia seem to have remained there for a comparatively
short time only, then to pass on to other settlements. And the
migration to Virginia during these years we know to have
comprised not less than thirty or thirty-five thousand persons.
In fact, it would seem that this movement out of the older
colony must have been a very important factor in the peopling
of its neighbors, not only western Carolina and western Mary-
land, but Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Though many thus fled before the stream of negroes
which poured in from Africa, others remained behind to fight
for their little plantations. Yet they waged a losing battle.
Those who found it possible to purchase slaves, even one or
two, could ride upon the black tide, but the others slowly sank
beneath it.

During the first half of the Eighteenth century the poor
whites sought to offset the cheapness of slave made tobacco
by producing themselves only the highest grades. The traders
who dealt in the finest Orinoco, which brought the best prices,

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 147

found it not upon the plantations of the wealthy, but of those
who tended their plants with their own hands. "I must beg
you to remember that the common people make the best," wrote
Governor Gooch to the Lords of Trade in 1731.26

In fact, the wealthy planter, with his newly acquired gangs
of slaves, found it difficult at this time to produce any save
the lower grades of tobacco. The African was yet too savage,
too untutored in the ways of civilization to be utilized for
anything like intensive cultivation. "Though they may plant
more in quantity," wrote Gooch, "yet it frequently proves very
mean stuff, different from the Tobacco produced from well im-
proved and well tended Grounds." "Yet the rich Man's trash
will always damp the Market," he adds, "and spoil the poor
Man's good Tobacco which has been carefully managed."27
Thus the small farmer made one last desperate effort to save
himself by pitting his superior intelligence against the cheap-
ness of slave labor.

But his case was hopeless. As slavery became more and
more fixed upon the colony, the negro gradually increased in
efficiency. He learned to speak his master's language, broken-
ly of course, but well enough for all practical purposes. He
was placed under the tutelage of overseers, who taught him
the details of his work and saw that he did it. He became
a civilized being, thoroughly drilled in the one task required
of him, the task of producing tobacco. Thus the rich planter
soon found it possible to cultivate successfully the higher
grades, and so to drive from his last rampart the white free-
holder whose crop was tended by himself alone.

Placed at so great a disadvantage, the poor man, at all times
in very difficult circumstances, found it almost impossible to
exist whenever conditions in Europe sent the price of tobacco
down. In the years from 1706 to 1714, when the tobacco
trade was interrupted by the wars of Charles XII in the Baltic

148 THE PLANTERS OF

region and the protracted struggle known as the War of the
Spanish Succession, he was reduced to the utmost extremities.

Virginia and Maryland were learning that a prosperity
founded upon one crop which commanded a world market was
in unsettled times subject to serious setbacks. It was a long
cry from the James and the Potomac to the Baltic ports, yet
the welfare of the Virginia and Maryland planters was in no
small degree dependent upon the maintenance of peaceful con-
ditions in Poland and Sweden and Russia. A war which
seriously curtailed the exportation of English leaf to the
northern countries would inevitably react on the price and so
bring misfortune to the colonial planters. When called before
the Board of Trade to testify as to the decay of the tobacco
trade, the manufacturer John Linton declared that the Baltic
countries, which formerly had purchased thousands of hogs-
heads a year, now took comparatively few. "The Russian
trade is ruined," he said.28

The war against France and Spain, coming at this unfor-
tunate juncture, still further restricted the market, sent prices
down to new depths and filled to overflowing the planters'
cup of misfortune. "The war has stopped the trade with
Spain, France, Flanders and part of the Baltic," Colonel Quary
reported in a memorial to the Board of Trade, "which took off
yearly 20,000 hogsheads of tobacco. Now our best foreign
market is Holland."29 The pamphlet entitled The Present
State of the Tobacco Plantations in America stated, in 1708,
that France and Spain alone had imported 20,000 hogsheads,
but that both were now otherwise supplied. "The troubles in
Sweden, Poland, Russia, etc., have prevented the usual ex-
portation of great quantities to those ports. Virginia and
Maryland have severely felt the loss of such exportation, hav-
ing so far reduced the planters that for several years past the
whole product of their tobacco would hardly clothe the ser-
vants that made it."30

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 149

Their misfortunes were accentuated by the fact that the
Dutch took advantage of the European upheavals to gain con-
trol of a part of the tobacco trade. Upon the outbreak of the
war with Louis XIV, England prohibited the exportation of
tobacco either to France or to Spain, but Holland, despite her
participation in the struggle, apparently took no such action.
On the contrary she strained every nerve to entrench herself
in the markets of her ally before peace should once more open
the flood gates to Virginia and Maryland tobacco. With this
in view the acreage in Holland devoted to the cultivation of
the leaf was rapidly extended. "The Dutch are improving and
increasing their tobacco plantations," wrote John Linton in
1706. "In 1 70 1 they produced only 18,000 hogsheads. Last
year it was 33,500 hogsheads." Plantations at Nimwegen,
Rhenen, Amersfoort and Nijkerk turned out 13,400,000
pounds, while great quantities were raised on the Main, in
Higher Germany and in Prussia.31

The Dutch mixed their own leaf with that of Virginia and
Maryland in the proportion of four to one, subjected it to a
process of manufacture and sent it out to all the European
markets.32 In 1707 a letter to John Linton stated that they
had from thirty to forty houses for "making up tobacco in
rolls," employing 4,000 men, besides great numbers of women
and girls. Their Baltic exports were estimated at 12,350,000
pounds; 2,500,000 pounds to Norway, 1,500,000 to Jutland
and Denmark, 4,000,000 to Sweden, 2,350,000 to Lapland,
2,000,000 to Danzig and Konigsberg.33

With the continuation of the war on the continent Dutch
competition became stronger and stronger. In 1714, when
peace was at last in prospect, they seemed thoroughly en-
trenched in many of the markets formerly supplied by the
English. "The planting of tobacco in Holland, Germany,
Etc.," it was reported to the Board of Trade, "is increased to

1 5o THE PLANTERS OF

above four times what it was 20 years ago, and amounts now
to as much as is made in both Virginia and Maryland." The
tobacco trade, which had formerly produced some £250,000
in the balance of trade, had declined to about half that figure,
exports of manufactured goods to the Chesapeake were rapidly
dwindling, the number of ships engaged in carrying tobacco
was greatly reduced, the merchants were impoverished, the
planters were ruined.3*

"It is hardly possible to imagine a more miserable spectacle
than the poorer sort of inhabitants in this colony," the Council
wrote in 1713, "whose labour in tobacco has not for several
years afforded them clothing to shelter them from the violent
colds as well as heats to both wrhich this climate is subject in
the several seasons. The importation of British and other
European commodities by the merchants, whereby the planters
were formerly well supplied with clothing, is now in a manner
wholly left off and the small supplies still ventured sold at
such prodigeous rates as they please. Many families formerly
well clothed and their houses well furnished are now reduced
to rags and all the visible marks of poverty."35

This unfortunate period was but temporary. With the con-
clusion of peace English tobacco was dumped upon the Euro-
pean market at a figure so low as to defy competition. And
when once the hogsheads began to move, the reaction on Vir-
ginia and Maryland was rapid and pronounced. Soon prices
rose again to the old levels, and the colony entered upon a
period, for the larger planters at least, of unprecedented pros-
perity.36 But the eight years of hardship and poverty made
a lasting imprint upon the poorest class of whites. Coming
as they did upon the heels of the first great wave of negro
-immigration, they accelerated the movement of the disrupting
forces already at work. It was not by accident that the largest
migration of whites to other settlements occurred just at this

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 151

time and that the inquiries as to its cause are most frequent.
The little planter class never fully recovered from the blow
dealt it by the temporary loss of the larger part of the Euro-
pean tobacco trade.

The small freeholders who possessed neither servants nor
slaves did not disappear entirely, but they gradually declined
in numbers and sank into abject poverty. During the period
of Spotswood's administration they still constituted a large
part of the population. The tax list for 1716 in Lancaster,
one of the older counties, shows that of 314 persons listed as
tithables, 202 paid for themselves only37 Making ample de-
ductions for persons not owning land it would appear that more
than half the planters at this date still tilled their fields only
with their own labor. At the time of the American Revolu-
tion, however, the situation had changed materially, and a de-
cided dwindling of the poor farmer class is noticeable. In
Gloucester county the tax lists for 1782-83 show 490 white
families, of which 320 were in possession of slaves. Of the
170 heads of families who possessed no negroes, since no
doubt some were overseers, some artisans, some professional
men, it is probable that not more than eighty or ninety were
proprietors.38 In Spotsylvania county similar conditions are
noted. Of 704 tithable whites listed in 1783 all save 199
possessed slaves.39 In Dinwiddie county, in the year 1782, of
843 tithable whites, 210 only were not slave holders.40 Ap-
parently the Virginia yeoman, the sturdy, independent farmer
of the Seventeenth century, who tilled his little holding with
his own hands, had become an insignificant factor in the life of
the colony. The glorious promises which the country had
held out to him in the first fifty years of its existence had
been belied. The Virginia which had formerly been so largely
the land of the little farmer, had become the land of masters
and slaves. For aught else there was no room.

152 THE PLANTERS OF

Before the end of the Eighteenth century the condition of
the poorest class had become pitiable. The French philosopher
Chastellux who spent much time in Virginia during the Ameri-
can Revolution testifies to their extreme misery. "It is there
that I saw poor persons for the first time since crossing the
ocean," he says. "In truth, near these rich plantations, in
which the negro alone is unhappy, are often found miserable
huts inhabited by whites whose wan faces and ragged gar-
ments give testimony to their poverty."41

Philip Fithian, in his Journal, describes the habits of this
class and is vigorous in his condemnation of the brutal fights
which were so common among them. "In my opinion animals
which seek after and relish such odius and filthy amusements
are not of the human species," he says, "they are destitute of
the remotest pretension of humanity."42 Even the negroes of
the wealthy regarded these persons with contempt, a contempt
which they were at no pains to conceal.

The traveller Smyth thought them "kind, hospitable and
generous," but illiberal, noisy and rude," and much "addicted
to inebriety and averse to labor." This class, he says, "who
ever compose the bulk of mankind, are in Virginia more few
in numbers, in proportion to the rest of the inhabitants, than
perhaps in any other country in the universe."43

But it must not be imagined that slavery drove out or ruined
the entire class of small farmers, leaving Virginia alone to the
wealthy. In fact, most of those who were firmly established
remained, finding their salvation in themselves purchasing
slaves. Few indeed had been able to avail themselves of the
labor of indentured servants; the cost of transportation was
too heavy, the term too short, the chances of sickness or deser-
tion too great. But with the influx of thousands of negroes,
the more enterprising and industrious of the poor planters
quite frequently made purchases. Although the initial outlay

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 153

was greater, they could secure credit by pledging their farms
and their crops, and in the end the investment usually paid
handsome dividends and many who could not raise the money
to buy a full grown negro, often found it possible to secure a
child, which in time would become a valuable asset.

This movement may readily be traced by an examination of
the tax lists and county records of the Eighteenth century. In
Lancaster even so early as 1716 we find that the bulk of the
slaves were in the hands, not of wealthy proprietors, but of
comparatively poor persons. Of the 314 taxpayers listed, 113
paid for themselves alone, 94 for two only, 37 for three, 22
for four, thirteen for five, while thirty-five paid for more
than five. As there were but few servants in the colony at
this time it may be taken for granted that the larger part of
the tithables paid for by others were negro slaves. It would
seem, then, that of some 200 slave owners in this country,
about 165 possessed from one to four negroes only. There
were but four persons listed as having more than twenty slaves,
William Ball with 22, Madam Fox with 23, William Fox
with 25 and Robert Carter with 126.44

Nor did the class of little slave holders melt away as time
passed. In fact they continued to constitute the bulk of the
white population of Virginia for a century and a half, from the
beginning of the Eighteenth century until the conquest of the
State by Federal troops in 1865. Thus we find that of 633
slave owners in Dinwiddie county in 1782, 95 had one only,
66 had two, 71 three, 45 four, 50 five, making an aggregate
of 327, or more than half of all the slave holders, who pos-
sessed from one to five negroes.45 In Spotsylvania there were,
in 1783, 505 slave owners, of whom 78 possessed one each,
54 two, 44 three, 41 four, and 30 five each. Thus 247, or
nearly 49 per cent of the slave holders, had from one to five
slaves only. One hundred and sixteen, or 23 per cent, had

154 THE PLANTERS OF

from six to ten inclusive.46 The Gloucester lists for 1783
show similar conditions. There were in this country 320 slave
holders, having 3,314 negroes, an average of about io^S for
each owner. Fifty had one each, 41 had two each, 9 had three,
30 had four and twenty-six had five. Thus 156, or about half
of all the owners, had from one to five slaves.47 In Princess
Anne county, of a total of 388 slave owners, 100 had one each,
56 had two each and forty-five had three each.48

Records of transfers of land tend to substantiate this testi-
mony, by showing that the average holdings at all times in the
Eighteenth century were comparatively small. In the years
from 1722 to 1729 Spotsylvania was a new county, just
opened to settlers, and a large part of its area had been granted
in large tracts to wealthy patentees. Yet the deed book for
these years shows that it was actually settled, not by these men
themselves, but by a large number of poor planters. Of the
197 transfers of land recorded, 44 were for 100 acres or less
and no for 300 acres or less. The average deed was for 487
acres. As some of the transfers were obviously made for
speculative purposes and not with the intent of putting the
land under cultivation, even this figure is misleading. The
average farm during the period was probably not in excess
of 400 acres. One of the most extensive dealers in land in
Spotsylvania was Larkin Chew who secured a patent for a
large tract and later broke it up into many small holdings
which were sold to new settlers.49

This substitution of the small slave holder for the man who
used only his own labor in the cultivation of his land unques-
tionably saved the class of small proprietors from destruction.
Without it all would have been compelled to give up their
holdings in order to seek their fortunes elsewhere, or sink to
the condition of "poor white trash." Yet the movement was
in many ways unfortunate. It made the poor man less in-

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 155

dustrious and thrifty. Formerly he had known that he could
win nothing- except by the sweat of his brow, but now he was
inclined to let the negro do the work. Slavery cast a stigma
upon labor which proved almost as harmful to the poor white
man as did negro competition. Work in the tobacco fields was
recognized as distinctly the task of an inferior race, a task not
in keeping with the dignity of freemen.

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

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

Despite the persistence of the small slave holder it is ob-
vious that there were certain forces at work tending to in-
crease the number of well-to-do and wealthy planters. Now
that the labor problem, which in the Seventeenth century had
proved so perplexing, had finally been solved, there was no
limit to the riches that might be acquired by business acumen,

156 THE PLANTERS OF

industry and good management. And as in the modern in-
dustrial world the large corporation has many advantages
over the smaller firms, so in colonial Virginia the most eco-
nomical way of producing tobacco was upon the large planta-
tions.

The wealthy man had the advantage of buying and selling
in bulk, he enjoyed excellent credit and could thus often afford
to withhold his crop from the market when prices were mo-
mentarily unfavorable, he could secure the best agricultural in-
struments. Most important of all, however, was the fact that
he could utilize the resources of his plantation for the pro-
duction of crude manufactured supplies, thus to a certain ex-
tent freeing himself from dependence upon Birtish imports
and keeping his slaves at work during all seasons of the year.
Before the Eighteenth century had reached its fifth decade
every large plantation had become to a remarkable degree self-
sustaining. Each numbered among its working force various
kinds of mechanics — coopers, blacksmiths, tanners, carpenters,
shoemakers, distillers. These men could be set to work when-
ever the claims of the tobacco crop upon their time were not
imperative producing many of the coarser articles required
upon the plantation, articles which the poor farmer had to im-
port from England. For this work white men were at first
almost universally made use of, but in time their places were
taken by slaves. "Several of them are taught to be sawyers,
carpenters, smiths, coopers, &c," says the historian Hugh
Jones, "though for the most part they be none of the aptest
or nicest."53

The carpenter was kept busy constructing barns and ser-
vants' quarters, or repairing stables, fences, gates and wagons.
The blacksmith was called upon to shoe horses, to keep in
order ploughs, hinges, sickles, saws, perhaps even to forge
outright such rough iron ware as nails, chains and hoes. The

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 157

cooper made casks in which to ship the tobacco crop, barrels
for flour and vats for brandy and cider. The tanner prepared
leather for the plantation and the cobbler fashioned it into
shoes for the slaves. Sometimes there were spinners, weav-
ers and knitters who made coarse cloth both for clothing and
for bedding. The distiller every season made an abundant
supply of cider, as well as apple, peach and persimmon brandy.

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

It was inevitable, then, that the widespread use of slave
labor would result in the gradual multiplication of well-to-do
and wealthy men. In the Seventeenth century not one planter
in fifty could be classed as a man of wealth, and even so late
as 1704 the number of the well-to-do was very narrowly lim-
ited. In a report to the Lords of Trade written in that year
Colonel Quary stated that upon each of the four great rivers
of Virginia there resided from "ten to thirty men who by
trade and industry had gotten very competent estates."5
Fifty years later the number had multiplied several times over.

Thus in Gloucester county in 1783, of 320 slave holders no
less than 57 had sixteen or more. Of these one possessed 162,
one 138, one 93, one 86, one 63, one 58, two 57, one 56, one
43 and one 40.56 In Spotsylvania, of 505 owners, j6 had six-
teen or more. Of these Mann Page, Esq., had 157, Mrs.
Mary Daingerfield had 71, William Daingerfield 61, Alexander

158 THE PLANTERS OF

Spotswood 60, William Jackson 49, George Stubblefield 42,
Frances Marewither 40, William Jones 39."

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

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

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

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 159

then that men and women alike wore rich and expensive
clothing.

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

It is this fact which explains the decline in power and in-
fluence of the Council in Virginia, which was so notable in
the Eighteenth century. This body had formerly been repre-
sentative of a small clique of families so distinct from the
other planters and possessed of such power in the govern-
ment as to rival the nobility of England itself. Now, how-
ever, as this distinction disappeared, the Council sank in pres-
tige because it represented nothing, while the House of Bur-
gesses became the mouthpiece of the entire slave holding class,
and thus the real power in the colonial Government.

Historians have often expressed surprise at the small num-
ber of Tories in Virginia during the American Revolution.
The aristocratic type of society would naturally lead one to
suppose that a large proportion of the leading families would
have remained loyal to the Crown. Yet with very few excep-
tions all supported the cause of freedom and independence,
even though conscious of the fact that by so doing they were
jeopardizing not only the tobacco trade which was the basis

160 THE PLANTERS OF

of their wealth, but the remnants of their social and political
privileges in the colony. When the British Ministry tried to
wring from the hands of the Assembly the all-important con-
trol over taxation which all knew to be the very foundation
of colonial self-government, every planter, the largest as well
as the smallest, felt himself aggrieved, for this body was the
depository of his power and the guardian of his interests. A
hundred years before, when the commons rose against the
oppression and tyranny of the Government, the wealthy men
rallied to the support of Sir William Berkeley and remained
loyal to him throughout all his troubles. In 1775 there was
no such division of the people; the planters were almost a
unit in the defense of rights which all held in common.

It is obvious, then, that slavery worked a profound revolu-
tion in the social, economic and political life of the colony.
It practically destroyed the Virginia yeomanry, the class of
small planters who used neither negroes nor servants in the
cultivation of their fields, the class which produced the bulk
of the tobacco during the Seventeenth century and constituted
the chief strength of the colony. Some it drove into exile,
either to the remote frontiers or to other colonies ; some it re-
duced to extreme poverty ; some it caused to purchase slaves
and so at one step to enter the exclusive class of those who
had others to labor for them. Thus it transformed Virginia
from a land of hardworking, independent peasants, to a land
of slaves and slave holders. The small freeholder was not
destroyed, as was his prototype of ancient Rome, but he was
subjected to a change which was by no means fortunate or
wholesome. The wealthy class, which had formerly consisted
of a narrow clique closely knit together by family ties, was
transformed into a numerous body, while all sharp line of de-
markation between it and the poorer slave holders was wiped
out. In short, the Virginia of the Eighteenth century, the

COLONIAL VIRGINIA 161

Virginia of Gooch and Dinwiddie and Washington and Jeffer-
son, was fundamentally different from the Virginia of the
Seventeenth century, the Virginia of Sir William Berkeley and
Nathaniel Bacon. Slavery had wrought within the borders of
the Old Dominion a profound and far reaching revolution.

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, A True Dec-
laration, p. 25.

2 Purchas, Vol. XVIII, pp. 437-438.

3 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, A True Dec-
laration, p. 23.

4 Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol.

I, P- 37-

5 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. I, Nova Brittania,

pp. 21-22.

6 Hakluyt, Discourse, pp. 89-90.

7 Hakluyt, Discourse, p. 105.

8 Hakluyt, Discourse, p. 31.

9 Hakluyt, Discourse, pp. 14-15.

10 Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America, p. 49.

11 Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol. I.
p. 349; Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. I, Nova Brit-
tania, pp. 16-17.

12 Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol. I,

P- 239-

13 Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol. I,

p. 202.

14 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p, 445.

15 Neill, The Virginia Company of London, p. 338.

16 Randolph Manuscript, p. 212.

17 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 440;
Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol. I, p.

239-

18 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 441.

19 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 443.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 161 ;
Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America, p. 232.

2 William Strachey, Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britan-
nia, p. 121 ; P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol.
I, p. 162.

162

NOTES 163

3 Ralph Hamor, True Discourse, pp. 24, 34.

4 G. L. Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 79.

5 Edward Arber, The Works of Captain John Smith, p. 535.

6 Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America, p. 268.

7 G. L. Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 87.

8 G. L. Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 81.

9 Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America, p. 268.

10 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IX, pp.
40-41.

11 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IX, pp.
176-177.

12 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 416.

13 Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, Vol. I,

PP- 355-356.

14 The lack of towns in Virginia was a source of great regret
to the English Government, and more than once attempts were
made to create them by artificial means.

15 Even at the end of the Seventeenth century the average price
for land in the older counties was about thirty pounds of tobacco
an acre.

16 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 578;
Vol. II, p. 48.

17 It was Chanco, an Indian boy living with a Mr. Pace, who
revealed the plot to massacre the whites in 1622, and so saved
the colony from destruction. Edward Arber, The Works of
Captain John Smith, p. 578.

18 P. A. Bruce, The Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II,

P- 7°. . hyt/^ I ? 1

19 For a full discussion of this matter see p. ^3-. '

20 Hakluyt, Vol. VII, p. 286.

21 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 582.

22 Abstracts Nof Proceedings of Virginia Company of London,
Vol. I, pp. 28, 172; Edward Arber, The Works of Captain John
Smith, p. 609.

23 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. II, p. 510.

24 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 603.

25 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 605.

26 Virginia Land Patents, Vol. V, Register of Land Office, Vir-
ginia State Capitol.

27 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. II, p. 510.

28 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 611.

1 64 NOTES

29 British Public Record Office, CO 1-26-77, Berkeley to the
Board of Trade.

80 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Orders and
Constitutions, 1619, 1620, p. 22.

31 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

82 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, p. 208.

83 Princeton Transcripts, Virginia Land Patents, Princeton
University Library.

34 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

1 L. G. Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, pp. 21-22.

2 Abstracts of Proceedings of Virginia Company of London,
Vol. II, p. 171.

3 British Public Record Office, CO1-26-77, Berkeley to Board
of Trade.

4 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 257.

5 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 411.

6 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 539.

7 British Public Record Office, CO 1-26-77, Berkeley to Board
of Trade.

8 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

9 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 595.

10 J. C. Hotten, Original Lists of Emigrants to America (1600-
1700).

11 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Descrip-
tion of Virginia, p. 3.

12 British Public Record Office, CO 1-26-77, Berkeley to Board
of Trade.

13 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, p. 119, Colonial
Entry Book, Governor Andros to the Lords of Trade.

14 E. D. Neill, Virginia Vetusta, p. 123.

15 Hugh Jones, Present State of Virginia, p. 61.

16 Surry County Records, 1684-1686, Virginia State Library.

17 York County Records, 1696-1701, Virginia State Library.

18 Rappahannock County Deeds, 1680- 1688, Virginia State
Library.

19 Essex County, Orders, Deeds, Etc., 1692-1695, Virginia State
Library.

NOTES 165

20 J. C. Hotten, Original Lists of Emigrants to America, pp.
266-275.

21 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, pp. 529-

532-

22 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia

State Capitol.

23 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I, p. 30.

24 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, p.

387-

25 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

26 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

27 Essex County, Orders, Deeds, Etc., 1692-1695, Virginia State
Library.

28 Surry County Records, 1645-1672, p. 17.

29 Essex County, Orders, Deeds, Etc., 1692-1695, p. 348, Vir-
ginia State Library.

30 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol, Vol. V.

31 Essex County, Orders, Deeds, Etc., 1692-1695, pp. 199, 202,
205, 209, 216, 348, 394, 407, 413, Virginia State Library.

32 H. R. Mcllwaine, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1686,

P- 37-

33 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 91-92, Colonial
Entry Book.

34 British Public Record Office, CO5-1306, Document 116, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

35 British Public Record Office, CO5-1355, p. 361, Colonial
Entry Book.

36 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 91-92, Colonial
Entry Book. n

37 British Public Record Office, CO5-1405, p. 460, Council
Minutes, 1680-1695.

38 British Public Record Office, CO5-1405, pp. 544-545, Coun-
cil Minutes, 1680-1695.

39 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, p. 345, Colonial
Entry Book, 1696- 1700.

40 British Public Record Office, CO5-1339, Document 33V.
Correspondence of the Board of Trade.

41 British Public Record Office, CO5-1314, Document 63 VIII,
Correspondence of the Board of Trade. A copy of this interest-

1 66 NOTES

ing document is published as an appendix to this volume.

42 See appendix.

43 See appendix.

44 Of this land 15 acres belonged to Thomas Jefferson, probably
the grandfather of President Jefferson.

45 In the opening years of the Eighteenth century the increased
importation of slaves brought about an immediate decline in the
migration of whites to Virginia from England.

46 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. II, p. 480. The laws gov-
erning the tithables were altered slightly from time to time.

47 Surry County, Wills, Deeds, Etc., 1671-1684, pp. 134-138,
Virginia State Library.

48 Surry County, Wills, Deeds, Etc., 1671-1684, pp. 134-138,
Virginia State Library.

49 Surry County, Deeds, Wills, Etc., 1684-1686, pp. 59-63, Vir-
ginia State Library.

50 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I, pp.

364-373-

51 Prince George county was formed out of Charles City in
1703.

62 Surry County, Wills, Deeds, Etc., 1671-1684; Surry County,
Deeds, Wills, Etc., 1684-1686, Virginia State Library.

53 Elizabeth City County Records, 1684-1699, Virginia State Li-
brary.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

1 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. VIII, p. 273.

2 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. VIII, p. 273.

3 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 42.

4 Robert Beverley, History of Virginia, p. 221.

5 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Leah and
Rachel, p. 11.

6 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, p. 31.

7 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Leah and
Rachel, p. 11.

8 In fact, it was stated by John Hammond in 1656 that many
servants acquired considerable property even before the expira-
tion of their indentures. "Those servants that will be indus-
trious may in their time of service gain a competent estate be-
fore their Freedomes," he says, "which is usually done by many,
and they gaine esteeme and assistance that appear so industrious :

NOTES 167

There is no master almost but will allow his Servant a parcell
of clear ground to plant some tobacco in for himselfe, which he
may husband at those many idle times he hath allowed him and
not prejudice, but rejoyce his Master to see it, which in time of
Shipping he may lay out for commodities, and in Summer sell
them again with advantage, and get a Sow-Pig or two, which any
body almost will give him, and his Master suffer him to keep
them with his own, which will be no charge to his Master, and
with one year's increase of them may purchase a Cow calf or two,
and by that time he is for himself; he may have Cattle, Hogs and
Tobacco of his own, and come to live gallantly ; but this must be
gained (as I said) by Industry and affability, not by sloth nor
churlish behaviour." Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers,
Vol. Ill, Leah and Rachel, p. 14.

9 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IV, p.

I57-

10 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII, p.

262.

11 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII,
p. 261.

12 R. L. Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 154.

13 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII, p.
160.

14 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XIII, p.

381.

15 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Descrip-
tion of Virginia, pp. 4-6.

16 British Public Record Office, CO1-21, Secretary Ludwell to
Lord John Berkeley.

17 Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America, p. 268.

18 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII, p.
267, King Charles I to the Governor and Council of Virginia.

19 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I, p. 293

20 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VI, p. 376

21 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. II, p. 53

22 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. II, p. 394

23 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VI, p. 260

24 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII, p
382.

25 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII,
p. 149.

1 68 NOTES

26 Governor Yeardley's Instructions of 1626 contain the state-
ment that "tobacco falleth every day more and more to a baser
price."

27 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII, p,

376.

28 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII

29 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IX, p
177.

30 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. X, p. 425

31 G. L. Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 159

32 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 4.

33 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII

p. 150-.

34 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. II, p. 288
In Feb. 1627, orders were issued once more that all colonial to-
bacco, whether of Virginia or of the West Indies, should be
shipped only to London. Calendar of State Papers, 1574-1660
p. 84.

35 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII
pp. 149, 155.

36 British Public Record Office, CO1-12, Petition of Jan. 2
1655.

37 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, pp. 349-
356.

88 G. L. Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, pp. 203-
204.

39 G. L. Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 216.

40 The author of A New Description of Virginia, published in
1649, states that "in Tobacco they can make L20 sterling a man,
at 3d a pound per annum." Peter Force, Tracts and Other
Papers, Vol. II, New Description of Virginia, p. 6.

41 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII, p.
382.

42 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII, p.
149, Vol. II, p. 53, Vol. VII, p. 259.

43 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VII, p.
260.

44 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII, p.
158.

NOTES 169

45 Abstracts of Proceedings of Virginia Company of London,
Vol. I, pp. 41-42.

46 J. C. Hotten, Original Lists of Emigrants to America, pp.
201-265.

47 Colonial Virginia Register, pp. 54-55.

48 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, p. 16.

49 Colonial Virginia Register, pp. 68-69.

50 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

51 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. II, p. 420.

52 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. II, p.
421 ; Vol. IV, p. 75.

53 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I, p. 77.

54 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, pp. 15-18.

55 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, p. 56.

56 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

57 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XI, p. 271.

58 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XI, p. 276.

59 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XI, pp. 271-276.

60 Virginia Colonial Register, pp. 64, 68, 70.

61 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. IX, p. 72.

62 Virginia Land Patents, Vol. V, p. 224, Register of Land Of-
fice, Virginia State Capitol.

63 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, New Series Vol. I,
p. 4.

64 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, pp. 83,
84, 125, 126.

65 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VII, p. 5.

66 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, p. 78.

67 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, pp. yy,
191, 281.

68 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, p. 122.

69 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, p. 192.

70 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VI, p. 76.

71 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. IX, p. 144.

72 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. IX, p. 144.

73 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XI, p. 276.

74 Virginia Land Patents, Vol. Ill, Register of Land Office,
Virginia State Capitol. The name is here spelled John Black-
borne.

"Virginia Land Patents, Vol. Ill, Register of Land Office,

i ;o NOTES

Virginia State Capitol. On the lists the name is spelled Wil-
liam Butcher.

70 J. C. Wise, The Early History of the Eastern Shore of Vir-
ginia, pp. 135-137.

77 Virginia Land Patents, Vol. IV, Register of Land Office,
Virginia State Capitol.

78 J. C. Wise, The Early History of the Eastern Shore of Vir-
ginia, p. 95.

79 G. C. Greer, Early Virginia Immigrants, p. 68.

80 J. C. Wise, The Early History of the Eastern Shore of Vir-
ginia, p. 376.

81 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. V, p. 101.

82 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. VII, p. 177.

83 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VI, p. 92.

84 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VI, p. 298.

85 In 1656 John Hammond declared that though it cost six
pounds sterling to go to Virginia, those who decided to make the
venture could be sure that their money was well spent. He ad-
vised "any that goes over free, but in a mean condition, to hire
himself for reasonable wages of Tobacco and Provision, the first
year," for by that means he could live free of disbursement, and
"have something to help him the next year." Peter Force, Tracts
and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Leah and Rachel, p. 14.

86 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII, p.
441.

87 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IX, p. 27.

88 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. X, p. 271.

NOTES TO CHAPTER V

1 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. II, p. 109.

2 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 26, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

3 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 401.

4 R. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 160.

5 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Perry and Hyde to
the Lords of Trade, Correspondence of the Board of Trade.

6 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, The Present State
of the Tobacco Plantations in America, Correspondence of the
Board of Trade.

7 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade; Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IX, p. 917.

NOTES 171

8 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I, pp.
141-155.

9 British Public Record Office, CO1-16, Petition of Berkeley
and Others, Aug. 26, 1662.

10 British Public Record Office, CO 1-20, Thomas Ludwell to
Secretary Arlington, May 1, 1666.

11 British Public Record Office, CO1-20, Sir William Berkeley
and others to Secretary Arlington, July 13, 1666.

12 British Public Record Office, CO1-20, Sir William Berkeley
and others to Secretary Arlington, July 13, 1666.

13 British Public Record Office, CO1-21, Thomas Ludwell to
Lord Arlington, Feb. 12, 1667.

14 British Public Record Office, CO1-21, Thomas Ludwell to
Lord John Berkeley.

15 British Public Record Office, CO 1-23, p. 19, Ludwell to Lord
Arlington.

16 British Public Record Office, CO1-21, Governor and Council
to the King.

17 British Public Record Office, CO1-30, p. 51, Petition of the
Governor and Council.

18 British Public Record Office, CO5-1356, p. 408, Report of
the Council to the King.

19 British Public Record Office, CO5-1355, p. 385, Colonial
Entry Book.

20 British Public Record Office, CO1-23, p. 19, Ludwell to
Lord Arlington, July 20, 1665.

21 British Public Record Office, CO5-1371, p. 246, Colonial
Entry Book.

22 British Public Record Office, CO5-1371, pp. 232-240, Dia-
logue Between John Good and Nathaniel Bacon, Colonial Entry
Book, 1677.

23 British Public Record Office, CO1-30, p. 51, Petition of the
Governor and Council to the King, July 1673.

24 British Public Record Office, CO5-1355, p. 410, Colonial
Entry Book.

25 British Public Record Office, CO5-1356, p. 179, Colonial
Entry Book.

26 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. II, p. 147.

27 British Public Record Office, CO5-1371, p. 276, Colonial
Entry Book.

28 British Public Record Office, CO5-1371, p. 276, Colonial
Entry Book.

172 NOTES

29 This view of the matter has the support of the dean of Vir-
ginia historians, Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce. Dr. Bruce writes :
"No less an authority than Robert Beverley, the historian, states
that the Navigation Acts had a sensible influence in precipitating
Bacon's Rebellion. In the early life of this writer he must have
been closely associated with hundreds of people who had been
through the uprising, and knew much, by direct observation, of
the currents that governed it. The elder Beverley was thor-
oughly informed and thus, in his own home, the son had the best
of opportunities of learning the truth. Beverley himself declared
that the Acts were causing discontent among the people, long be-
fore the Rebellion actually occurred, and so did John Bland in
his memorable petition. There is no doubt that the Acts, by
keeping alive a sense of friction, left the people in just the state
of mind to seize with eagerness on the more palpable wrongs
which were specifically brought forward as the justification for
resistance. It was really the groundwork of the movement,
though if it had been the only cause, might not have precipitated
open resistance to the Government.

30 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. II, p. 115.

31 Secretary Thomas Ludwell in a long report to the British
Government spoke of the Virginia Government as Berkeley's
own, "Which I so term," he explains, "because he is the sole
author of the most substantial parts of it, either for Lawes or
other inferior institutions." British Public Record Office, CO1-20.

32 British Museum, Egerton Manuscript, 2395, f. 356b.

33 British Public Record Office, CO1-19, Berkeley to Lord Ar-
lington, Aug. 1, 1665.

84 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, pp. 399-
400.

35 British Public Record Office, CO 1-26-77, Berkeley to the
Board of Trade.

36 British Public Record Office, CO 1-30-78, Memorial of John
Knight, Oct. 29, 1673.

37 British Public Record Office, CO1-30-71, Council of Vir-
ginia to the King, 1673.

38 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Descrip-
tion of Virginia, pp. 1-16.

39 British Museum. Egerton Manuscript, 2395, f. 356b, A Dis-
course and View of Virginia.

40 British Public Record Office, CO1-26-77, Berkeley to the
Board of Trade.

NOTES 173

41 British Public Record Office, CO1-34-95, Petition of Francis
Moryson, Thomas Ludwell and Robert Smith.

42 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

43 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 20, 21, 22, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VI

1 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 3.

2 British Public Record Office, CO1-30, pp. 17, 51.

3 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1671-1624, Virginia State
Library.

4 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1684-1686, pp. 34-35, Vir-
ginia State Library.

5 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1684-1686, pp. 86-87, Vir-
ginia State Library.

6 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 199.

7 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Descrip-
tion of Virginia, p. 3.

8 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 200.

9 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Descrip-
tion of Virginia, p. 3.

10 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 18.

11 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 15.

12 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 201.

13 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Leah and
Rachel, p. 13.

"British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Statement of Mr.
Perry and Captain Hyde, Correspondence of the Board of Trade.

15 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Virginia
Richly Valued, p. 10.

16 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Albion,
P- 32.

17 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. Ill, Leah and
Rachel, p. 18.

18 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 7.

19 Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of Lon-
don, Vol. II, p. 171.

174 NOTES

20 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 153.

21 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, pp.
160-161.

22 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. V, p. 285.

23 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1684-1686, p. 7, Virginia
State Library.

24 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1684-1686, pp. 34-35, Vir-
ginia State Library.

25 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1684- 1686, pp. 86-87, Vir-
ginia State Library.

26 Surry County Wills, Deeds, Etc. 1671-1684, Virginia State
Library.

27 John Splitimber paid for himself alone in the tithable lists of

i675-

28 York County Records, 1694-1702, Virginia State Library.

29 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 15.

30 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New De-
scription of Virginia, p. 14.

31 British Public Record Office, CO5-1371, p. 241.

32 "I would have all men consider how meanly we are provided
of men of learning, ability and courage, nay indeed of honesty,
to stand up in the people's behalf and oppose the oppressing
party," said Nathaniel Bacon in 1676. British Public Record
Office, CO5-1371, p. 246.

33 The most notable case of betrayal is that of Isaac Allerton,
who sold himself to the Governor for the promise of a seat in the
Council of State. British Public Record Office, CO5-1356, pp.
125-126, Colonial Entry Book.

34 British Public Record Office, CO1-4.

35 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia. Vol. I, pp. 287-
288.

36 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. X, p. 271.
"British Public Record Office, CO1-8, p. 48.

38 British Public Record Office, CO1-8.

39 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, pp. 360-361.

40 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 361.

41 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 355.

42 Hening. Statutes at Large, Vol. I. p. 363.

43 Sixth Report of Royal Commission on Historical Manu-
scripts, Part I, Instructions to Sir George Ayscue, Sept. 26, 165 1.

44 The commissioners were Capt. Robert Dennis, Richard Ben-

NOTES 175

nett, Thomas Stegge and Captain William Claiborne, all of whom
with the exception of Dennis were Virginians.

45 Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, pp. 371, 373.

46 Southern Literary Messanger, Jan. 1845 ; Charles Campbell,
History of Virginia, p. 74.

47 Southern Literary Messanger, Jan. 1845.

48 British Public Record Office, CO5-1371, p. 387, Colonial
Entry Book.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII

1 British Public Record Office, CO5-1356, p. 104, Colonial En-
try Book.

2 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 40.

3 British Public Record Office, CO5-1305, Document 23, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

4 British Public Record Office, CO5-1345, Document 16, Cor-
respondence of the Secretary of State.

5 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 42.

6 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1702.

7 British Public Record Office, CO5-1355, pp. 381-385, Colonial
Entry Book.

8 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 168.

9 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 16, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

10 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 91.

11 British Public Record Office, CO5-1345, Document 16, John
Linton to the Board of Trade, Correspondence of the Secretary
of State.

12 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Report of John Lin-
ton on the Tobacco Trade, Correspondence of the Board of
Trade.

"British Public Record Office, CO5-1345, Document 16, Cor-
respondence of the Secretary of State.

14 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 26, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

"British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 26, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

16 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade.

17 British Public Record Office, CO5-1340, Document 91, Col.
Quary's Memorial.

1 76 NOTES

18 R. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 42.

"British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade; CO5-1360, p. 233, Governor Nicholson to
the Lords of Trade.

20 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 91, Col.
Quary's Memorial.

21 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade, Letter of Col. Quary Sept. I, 1706.

22 Princeton Transcripts, Virginia Land Patents, Princeton
University Library.

"Britain Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 107-108, Co-
lonial Entry Book. In 1699 Gov. Nicholson stated that Orinoco
was bringing 20 shillings the hundredweight and Sweetscented 25
shillings and up, which he considered an unusually good return.
British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, p. 322.

24 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 66.

25 J. C. Hotten, Original Lists of Emigrants to America, pp.
202-265.

26 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 89.

27 Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. II, New Descrip-
tion of Virginia, p. 3.

28 British Public Record Office, CO1-26-77, Berkeley to the
Board of Trade.

29 British Public Record Office, CO5-1355, p. 345, Lord Cul-
peper's account of his compliance with the King's instructions,
Dec. 1 68 1.

30 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 75.

31 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 75.
"British Public Record Office, CO1-26-77, Berkeley to the

Board of Trade.

33 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 323,

34 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, pp. 324-325.

35 York County Records, 1664- 1672, Virginia State Library.

36 York County Records, 1694-1702, Virginia State Library.

37 Henrico Records, 1677-1692, Virginia State Library.

38 York County Records, 1694-1697, Virginia State Library.

89 British Public Record Office, CO5-1317, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade.

40 British Public Record Office, CO5-1317, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade.

41 British Public Record Office, CO5-1406, Minutes of the

NOTES 177

Council March 21, 1710, CO5-1363, pp. 189-191, Colonial Entry
Book.

42 British Public Record Office, CO5-1322, Governor Gooch to
the Lords of Trade, Sept. 14, 1730; Feb. 12, 1731.

43 British Public Record Office, CO5-1363, pp. 317-324, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

"British Public Record Office, CO5-1362, pp. 369-373, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

45 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 83.

46 Princeton Transcripts, Virginia Land Patents, Princeton
University Library.

47 P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 108.

48 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade.

49 British Public Record Office, CO5-1314, Document 66,
Governor Nott to the Board of Trade.

50 British Public Record Office, CO5-1362, pp. 365-367, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

51 British Public Record Office, CO5-1362, pp. 365-367, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

52 During these years the planters were too impoverished to
purchase slaves. The decline in the tobacco trade produced a
feeling among the people that the colony had been overstocked
with blacks.

53 British Public Record Office, CO5-1322, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade, Report of Governor Gooch.

54 British Public Record Office, CO5-1322, Francis Fane to the
Lords of Trade, Dec. 10, 1728.

55 British Public Record Office, CO5-1356, p. 139, Colonial
Entry Book.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII

1 Princeton Transcripts, Virginia Land Patents, Princeton Uni-
versity Library.

2 Princeton Transcripts, Virginia Land Patents, Princeton Uni-
versity Library.

3 British Public Record Office, CO5-1362, pp. 365-367, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

4 Virginia Land Patents, Register of Land Office, Virginia
State Capitol.

5 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, p. 28.

178 NOTES

6 G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, Vol. I, pp. 320-321.

7 Jared Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. X, iii.

8 Maurice Vanlaer, La Fin d'un Peuple, pp. 38-39.

9 Maurice Vanlaer, La Fin d'un Peuple, pp. 112-117.

10 British Public Record Office, CO1-39-38.

11 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1696-1697, p. 420.

12 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1696-1697, p. 500.

13 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1696- 1697, p. 546.

14 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 20, 21, 22.

15 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 20, 21, 22.

16 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, p. 23, Colonial Entry
Book.

17 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, p. 113, Andros to
the Lords of Trade, July 1, 1697.

18 British Public Record Office, CO5-1359, pp. 266-303, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

19 British Public Record Office, CO5-1312, p. 409A, Corre-
spondence of the Board of Trade.

20 British Public Record Office, CO5-1360, p. 441, Colonial
Entry Book.

21 Rent Roll of 1704, p. 46.

22 British Public Record Office, CO5-1321, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade, Gooch to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 6, 1728.

23 British Public Record Office, CO5-1362, pp. 374-382, Co-
lonial Entry Book.

24 British Public Record Office, CO5-1364, p. 27, Colonial Entry
Book.

25 J. S. Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, p. 31.

26 British Public Record Office, CO5-1322, Gooch to the Lords
of Trade, Feb. 27, 1731.

27 British Public Record Office, CO5-1321, Gooch to the Lords
of Trade, Aug. 9, 1728.

28 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 16, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

29 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 91, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

30 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade.

81 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 16.
32 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Document 91, Cor-
respondence of the Board of Trade.

NOTES 179

33 British Public Record Office, CO5-1315, Correspondence of
the Board of Trade.

34 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Account of the to-
bacco trade by Perry and Hyde, June 2, 1714.

35 British Public Record Office, CO5-1316, Petition of the
Council, Correspondence of the Board of Trade.

36 British Public Record Office, CO5-1318, Address of King
and Queen county inhabitants to Spotswood; address of West-
moreland inhabitants ; letter of Spotswood to Lords of Trade,
Dec. 22, 1718.

37 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XXI, pp. 106-122.

38 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, pp.
414-416.

39 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IV, pp.
297-299.

40 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, pp. 97-106, 196-
201, 250-258.

41 Chastellux, Travels in North America, p. 291.

42 Philip Fithian, Journal and Letters, p. 243.

43 Smyth, A Tour of the United States, Vol. I, p. 58.

44 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XXI, pp. 106-122.

45 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, pp. 97-106, 196-
201, 250-258.

46 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IV, pp.
297-299.

47 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, p.

415.

48 Lower Norfolk County Antiquary, Vol. IV, p. 144.

49 W. A. Crozier, Virginia County Records, Vol. I, pp. 88-110.

50 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Edition of 1801, p. 321.

51 Chastellux, Travels in North America, p. 292 note.
62 Smyth, A tour of the United States, Vol. I, p. 66.

53 Hugh Jones, History of Virginia, p. 36.

54 Rowland, Life of George Mason, Vol. I, pp. 101, 102; Philip
Fithian, Journal and Letters, pp. 67, 104, 130, 130, 138, 217, 259;
P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. II, pp. 411, 418.

55 British Public Record Office, CO5-1314, Document 63IV.

56 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, p.

4I5-

57 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IV, pp.

292-299.

180 NOTES

58 William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, pp. 97-106, 196-
201, 250-258.

59 Smyth, A Tour of the United States, p. 67.

60 Anbury, Travels Through America, Vol. II, p. 330.

61 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, p.
415.

APPENDIX

RENT ROLL OF VIRGINIA

1704-1705

A True and Perfect Rent Roll of all the Lands held of her Maju*
Henrico County, Aprill 1705

Andrews Thomas 396

Ascoutch Mary 633

Archer Jno 335

Adkins Jno 125

Archer Geo 1738

Aldy John 162

Akins James Sen1" 200

Asbrook Peter Senr 200

Akins James Junr 218

Allin Widd0 99

4106

B

Byrd Esqr 19500

Boiling Rob1 500

Boiling John 831

Bevill John 495

Branch Xt0 646

Blackman Wm 175

Bridgwater Sam 280

Bowman John Junr 300

Bowman Edwd 300

Branch Benj 550

Brown Martha . . .- 893

Bullington Benj 100

Bowman Lew 65

Bullington 144

Bevell Essex 200

Baugh John 448

Baugh James 458

Burton Isaac 100

Bottom John 100

Bayley Abr 542

Brooks Jane belonging to

Wm Walker New Kent.. 550

Braseal Henry 200

Brazeal Henry Junr 300

Burton Rob1 1350

Burgony John 100

Branch James 555

Burrows Wm. Wm. Black-
well New Kent 63

Branch Thomas 540

Bailey Thomas 251

Branch Matthew 947

Burton Wm 294

Bullington Rob' 100

Broadnax Jno Jr 725

Beverley Rob1 988

33590

Cheatham Tho 300

Cox Batt 100

Cox John 150

Cox George 200

Chamberlaine Maj. Tho . . . 1000

Childers Abr. Senr 368

Cannon John 108

Cox Wm 300

Childers Abr Junr 100

Clark Wm 333

Clark John 300

Cox Rich" 300

Cardwell Tho 350

Crozdall Roger 200

Cock Wm 1535

Cock Rich"5 Senr 2180

Childers Philip Senr 50

Childers Philip 300

Childers Tho 300

Carter Theod 75

Cock Capt Thomas 2976^

Couzins Charles 362

Clerk Alonson 604

183

1 84

APPENDIX

Cock James 1506

Curd Edwd 600

Cock Richd 476

Cock Jno 98

D

Dixon Nicholas 150

Dodson Wm 100

Douglas Charles 63

313
E

Edwd Tho 676

Entroughty Derby 200

Ealam Rob1 400

Ellis John 217

East Tho Sen 475

East Tho 554

East Edwd 150

Epes Capt Fra" 2145

Evans Charles 225

Ealam Martin 130

Epes Isham, Epes Fra. Jun1

each 444^ acres 889

6061

F

Field Peter Major 2185

Farrar Capt Wm 700

Farrar Tho 1444

Farrar Jno 600

Fowler Godfrey 250

Ferguson Robert 230

Ferris Wm 50

Franklin James Sen 250

Franklin James Jun 786

Ferris Richd Sen 550

Farmer Henry 100

Forrest James 138

Forrest John 150

Fetherstone Henry 700

Farloe John Sen 100

Farloe John Jun 551

Faile John 240

9024

G

Gilley Grewin Arrian 2528

Gee Henry 435

Good John Sen 600

Garthwaite Sam1 50

Garthwaite Ephriam 163

Granger John 472

Gill John 235

Good Sam1 588

Gower James Grigs Land . . 500

5571

H

Hill James 795

Holmes Rich 100

Harris Thomas 357

Harris Tim0 250

Hill Rosamd 1633

Hobby Lawrence 500

Hatcher John 215

Haskins Edward 225

Hatcher Edward Sen 150

Hunt Geo 200

Hughs Edward 100

Hancock Samuel 100

Holmes Thomas 50

Hambleton James 100

Hutchins Nich° 240

Hatcher Benj Sen 250

Hatcher Wm Jun 50

Hobson Wm 150

Hatcher Wm Sen 298

Hatcher Henry 650

Hancock Robert 860

Harris Mary 94

Hall Edward 184

Herbert Mrs 1360

Hudson Robert 281

9242

Jones Hugh 934

Jefferson Thomas 492

Jones Philip 1 153

Jorden Henry 100

Jamson John 225

Jackson Ralph 250

3IS4
K

Kennon Elizabeth 1900

Knibb Samuel 209

Knibb Solomon 833

Kendall Richard 400

3342

APPENDIX

185

L

Liptroll Edward 150

Lewis Wm 350

Lester Darens 100

Ladd Wm 70

Ligon Elizabeth Widdow [

Ligon Mary Widdow ) •"

Laforce Reu 100

Lochett James 50

Lownd Henry 5J6

Lockitt Benj 104

Ligon Richard 1028

Ligon Hugh 150

3959

M

Mann Robert 100

Matthews Edward 33©

Moseby Edward 150

Moseby Arthur 450

1030

N
Nunnally Richard 7°

O

Osbourn Thomas 288

Owen Thomas 68

356

P

Perkinson John 622

Perrin Ann 500

Pleasants John 9669

Parker Wm 100

Parker Nich Sen 500

Pledge Jno 100

Powell Robert 150

Peice John 130

Pleasants Jos 1709

Porter Wm 305

Peirce Wm 175

Peirce Francis 312

Paine Thomas 300

Portlock Elizabeth 1000

Pero Henry 350

Pattram Ira 778

Pride Wm Sen 1280

Pollard Thomas Sen 130

Perkinson Seth 50

Pinkitt Wm 192

Pinkitt Thomas 300

Pattison Joseph 500

Porter John 100

Pollard Thomas Jun 235

Pollard Henry 235

Pinkitt John 215

19937

R

Robertson Geo 1445

Ragsdaile Godfrey 450

Rawlett Peter 164

Russell Charles 200

Rowlett Wm 200

Rowen Francis 148

Robertson John 415

Rouch Rachell 300

Robertson Thomas 200

Russell John 93

Royall Joseph 783

Redford John 775

Randolph Col Wm includ-
ing 1 185 acres swamp ... 9465

14648

S

Steward Jno Jun 902

Scott Walter 550

Soane Capt Wm 3841

Stanley Edward 300

Snuggs Charles 400

Sewell Wm 59

Smith Humphrey 40

Sharp Robert 500

Stovoll Barth0 100

Skerin Widdow 75

Steward Daniell 270

Smith Obadiah 200

Stowers Widdow 200

Sarrazin Stephen 120

7557

T

Tancocks Orphans 1230

Trent Henry 224

Turpin Thomas 491

Turpin Philip 444

Turpin Thomas 100

1 86

APPENDIX

Turner Henry 200

Taylor Thomas 475

Tanner Edward 217

Traylor Edward 100

Totty Thomas 260

Traylor Wm 730

4471

V

Veden Henry 100

W

Woodson John 4060

Williams Robert 300

Woodson Robert Jun 1157

Ward Richard 300

Watson John Sen 1603

Walthall Wm 500

Walthall Henry 832

Whitby Wm 215

Watkins Henry Sen 100

Webb John 100

Watkins Thomas 200

Woodson Rich 180

Woodson Widdow 650

Williamson Thomas 1077

Webb Giles 7260

Wood Thomas 50

Watkins Wm 120

Watkins Jos 120

Watkins Edward 120

Ward Seth 700

Wood Moses 100

Wilkinson Jos 75J/2

Wilkinson John 130

Worsham John 1 104

Womack Abr 560

Willson Jno Sen 1686

Willson Jno Jun 100

Walthall Richard 500

Wortham Geo 400

Wortham Charles 90

Womack Wm 100

24489K2

W 24489H

V 100

T 44/1

S 7557

R 14648

P 19937

O 396

N 70

M 1030

L 3959

K 3342

J 3154

H 9242

G 557i

F 9024

E 6061

D 313

c 1517154

B 33590

A 4106

165814
Out of which must be deducted

these several quantities of land

following Viz :
Tancocks Orphans Land . . 1230
Aliens Orphans Land 99

1329
An account of Land that hath been
concealed

John Steward Jun 2

Thomas Jefferson 15

Thomas Turpin 10

Henry Gee 10

Stephen Sarrzen 10

Mr. Lownd 1

James Atkin Sen 32

Matthew Branch 10

James Franklin 360

James Hill 50

Rosemond Hill 33

John Bullington 44

Benjamin Lockett 4

John Russell 23

Charles Douglas 13

Col Randolph

Carless Land 1049

1669
The Quit Rent being 162719 acres.

APPENDIX

187

A Rent Roll of all the Lands held in the County of Prince George for

the Year 1704

Thomas Anderson 450

Wm Aldridge 160

Mr. Charles Anderson .... 505

Richard Adkinson 200

Thomas Adams 250

Matthem Anderson 349

Henry Ally 390

Wm Anderson 235

Jno Anderson 228

Henry Anderson 250

Robert Abernathy 100

Jno Avery 100

3217

B

Richard Bland 1000

Robert Birchett 375

Arthur Biggins 200

James Benford 461

Jno Barloe 50

Charles Bartholomew 600

Philip Burlowe 350

Nicholas Brewer 100

Jno Bishop Sen 100

Jno Bishop Jun 100

Isaac Baites 360

Thomas Busby Capt 300

Thomas Busby 200

Wm Batt 750

Coll Byrd Esq 100

Edward Birchett 886

Coll Boiling 3402

Edmund Browder 100

Matus Brittler 510

Jno Butler . . . . .s 1385

Andrew Beck 300

Henry Batt 700

Wm Butler 283

Thomas Blitchodin 284

12986

Thomas Curiton 150

Henry Chammins 300

Capt Clements 1920

Wm. Claunton 100

Robert Catte 100

Bartho Crowder 75

Thomas Clay 70

Jno Coleman 2CKX- -"'

George Crook 489

Francis Coleman 150

Jno Clay 350

Wm Coleman Jun 100

George Croohet 30

James Cocke 750

Robert Carlill 100

Jno Clerk 83

Richarl Claunton 100

Stephen Cock for

Jones Orphans 2405

7622

D

Thomas Daniell 150

Roger Drayton 270

Joseph Daniell 50

Jno Doby 500

George Dowing 100

Wm Davis 100

Jno Duglas 300

Richard Darding 500

Christopher Davis 50

Thomas Dunkin 136

2156

Robert Ellis 50

Jno Epes Sen 530

Wm Epes Sen 750

Jno Epes 300

Wm Epes 633^

Edward Epes 500

Littlebury Epes 833J/2

Benj Evans 700

Thomas Edwards 250

Dan Epes 200

Jno Evans 800

Jno. Ellis Jun 400

John Ellis Sen 400

Mary Evans 400

Peter Evans 270

Capt Francis Epes 226

7243

IJ

APPENDIX

F

Jno Freeman 300

Wm Frost 50

Jno Fountaine 350

Robert Fellows 418

Elizabeth Flood 100

Benj Foster 923

Jno Field 100

2241

G

Jno Green 125

Richard Gord 100

David Goodgamd 479

James Greithian 363

Major Goodrich 900

Thomas Goodwin 150

Hubert Gibson 250

Richard Griffith 335

James Griffin 100

Charles Gee 484

Charles Gillam 200

Hugh Goelightly 500

Lewis Green 149

Wm Grigg 200

John Gillam 1000

John Goelightly 100

5435

H

Coll Hill 1000

Daniell Hickdon 280

Robert Harthorn 243

Jno Hamlin 1484^2

Coll Harrison Esq 150

Ralph Hill 175

Wm Harrison 1930

Wm Heath 320

Edward Holloway 100

Robert Hobbs 100

Jno Hobbs Sen 250

Edward Holloway Sen .... 620

Jno Hobbs 100

James Harrison 200

Gilbert Haye 200

Richard Hudson 75

Gabriell Harrison 150

Robert Hix 1000

Joseph Holycross 84

Charles Howell 125

Sam Harwell 125

Isaac Hall 450

Jno Howell 183

Thomas Howell 25

Mrs. Herbert 3925

Jno Hixs 216

Richard Hamlin 240

Thomas Harnison 1077

Elizabeth Hamlin 250

Wm Hulme 100

Jeffrey Hawkes 125

Adam Heath 300

Jno Hill 160

Jno Hardiman 872

Justance Hall 614

17366

J

Wm Jones Jun 230

Wm Jones Sen 600

Henry Jones 200

Robert Jones 241

Edmund Irby 800

Nich. Jarrett 700

James Jackson 80

Adam Ivie 200

Thomas Jackson 60

James Jones Sen 1100

Henry Ivye 450

Peter Jones 621

Ricard Jones 600

Ralph Jacskon no

Joshua Irby 200

John Jones 350

6542

K

Richard Kirkland 300

John King 50

Henry King 650

Arthur Kavanah 60

Ensobius King 100.

1 160

L

John Livesley 300

Samuel Lewey 100

Jno Lumbady 400

Jno Leeneir 100

Mrs Low 70

Sam Lewey for Netherland

Orphans 498

APPENDIX

189

Thomas Lewis Sen 200

Hugh Liegh 762

Francis Leadbeatter 100

Jno Leadbeatter 400

Wm Low 1584

3ii4

M

Wm Madox 190

Robert Munford 339

James Mingo Sen 500

Matt Marks 1500

Samuell Moody 328

Francis Mallory 100

Daniell Mallone 100

Jno Mayes 365

Richard More 472

Henry Mitchell Sen IOO

Jno Mitchell 170

Wm Mayes 763

Edward Murrell 100

Thomas Mitchell Jun 100

Peter Mitchell 305

Henry Mitchell Jun 200

Francis Maberry 347

James Matthews 100

Jno Martin 200

6839

N

Richard Newman 120

Walter Nannaley 299

419

0

Nicholas Overburry 809

Jno Owen / 25

834

P

George Pasmore 330

Francis Poythwes Sen .... 1283

Joseph Pattison 200

George Pail 246

Nathaniel Phillips 150

Jno Price 50

Wm Peoples 150

Elizabeth Peoples 235

Joseph Perry 275

Richard Pigeon 524

Thomas Potts 200

Joseph Pritchett 50

Jno Petterson 373

George Pace 1000

Ephram Parkam 300

Thomas Poythres 616

Dand Peoples 60

Grace Perry 100

Jno Poythres Jun 916

Jno Petterson 420

Mr Micajah Perry 600

9203

R

Jno Roberts 316

Nath. Robinson 100

Roger Reace Jun 100

Henry Read 75

Roger Reace Sen 100

Wm Reanes 250

Frances Raye 300

Jno Reeks 50

Wm Rachell 100

Timothy Reading Sen 460

Jno Riners 200

Edward Richardson 300

Coll Randolph 226

2677

S

Matthew Smart 100

Wm Standback 150

Thomas Symmons 566

James Salmen 477

Wm Savage 150

Wm Sandborne 40

Jno Scott 300

Martin Shieffield 150

James Smith 67

John Stroud 60

Richard Seeking 100

Wm Sexton 50

James Leveaker 710

Chichester Sturdivant 214

Daniell Sturdivant 850

Richard Smith 550

Jno Spaine n8

Matthew Sturdivant 150

Capt Stith 470J/2

8272K

190

APPENDIX

T
Major Henry Tooker for the

Merchants in London . . . 4600

George Tilliman 446

Jno Tilliman 530

Wm Tomlinson 400

Adam Tapley 977

Capt Jno Taylor 1700

Mich. Taburd 150

Majr Tooker 181

Robert Tooker 400

Robert Tester 170

Joseph Tooker 200

Wm Tempel 100

Jno Thornhill 350

Jno Taylor 100

Nath. Tatham Jun 200

Samuel Tatham Sen 100

Samuel Tatham Jun 195

Henry Talley 639

Richard Turberfield 140

Francis Tucker 100

Xath. Tatham Sen 501

Jno Thrower 250

Thomas Thrower 150

James Taylor 306

Sanders Tapley 300

Thomas Tapley 300

James Thweat Sen 715

James Thweat Jun 100

Elizabeth Tucker 212

Thomas Taylor 400

Edward Thrower 150

14462

V

Jno Vaughan 169

Samuel Vaugham 169

Nath. Vrooin 150

Daniell Vaughan 169

James Vaughan 169

Richard Vaughan 309

Wm Vaughan 309

Thomas Vinson 550

Nicholas Vaughan 169

2163

Jno Wickett 250

Capt. James Wynn 860

Jno Woodlife Jun 750

Jno Winningham Jun 200

Richard Wallpoole 625

Jno Womack 550

Capt Thomas Wynn 400

Jno Wall 233

Thomas Winningham 100

Elizabeth Woodlife 844

Richard Worthern 1600

Richard Winkles 450

Capt Nicholas Wyatt 700 v

Antho Wyatt 250 1/

Valentine Wiliamson 250

Hurldy Wick 600

Wm Wilkins 900

Francis Wilkins 150

Robert Winkfield 107

Jarvis Winkfield 100

Henry Wall 275

Jno Wilkins 150

James Williams 1436

George Williams 216

Jno White 150

Edward Winningham 100

Samuel Woodward 600

W

John Woodlife Sen 644

Wm Wallis 200

13684

Y

Dannell Young 283

John Young 200

583

A 3217

B 12986

C 7622

D 2156

g 7243

£ 2241

£ 5435

** 17366^

J 6542

K 1 160

L 51 14

JJ 6839

J? 419

£ 9203

g 2^7?

-> 8272

APPENDIX

191

T 14462

V 2163

W 13684

Y 583

127218^
Deduct the new discovered
Land 10000

Accounted for 1 17218J4

Orphans Land which is refulld
paying Quit Rents for viz :

Mr. John Bannister Orphans
per Stephen Cock 1970

Capt Henry Batesorph and
their Mother Mrs Mary
Bates 1200

Capt Henry Randolph Or-
phans per Capt Giles
Webb 129

Morris Halliham Orphans
ped Robert Rivers 200

Crockson Land formerly
& who it belongs to now I
cannot find 750

4245

1 1 72 18H acres at 24 lb tob° per

100 is 28132 lb tobacco

at 5s per lb is 70 6 6

Sallary 10 per cent 7 0 10^

63 5
per William Epes Sheriff

rA

Rent Roll of all the Lands held of her Majtle In Surry County
Anno Domini 1704

Allin Arthur Major 6780

Andrews Bartho 375

Avery Jno 150

Atkins Thomas

80

Averett Jno 120

Atkinson Richard

Andrews Thomas

Andrews Robert

100

190

130

Andrews David 225

8150

B

Baker Henry Coll 850

Bruton James 500

Bennett James 200

Bland Sarah ...^ 1455

Browne Jno 600

Benbridge George 200

Bighton Richard 590

John Bell 180

Berham Robert 650

Blake Wm 200

Browne Edward 200

Bincham Jno 100

Bennett Richard 200

Baker Sarah 50

Briggs Sarah 300

Baxter Joell 100

Briggs Samuel 300

Blico Christopher 50

Brigs Charles 331

Brigs Henry 100

Bentley 180

Blackbun Wm 150

Blunt Thomas 1355

Bookey, Edward 180

Browne Wm Coll 2510

Browne Wm Capt 398

Bineham James 157

Bullock Mary 100

Barker Jno 1 160

Bagley Peter 100

Barker Jery 420

Bunell Hezichiah 150

Bougher Phill 100

Baile Jno 250

Bagley Edward 350

14716

Chapman Benjamin 500

Cockin Wm 100

Cocker Jno 900

Crafort Robert 1000

Crafort Carter 100

Chambers Wm 50

Clark Jno 100

1 92 APPENDIX

Cook Elizabeth 200

Carriell Thomas 100

Clements Jno 387

Clarke Jno 100

Cook Elizabeth 200

Carriell Thomas 100

Clements Jno 387

Clark Robert 400

Checett James 50

Cotten Walter 257

Cotten Thomas 257

Collier Jno 350

Collier Joseph 40

Cock Wm 630

Cock Walter 875

Cooper James 100

Cleaments Francis 600

Collier Thomas 55°

Candenscaine Obedience . . 200

7746

D

Dicks James 400

Davis Arthur 460

Drew Thomas 800

Drew Edward 600

Delk Roger 790

David Arthur 50

Dean Richard 100

Davis Nath 157

3357

E

Edward Wm Mr 2755

Evans Antho 100

Edward John 470

Ellitt Wm 250

Edmund Howell 300

Ellis James 180

Edmund Wm 100

Ellis Edward 30

Ellis James 170

Ezell Geirge 150

Ellis Jere 50

Evans Abrah 150

4705

Flake Robert 200

Foster Anne 200

Ford George 100

Flood Walter 820

Flood Thomas 150

Ford Elias 200

Flemin Lawrence 360

Foster Christo 500

Foster Wm 100

Ferieby Benj 170

2800
G

Gray Wm Capt 1750

Gray Wm Jun 1050

Grines Austis 100

Gwalney Wm 400

Gray Jno 200

Gwalney Wm 225

Goodman Wm 200

Gillham Hinche 658

Griffin John 200

Gully Richard 50

Gray Wm 100

Green Edward 200

Green Richard 260

5393
H

Harrison Benj Coll 2750

Harrison Nath. Capt 2177

Hunt Wm 4042

Holt Elizabeth 1450

Holt John 150

Holt Thomas Capt 538

Holt Wm 630

Harris Wm 150

Hart Henry 725

Humfort Hugh 150

Hancock John 60

Hart Robert 600

Humphrey Evan 70

Hollyman Mary 290

Harde Thomas 900

Hill Robert 200

Holloman Richard 480

Hargrove Bryan 100

Humfort Wm 50

Hill Lyon 300

Holloman Thomas 450

Heath Adam 200

Harrison Daniell 70

Ham Richard 75

Heart Thomas 750

APPENDIX

193

Hyerd Thomas 50

Hunt Wra 696

Home Richard 100

Hollingsworth Henry 60

Howell Wm 50

18413

J

Jackman Jos John Mr 2980

Jones James 1000

Jarrell Thomas , 115

Jarrett Charles 615

Judkins Samuell 100

Judkins Wm 100

Jurdan George 620

Jarrett Fardo 630

Johnson Wm 360

Johnson John 350

Jurdan Richard 350

7220

K

Kigan Mary 200

Killingworth Wm 60

Knott Wm 300

560

L

Ludwell Philip Coll 1 100

Lancaster Robert 100

Lacey Mary 100

Lang Mary yy

Lane Thomas 200

Lane Thomas Jun 200

Laughter Jno 300

Laneere George 300

Lasley Patrick 520

Lucas Wm 315

3212

M

Matthew Edmund 50

Merriell George 250

Moorland Edward 225

Mason Elizabeth 300

Mallory Francis 147

Merrett Matt 60

Middleton Thomas 100

Moss Wm 100

Moreing John 695

Mierick Owen 250

2177

N

Newton Wm 225

Newton Robert 250

Newitt Wm 330

Norwood Richard 80

Nicholl George 150

Nichols Robert 230

Noeway Barefoot 150

Norwood George 330

1745

P

Park Mary 100

Pittman Thomas Jun 100

Phillips, John 270

Price John 340

Pettoway Elizabeth 650

Pulystone Jno 1400

Parker Richard 269

Phelps Humphrey 100

Pully Wm 300

Procter Joshua 660

Persons John 830

Phillips Wm 300

Pettfort Jno 200

Pettfort Wm 50

5569

R

Randolph Wm Coll 1655

Ruffice Elizabeth 3001

Reynolds Robert 150

Richardson Joseph 300

Reynolds Elizabeth 150

Reagon Frances 200

Roads Wm 150

Rolling George 106

Road Wm 450

Rose Richard 100

Raehell George 70

Rowling Jno 476

Rohings Wm 596

Roger Wm 450

7854

194

APPENDIX

s

Scat Joseph 295

Sims George 200

Secoms Nicholas 800

Savage Charles 358

Stringfellow Richard 75

Suger Jno 250

Sewurds. Anne 300

Sharp Thomas 70

Sewins Thomas 400

Steward John 200

Smith Richard 200

Savage Mary 263

Smith Thomas 750

Swann Wm 1S00

Shrowsbury Joseph 260

Shrowsbury Francis 820

Savage Henry 200

Short Wm 400

Scarbro Edw 15°

Scagin Jno 100

Simmons Jno 1300

Shrowsbury Thomas 566

Stockly Richard 100

Smith Thomas 380

10237

T

Thompson Samuell 3104

Tooker Henry Major 700

Taylor Ethelrcd 538

Thorp Joseph 250

Tyous Thomas 400

Taylor Richard 77

5069

V

Vincent Mary 187

W

Wright Thomas 100

Williams Charles 100

Wall Joseph 150

Williams Wm 300

Ward Thomas 100

Wall Joseph Jun 150

Warren Allen 300

Warren Thomas 1040

Watkins Richard 1345

Williams Roger 150

Webb Robert 340

Wattkins John 1 160

Warren Robert 150

Welch Henry 100

Warrick John 80

Wilkinson Matthew 200

W iggins Thomas 300

Waple Jno 300

Witherington Nicholas . . . 100

Will Roger 78

White Charles 136

6679

Y

Young John 300

A 8150

B 14716

C 7746

D 3357

E 4705

F 2800

G 5393

H 18413

J 7220

K 560

L 3212

M 2177

N 1745

P ...• 5569

R 7854

S 10237

T 5069

V 187

W 6679

Y 300

1 16089
New Land allowed per order 3841

1 12248

Aprill 19th 1705

Errors excepted per
Jos Jno. Jackman Sheriff.

Persons denying payment for Lands
held in this County (viz) Capt
Tho Holt as belonging to Mr. Tho

Bennies Orphans 950

Mrs. Mary White 200

1 150

APPENDIX

195

Lands held by persons living out of
the Country

Capt Jno Taylor 850

M rs. Sarah Low 500

Mr. Jno Hamlin IOO

Capt Thomas Harrison .... 530

1 150

3130

Bartho Clement one tract of Land
he living in England the quantity
unknowne

Jno Davis one Tract Living in Isle
of Wight

Geo & River Jorden one Tract &
denys to pay Qt Rents for it &
no persons living thereon, there is
one Bray Living in Warwick has
a small tract Land

A List of her Majtya Ql Rents For the Isle Wighte County in

Year 1704

the

Jno Atkins

James Atkinson ,

Win Exam

Win Brown

Francis Exam

Richard Bennett

James Briggs

Ph. Bratley

Abr. Drawler

Jno Branch

Francis Branch

Edward Brantley

John Brantley

Edward Boykin 1

George Barloe

Jno Geoge

Thomas Carter

Reubin Cooke

Jno Clarke

Thomas Cook

Wm Clark

Edward Champion

Jno Dowles

Peter Deberry

Thomas Davis N

Jno Davis

Peter Hayes

Christo. Hollyman

Richard Hardy

Thomas Holyman

Jno Harris

Silvester Hill

Roger Hodge

Arthur Jones

Edward Jones

Richard Jones

Jno Johnson

Rosier Ingram

200 Matt. Jorden 1950

400 Thomas Newman 360

440 George Readich 790

150 Francis Lee 100

200 Ph. Pardoe 100

70 Jno Parsons 155

100 George Moore 400

200 Jno Mangann 100

200 Robert Mongo 400

45 Henry Martin 200

50 Jno Murray 650

175 Francis Rayner 80

364 Jno Richardson 150

100 James Sampson 1200

80 Jno Stevenson 150

200 Thomas Sherrer 200

700 Jno Sherrer 200

250 Wm Thomas 250

850 Thomas Tooke 1228

300 Thomas Throp 350

600 Baleaby Terrell 100

600 Peter Vasser 230

150 Jno Williams 600

100 George Williamson 2735

100 Fra. Williamson 2035

250 Thomas Wood 50

600 James Lupe 45

400 Elizabeth Reynolds 100

700 Jno Sojourner 240

150 Robert Hoge 60

365 Andrew Woodley 770

925 Arthur Allen 1800

300 Henry Baker 750

900 Rubin Prochter 250

250 Thomas Howell 100

250 Nath Whitby 170

890 Jane Atkins 600

300 Jno Mongo 100

196

APPENDIX

Natt Ridley 200

Jno Bell 200

Wm West 250

Charles Goodrich 80

Jno Britt 350

Jno Barnes 200

Henry Goldham 1000

Jno Waltham 4SO

Charles Edwards 40°

Wm Exam 150

Major Lewis Burwell 7000

Henry Applewaite 1500

Thomas Pitt 300

Jno Pitt 340O

Mary Benn 675

Robert Clark 45<>

Antho Holliday 860

Wm Westrah 450

Elizabeth Gardner 100

Jno Gardner 246

Jno Turner v 950

Antho Foulgham 100

Anne Williams 150

Edward Harris 240

Jno Cotton 200

Thomas Joyner 1400

Jno Lawrence 400

Thomas Mandue 200

Wm Mayo 300

Jno Garcand 100

James Bryan 1200

Wm Keate 200

Jno Browne 100

Francis Sanders 100

John Rogers 200

Hodges Councie 420

Hardy Councie 900

Jno Councie 760

Thomas Reeves 600

Wm Crumpler 580

Bridgeman Joyner 1100

Elizabeth Swan 600

Thomas Jones 700

Arthur Whitehead 250

Thomas Allen 150

Jerimiah Exam 300

Nicholas Casey 550

Jno Giles 1150

Alexander Camoll 200

Jno Rutter 300

Godfrey Hunt 600

Wm Trygell 100

Benj Jorden 150

Thomas Jorden 207

Jno King 300

Wm Wilkinson 200

Thomas Grace 160

Wm West 50

Jno Penny 300

Robert Richards 100

Thomas Northworthy 600

Fra Parker 210,

Widdo Long 104

Trustram Northworthy .... 1000

George Green 250

Jno Druer 100

Philip Peerce 500

Wm Best 100

Humphrey Marshall 600

Thomas Brewer 200

Wm Smith 2100

Samuel & Wm Bridger .... 12900

Wm Williams 100

Richard Ratclifre 380

Joshua Jordan 150

Daniall Sandbourne 180

Nicholas Houghan 780

Mary Marshall 200

Joseph Godwin 250

Joseph Bridger 580

Henry Pitt 700

James Baron 300

Arthur Smith 3607

Robert Broch 400

Wm Godwin 400

Hugh Bracey 1000

Henry Turner 350

Thomas Wootten 963

Richard Reynolds Esq 853

Richard Reynolds 746

Jno Parnell 400

Benj Deall 467

Thdo. Joyner 595

Jno Jordan 100

Henry Wiggs 506

Wm Body 1375

Arthur Purcell 750

Jno Porteus 100

Wm West 690

Simon Everett 1 100

Walter Waters 150

John Jordan 150

John Nevill 433

Robert Colman 1500

Wm Green 150

Mary Cobb ' 150

APPENDIX

197

Robert Edwards 150

Anne Jones 100

Abraham Jones 600

John Jones 200

Richard Lewis 100

Henry Dullard 100

Thomas Williams 100

James Mercer 100

Poole Hall 350

Jno Howell 100

Thomas Lovett 100

George Anderson 150

Daniell Nottiboy 100

Henry Wilkinson 350

Jno Watkins 200

Thomas English 100

Thomas Page 203

Francis Davis 100

Richard Braswell j , 100

Robert Johnson i 2450

Jno Minshea '. 300

Wm Pryan i . . 200

Wm Dawes 400

Nicholas Tyner 300

Isaac Ricks 700

Robert Scott i. .. 300

Jno Roberts < . . . 950

Wm Duck I . . . 180

Robert Lawrence 400

Jno Denson 200

Robert Smelly 600

Francis Bridle 250

Roger Fearlton . ... 237

Thomas Bullock 100

Wm. Marf ry '. . . . 600

Thomas Powell 100

Widdo Glyn 300

Jno Pope 250

Thomas Gayle 200

Wm Powell 200

Richard Hutchins 300

Henry Boseman ... . .. 100

Henry Pope 557

John Williams 971

Henry Sanders 700

Jno Selloway 900

Jno Bardin 100

Phill Rayford 650

Phill Pearse 500

Jno Terseley 150

Geo Northworthy 1176

Robert Richards 450

Thomas Bevan 100

Wm Hunter 150

Madison Street 150

Thomas Wheatley 400

Richard Wilkinson 150

James Bragg 500

Jno Portous 300

Thomas Harris 350

Edward Harris 100

Nicholas Askew 80

Ambrose Hadley 100

Widdo Powell 480

Thomas Jones 100

Thomas Underwood 100

Robert King 300

Thomas Giles 880

Lewis Smelly 550

Wm Smelly 280

Godfrey Hunt 600

Edmund Godwin 400

Wm Williams 1000

John Wilson 1200

John Bryan 200

John Askew 100

Samuell Bridger 200

Roger Nevill 200

Coll Godwin 600

Jacob Durden 500

Wm Bridger.

138533

A Compleat List of the Rent Roll of the Land in Nansemond County

In Anno 1704

John Murdaugh 300 Robert Baker

Jno Duke 1 13 Isaac Sketto

Thomas Duke Jun 930 Edward Sketto

Edward Roberts 250 Antho Gumms

Paul Pender 240 Francis Sketto

Thomas Duke 400 Wm Parker

James Fowler 440 Francis Parker

50
100
200

50
100
100
170

198

APPENDIX

Thomas Parker 3°o

Jno Small 100

Moses Hall 95

Edward Beamond 550

Richard Parker 514

Capt James Jessey 550

\\ m Sanders 200

Jno Sanders 165

Thomas Mansfield 60

Win Woodley 350

Andrew Bourne 200

Gilbert Owen 120

Wm Sanders Jun 165

Capt John Speir 500

Capt James Reddick 943

James Griffin 500

Nicholas Stallings 965

John Stallings 250

Richard Stallings 165

Elias Stallings J un 250

Joseph Baker 740

Wm Jones 500

Robert Roundtree 245

John Roundtree 475

George Spivey 200

James Spivey 600

James Knight 300

Jno Gorden 330

Edward Arnold 80

James Mulleny 500

Thomas Docton 200

Wm Britt 400

Nath Newby 850

Elias Stalling 470

Robert Lassiter 850

Patrick Wood 200

Wm Thompson 133

Jonathan Kitterell 300

Adam Rabey 586

Jno Powell 758

John Reddick 300

Henry Copeland 150

Thomas Davis 250

Jno Smith 100

Thomas Harrald 652

Richard Baker 40

Samuell Smith 230

Wm Hood 200

Thomas Roundtree 350

Henry Hill 175

Jno Larkhum 500

Wm Vann 100

Joseph Cooper 267

John Harris 600

Francis Copeland 513

Elizabeth Price 150

Wm Hill 150

Thomas Spivey 200

Jno Campbell 400

Jno Morley 100

Jos Rogers 15

Jno Cole 814

Thomas Harrald 100

Christopher Gawin Jun ... 20

Daniell Horton 200

Wm Bruin 300

Peter Eason 400

Anne Pugh 2300

Benj Blanchard 130

Thomas Norfleet 500

John Odum 50

Thomas Gough 150

Hugh Gough 150

Epapap Boyne 100

Henry Baker 375

Christopher Gwin 1010

James Speirs 200

Epaphra Benton 250

Wm Eason 180

Andrew Brown 25

Wm Home 100

Robert Reddick 200

Henry Hackley 210

Thomas Roberts 30

Abr. Reddick 400

Jno Parker 240

Richard Barefield 900

John Benton 660

Jno Pipkin 100

Jos Brady 250

Christopher Dudley 200

Thomas Norris 100

Thomas Wiggins 100

Patrick Lawley 50

Robert Warren 100

Richard Odium 50

Thomas Davis 340

Thomas Barefield 100 '

John Eason 150

Jerimiah Arlin 250

Jno Perry §70

Jno Drury gj

Jpseph Booth q8j

Cresham Cofield 350

Richard Sumner 600

Edward Norfleet 200

APPENDIX

199

Jno Norfleet 600

Edward Moore 250

Thomas Moore 200

James Lawry 40

James Daughtie 400

John Wallis 150

Richard Sanders J un 100

Wm Byrd 300

James Howard 700

John Brinkley 430

Robert Horning 80

Wm Speirs 200

Sarah Exum 150

Jno Larrence 175

Nicholas Perry 200

Sampson Merridith 400

Coll Thomas Milner 1484

Joseph Merridith 250

Thomas Kinder 160

Henry King 300

Joseph Hine 150

Wm King . , 140

Julian King 700

Mich. King 80

Capt Tho Godwin Jim 697

Henry Lawrence 200

Jno King 1000

Richard Hyne 200

Capt Francis Milner 479

Benj Nevill 475

Elizabeth Marler 80

Wm Keene 200

Jno Symmons 678

Hen : Johnson 150

Jno Darden 500

Wm Everett 150

Wm Pope 890

Joseph Worrell 270

Thomas Jemegan Jun 135

Richard Lawerence 200

Jonathan Robinson 400

Robert Yates 150

Thomas Odium 20

John Barefield , 300

John Raules 600

Thomas Boyt 400

Thomas Vaughan 200

Jno Parker 300

Richard Green 200

Elizabeth Ballard 300

Samuell Watson 200

Francis Spight 400

Joseph Ballard 200

John Oxley 100

Benj. Rogers 600

Robert Rogers 300

Henry Jerregan 200

Jno Hansell 500

Henry Jenkins 400

Capt William Hunter 800

Jno Moore 200

Richard Moore 250

Edward Homes 300

Era. Cambridge 100

Wm Waf d 200

J no Rice 140

Wm Battaile 800

Wm Spite 500

Abr. Oadham 20

Jacob Oadam 20

Jno Lee 100

Wm Macklenny 200

Robert Coleman 1400

Jno Bryan 200

Wm Daughtree 100

Jno Copeland 600

Jno Butler 200

James Butler 75

Thomas Roads 75

Wm Collins 1220

Jno Hedgpath 700

Jno Holland 700

Robert Carr 200

Wm Waters 600

Robert Lawrence 400

Wm Bryon 350

Lewis Bryon 400

James Lawrence 100

Wm Gatlin 100

Joseph Gutchins 250

George Lawrence 400

Lewis Daughtree 100

Thomas Rogers 50

Jno Rogers 200

Henry Core 50

Edward Cobb 100

Richard Taylor 300

Robert Brewer 200

Wm Osburne 200

Thomas Biswell 400

Jno Gatlin 200

Richard Folk IOo

Thomas Parker TOo

Peter Parker ^q

Wm Parker I40

Richard Hine Jun 200

200

APPENDIX

Stephen Archer 200

Charles Roades 800

Henry Roades 100

James Collings 300

Henry Holland 400

Wm Kerle 325

Joseph Holland 100

Jno Thomas Jun 100

Jno Thomas 275

Thomas Mason 35<>

Edward Mason 150

Jno Sanders 150

Mich Brinkley 200

James Moore 400

Henry Blumpton 1500

Jno Symmons 100

Jeremiah Edmunds 70

John Gay 200

Philip Aylsberry 100

James Copeland 390

Jno Brothers 460

Richard Creech 200

Richard Bond 00

Thomas Handcock 30

James Knott 1050

Wm Edwards 150

Robert Elkes 175

Edward Price 140

Jane Belson 100

Wm Staples 210

Robert Mountgomery 150

John Moore 100

Capt Edmund Godwin 800

Thomas Wakefield 150

Godfrey Hunt 360

Henery Wilkinson 250

Nicholas Dixon 200

George Keeley 650

Richard Taylor 300

Anne Coefield 300

Joseph Hollyday 1000

Mr. Jno Braisseur 400

Thomas Best 160

Alexander Campbell 500

Capt Charles Drury 570

Thomas Drury 75

Luke Shea 650

John Babb 500

Abraham Edwards 400

Richard Sanders 500

Antho Wallis 80

Daniell Sullivan 100

Joseph Ellis 200

Nicholas Hunter 190

Richard Webb 200

John Hare 190

Christopher Norfleet 400

Jno Heslop 148

Francis Benton 200

Capt Wm Sumner 275

Elizabeth Syrte 100

Anne Hare 600

Jno Porter 450

Edward Welsh 100

Jno Winbourne 400 /

Paul Pender 200

Mich Cowling 100

John Cowling 100

Rowland Gwyn 75

Andrew Ross 150

Jno Ballard 400

Benjamin Montgomery .... 910

Thomas Corbell 200

Jno Yates 400

Jno White 150

George White 50

Jno Bond 150

Wm Hay 100

Henry Bowes 600

Wm Sevill 85

Jno Hambleton 200

Robert Jordan 850

James Howard 25

Ruth Coefield no

Jno Chilcott 100

Jno Rutter 80

Thomas Rutter 75

Wm. Rutter 75

Capt Barnaby Kemey 460

Thomas Cutchins 150

Robert Lawrence 130

Samuell Cahoone 240

Jno lies 220

Thomas Sawyer 180

Wm Outland 400

Coll George Northworthy. . 650

Coll Thomas Godwin 810

Caleb Taylor 200

Thomas Carnell 320

Richard Bradley 250

Jno Corbin 300

Wm Sykes 150

Major Thomas Jorden 700

Richard Lovegrove 150

Thomas Davis 144

Samuell Farmer 160

APPENDIX

201

Henry Bradley 500

Jno Clarke 25

Margarett Jorden 200

Wm Elkes 100

Humphrey Mires ISO

James Ward 100

Widdow Hudnell 45

Wm Grandberry 300

Israeli Shepherd 200

Benj. Small 100

Anne Crandberry 75

Charles Roberts 50

, Richard Sclator 300

Robert Murrow 320

Elizabeth Peters 334

Thomas Jones 200

Elizabeth Butler 200

Coll Samuell Bridger 500

Jno Lawrence 100

Thomas Jarregan 165

Thomas Jarregan Jun 600

Wm Drury 80

Wm Butler 120

Henry Jenkins 860

Edward Bathurst 250

Thomas Houffler 200

Edward Streater 200

Wm Duffield 50

Charles Thomas Jun 50

Jno Blessington 150

Ursula Goodwin 100

Thomas Acwell 440

Wm Peale 180

John Lambkin 50

James Murphice 160

Robert Peale 275

John Peters 368

James Peters 34°

John Wakefield 50

Richard Wynn 890

James Lockhart 800

John Keeton 2000

1 1 7024
Jno Murrow 200

1 17224
Added to make up equll 13850

the last year list

which may be supposed I3J074
to be held by persons
that have not made both

Persons living out of the County
and other that will not pay or give
account. Viz :

Capt Thomas Lovett

Capt Jno Wright

Fra Parker Jun

Tho Martin

Jno Wright

Wm Lapiter

Jno Lapiter

Capt Luke Haffield

Mrs Elizabeth Swann

Errors excepted per me

Henry Jenkins

An Alphabetical List of the Quit Rents of Norfolk County 1704

Ashley Dennis . .\ 150

Avis Widdow 50

Adam Wm 100

Alexander John 300

Barington Wm 100

Bartee Robert 150

Bull Robert Sen 1050

Blanch Wm 100

Bond Wm 200

Brown Widdow 270

Bruce Abraham 1010

Brown Wm 100

Bowers Jno 166

Bolton Wm 212

Byron Roger 200

Bayley Walter 290

Bruce Jno 300

Bishop Wm 100

Bull Henry 1500

Bucken Wm 410

Babington Thomas 150

Babington Jno 150

Babington Rich 50

Burges George 200

Burges Robert 535

Butt Richard 1840

Brown Edward 300

Bigg Thomas 100

Balingtine Alexander 300

Balengtine George 510

202

APPENDIX

Bull Thomas 2200

Bramble Henry 100

Blake Arthur 200

Bolton Richard 700

Branton John 330

Bacheldon Joseph 300

Bush Samuell Major 1628

Balingtine Wm 60

Bowles Henry 330

Cartwright Peter 1050

Cooper Wm 150

Cooper Jno 150

Cramore George 100

Carling Walton 50

Carling Joseph 200

Curch Richard 1050

Churey Widdow 600

Cuthrell Going 470

Crekmore Edward too

Cartwright Widdow 800

Corprew Jno 650

Corprew Thomas 650

Crekmore Jno 750

Caswell Widdow 350

Colley Jno 100

Cottell Thomas 200

Conden Thomas 390

Conner Lewis 2200

Carney Jno 100

Carney Richard 100

Collins Wm 100

Crekmore Edmund 690

Charleton Jno 50

Cutrell Thomas 150

Chapman Richard 50

Churey Thomas 100

Churey Jno 150

Dixon Jno 300

Davis Wm Sen 250

Davis Wm 158

Dresdall Robert 318

Davis Thomas 332

Desnall Wrm 100

Davis Edward 300

Dalley Henry 1524

Dalley Wm 156

Davis Thomas 340

Denby Edward 100

Daniell Hugh 100

Etherdge Thomas Cooper.. 75

Etherdge Thomas BR 50

Etherdge Thomas Sen 34

Etherdge Thomas Jun 33

Etherdge Edward 66

Etherdge Wm 250

Etherdge Wm Jun 80

Etherdge Marmadukc 525

Edmonds John 50

Ellis Wm 200

Htherdge Edward Cooper . . 200

Estwood Thomas 170

Estwood John 75

Etherdge Edward Sen 33

Edwards John 250

Etherdge Charles 75

Evans Abrigall 100

Furgison Thomas 100

Freeman Jno 190

Foreman Alexander 750

Foster Henry 1000

Ferbey Jno 500

Fulsher Jno 1396

Godfry Waren 350

God fry John 1470

Godfry Matthew 450

Gref en Jno 200

Garen Daniell 50

Guy John no

Gwin Wm 350

Gilhgun Ferdinando 182

Gilhgan John 200

Gresnes James 150

Gaines John 50

Guy James 100

Herbert Thomas 150

Hayes Wm 200

Harris John no

Holyday Jno 440

Hodges Joseph 50

Hoges Thomas 407

Hoges John 520

Hollowell Jno Sen 524

Hollygood Thomas 100

Hollowell Jno 200

Hoisted Henry 633

Hollowell Joseph 1280

Hoisted John 350

Hues Edward 1304

TTullett Jno 300

Hodges Roger 109

Hodges Thomas 50

Hodges Richard 375

Harvey Richard 265

Handberry ^00

Hollowell Elener 1550

Herbert Jno 400

APPENDIX

203

Hargrave Benjamin 250

Hartwell Richard 150

Henland Jno 800

Ivey George 496

Jackson Symon 720

Ives Timothy 400

Ives Timothy Jun 100

Ives John 434

Johnston John 275

Johnston Mercey 275

Joles Thomas 200

Joyce Jno 200

Jolef Jno Jun 300

Jenings Henry 100

Jolef Jno Sen 840

Kaine Richard 50

Langley Wm 1487

Langley Thomas 878

Loveney James 100

Luelling Edward 315

Luelling Richard 200

Lovell Widdow 740

Low Henry 191

Lane Robert 460

Ludgall Matthew 250

Levima John 510

Lenton Wm 150

Mercer Thomas 600

Maning Thomas 97

Maning Nicholas 260

Mones Joseph y-^

Matthias Matthew 100

Miller Wm 1090

Miller Jno 200

Miller Widdow 100

Murden Widdow 2000

Miller Thomas 1050

Maund Wm 200

Maning Jno Sen 300

Miller Joseph > 882

Mocey Dennis Sen & Jun. . . 160

Mohan James 100

Murfrey Alexander 800

Maning Jno Jun 100

Moseley Widdow 300

Miller Widdow Sen 200

Mason Thomas 125

Masom Lemuell 400

Mason Thomas 6^3

Mason George 300

Mockey Adam 400

Newton George ing

Nicholson Jno 160

Nash Thomas 5°

Nicholson Henry 320

Nash Richard 100

Nicholson Wm 300

Norcote Thomas 2J2>

Outlaw Edward 208

Owens Wm 650

Odyam Wm 200

Pearce Wm 100

Peters Widdow 698

Portlock 360

Porter Samuell 100

Prescot Moses 1200

Philpot Richard 200

Powell Richard 100

Powell Lemuell 246

Powell Wm 624

Perkins Wm 50

Patison Robert 350

Roberts Jos 100

Robert Samuell 800

Rose Robert 385

Rose Jno 60

Randall Giles 150

Richardson Thomas 379

Spring Robert 98

Spivey Matt 600

Smith John 127

Scoll Thomas 400

Smith Richard 600

Smith John 200

Silvester Richard 1280

John Smith Sen 1200

Sickes Walter Sen 550

Sickes John 200

Sugg George 408

Sugg Wm 200

Sayer Francis 600

Smith Humphrey 100

Standbro Jno 40

Standley Richard 200

Sharpies Henry 100

Sugg Joseph 300

Symons Thomas 166

Symon James 200

Sparrow Wm 350

Tuker Wm 100

Thornton Francis 200

Thurston Matthew 100

Theobald James 140

Thellaball Widdow 600

Tuker Richard 100

Tuker Thomas 280

204

APPENDIX

Taylor Jno ioo

Taylor Richard 75

Tully Jno 165

Tarte Elezar Sen 300

Taylor Andrew 222

Tuker Jno 400

Tart Alice 300

Tarte Elezar Jun 595

Taylor Wm 265

Trigoney Henry 200

Velle Moriss 335

Walice Thomas 150

Weston Edward 100

Willoughby Thomas Coll . . 3200

Weshart John 150

Woodly Robert 350

Williams John 125

Wilder Mich 200

W^atkins Thomas 190

Williamson Jno 750

Whedon Jno Jun 100

Willoughby Thomas Capt . . 660

Whedon Wm 200

West John 500

Watson Robert 80

Wallis Richard 250

Wallis Jno 135

Wallis Wm 450

Whithurst Richard 150

Whithurst Wm 150

Wilkins Wm 200

Williams John 200

Whedbey George 200

Worden James 400

Wilson James Jun 200

Wilson Lemuell 300

Wilson James Coll 2800

Woodward Henry 280

Whedon Jno Jun 320

White Patrick 500

Willis John 470

Weldey Dorothy 25

Ward Jno 320

Wakfield Thomas 40

Wilden Nath 100

Wooding Thomas 170

Wood Edward 100

Watford Joseph 97

Wate John 400

Wright Wm 574

Weight James 216

W^adborn Mich 500

Williams Jane 400

Webb Mary 100

Worminton John 200

Wilden Francis 100

Widdick Henry 343

1 13684

New discovered Land 1615

1 12069

An Account of the Land belonging
to such persons out of the County
and also others out of the County.

Coll Cary

Tully Robinson

James Daves

Robert Berrey 95

Jno Bennett 33

Coll Nasareth 400

Cornelius Tullery 150

James Wilson

SherrifT

Princess Anne County Rent Roll 1704

John Carraway 180

Thomas More 100

Henry Chapman 250

George Poole 1085

James Whithurst 600

Thomas Morris 63

Thomas Joy 600

Thomas Scott 100

George Smith 250

Thomas Hife 200

Richard Smith 200

Thomas Hattersley 90

Thomas Jolley 150

Mich Ventres 450

Capt Blomer Bray 270

James Mecoy 200

Francis Bond 264

Edward Wood 50

Jno Morrah 200

Alexander Morrah 200

Ruth Woodhouse 450

Horatia Woodhouse 525

Joseph White 330

Jon Basnett 250

Owen Wilbe

Mr. Wm. Corneck

Jno Oakham

David Scott

Jno Keeling

Adam Keeling

Humphrey Smith

Jno Halise

Capt Wm Crawford

Richard Williamson

Edward Tranter

Jno. Sherland

Robert Rany

Edward Old

Coll Lemuell Mason

Mr. Francis Emperor

James Kemp

Bartho : Williamson

Symon Hancock Jun ....

George Batten

Matth : Brinson

Mr. Edward Mosseley Sen

Wm Martin

James Joslin

Alexander Lilburn

James William

Mr. Henry Spratt

Symon Hancock Sen

Thomas Walk

Jno Kemp

Randolph Lovett

Edward Davis

Jno Sammons

Elizabeth Edwards ,

Mr. Benj. Burroughs

Jno Muncreef

Matt: Pallett ..[',

Mrs. Thurston

Lancaster Lovett

Robert Cartwright

Jno. Cartwright

Nath : Macklakan

Adam Thorowgood

Henry Walstone . ;

Edward Land

Thomas Hall

Wm. Catherill '.'..'..'.

Doctor Browne

John Richardson

Robert Richmond

Thomas Benson

Lewis Pervine

Edward Attwood

APPENDIX 205

100 Wm. Moore 414

1974 Mr. Henry Woodhouse 3000

390 Tully Emperor 300

600 Jno. Godfrey 170

2000 Wm Dyer 700

500 Edward Cooper 200

SO Wm Ship 300

130 Jno Buck 250

2650 Peter Mallbourn 280

45° Benjamin Roberts 100

180 Capt Jno Gibbs 3100

800 Sarah Sanford 1200

70 Henry Harrison 300

450 James Lemon 1500

650 Wm Wallsworth 100

400 Wm Capps 1050

681 Jacob Taylor 80

400 Stephen Pace 50

200 Adam Hayes 1360

150 Wm Chichester 400

250 Robert Dearemore 514

1000 Capt. Francis Morse 1300

200 Patrick Anguish 150

100 Thomas Brock 400

500 Wm Brock 100

100 Jno Sullivant 200

1736 Francis Sheene 300

300 Jno Acksted 400

298 Charles Hendley 100

340 Duke Hill 70

100 Job Brooks 150

200 Jno Brooks 100

150 Thomas Turton no

50 Peter Crosby 250

800 Jno Pisburn 314

140 James Sherwood 200

600 Edward Cannon 550

290 Richard Capps I00

1850 John Doley 640

260 Matthew Mathias 80

100 Mr. James Peters 889

100 Jno Owens IQ0

700 Josvas Morris goo

800 Thomas Mason 140

400 Wm. Wishart 200

400 Jno Russell 300

150 Stephen Sail 2=;o

600 Timothy Dennis 100

1000 George Walker 425

1000 Wm. Ashby IOo

225 Charles Griffin 2i6

800 Symon Franklin 100

400 Alice Thrower 125

206

APPENDIX

James Wishart 225

Richard Draught 500

Doctor Wm. Hunter 80

Mr. Jon Sanders 203

Wm Grinto 650

Henry Fithgerreld 200

Coll. H. Lawson 3100

Capt. John Thorowgood . . . 1000

Robert Thorowgood 94°

Henry Southern 640

John Wharton 850

Joseph Doller 150

Jno Briggs 600

Francis Jones 100

Thomas Lurrey 100

Thomas Walker 820

Steph Swaine 45°

Edward Mulsin 100

George Bullock 300

Jno Leggett 400

Mark Tully 300

Wm. Walstone 400

Mark Powell 550

Elizabeth Nicholls 500

Hugh Hoskins 50

Wm. Burrough 50

Wm. Warren 100

Capt. Hugh Campble 800

George Worrinton 400

James Tully 400

Wm. Lovett 1300

Wm. Grant 150

Thomas More 100

Richard Whithurst 350

Capt. Thomas Cocke 800

John Comins 175

Thomas Griffin 200

Thomas Spratt 600

Jno Russell 150

James Heath 550

David Duncon 100

Danicll Lane 350

George Fowler 600

Jno Booth 350

Giles Collier 500

Jacob Johnson 1700

Alexander Willis 150

Richard Bonny 2000

M r. lames Doage 784

Antho: Barnes 200

I n< 1. Macklalin 120

Thomas Etherington 108

Jno J ames 328

Wm. Woodhouse 300

John Mayho 160

Joseph Perry 35

Thomas Perry 650

Mr. Argoll Thorowgood . . . 1000

Capt. Wm. Moseley 600

Jno Moseley 325

Wm. Smith 180

Wm. Symmons 400

Adam Forguson 120

Banj. Commins 200

Jno Elkes 500

Patrick White 1250

Richard Jones 200

Evan Jones 600

Mich. Jones 200

Richard Wicker 300

Henry Snaile 250

Mr. Samiel Bush 550

Mr. Tully Robinson 500

Jno Briberry 50

Wm. Moseley 50

Capt. Christ. Merchant 400

Richard Cox 50

Matt. Godfrey 150

Thomas Tully 600

Hector Denbv 600

Thomas Keeling 700

Wm. More 100

Thomas Cason 550

Sarah Jackson 600

Jacob More 200

I tenry Spratt

A True and Perfect Rent Roll of the Lands In Elizabeth City County

for the Year 1704

Coll. Wm. Wilson 1024

Mr. Wm. Smelt 150

Mr. Pasquo Curie 300

M r. Nicho. Curie 950

Coll. Dudley Diggs 216

Samuell Pearce 100

Mary Jenings 250

Mark Powell 184

APPENDIX

207

Wm. Davis 42

Jno Skinner 50

Thomas Baines 50

Wm. Latham 90

Thomas Tucker 60

Matthew Smell 100

Charles Cooley 200

Jno Chandler 150

Wm. Umpleet 25

Charles Tucker 240

Thomas Allin 227

Wm. Williams per the

School 600

Wm Williams per himself.. 260

Mrs. Bridgett Jenkins 100

Christopher Davis 25

Wm. Spicer 60

Thomas Hawkins 270

Jno Bowles 260

Jno Theodam 100

Bartho. Wetherby 300

Jos : White 200

Capt. Henry Royall 750

Robert Bright Sen 100

Thomas Naylor 100

George Cooper Sen 100

Thomas Needham 100

Cha : Cooper 100

Wm. Dunn 100

Charles Jenings 225

Samuell Davill 100

Paltey Davill 100

Francis Rogers 200

Thomas Babb per Selden . . 300

Richard Horsley 90

Sarah Nagleer 230

Henry Dunn 50

Peter Pearce 50

Moses Davis 150

Mich: Breltuen .^ 100

Henry Robinson 200

Christo. Copeland 340

Thomas Faulkner 50

Mr. James Wallace 1300

Mr. Berthram Servant .... 418

Robert Taylor 50

Joseph Harris 50

Wm. Robinson 50

Wm. Boswell 220

Wm. Winter 70

John Lowry per Selden ... no

Edward Roe 100

Henry James 100

Richard Roatton 50

Thomas Poole 1200

John Wheat Land 66

George Bell 80

Widdow Ballis 350

George Walker 325

Mr. Robert Beverley 777

Jno House 157

Jno Bushell Jun 150

Roger Masinbred 50

John Shepherd 210

Wm. Minsor 150

Edward Lattimore 190

James Baker 225

Thomas Tucker 60

Jno. Cotton 50

Mark Johnson 400

Major Wm. Armistead 460

Coll. Antho. Armistead ... 2140

Daniell Preeday 50

Matthew Watts 454

Bryan Penny 50

Giles Dupra 150

Jno Bayley 415

Mary Simmons 200

1 no Parish 50

Antho. Griggs 50

Abr : Parish 100

Mark Parish 200

Benj. Smith 650

Thomas Nobling per Archer 212

Wm. Mallory 200

Widdow Croashell 100

Charles Powers 400

Robert Charwill per

Jno Young 440

Samuell Fingall ^33

Francis Savoy 50

Mr. Edward Mihills 600

Jane Nichols 50

John Francis 25

James Priest 50

Simon Hollier 200

Mr. Thomas Gebb 630

Mr. Richard Booker 526

Mr. Wm. Lowry 526

Mr. Merry or Mrs Dunn... 500

Wm. Haslyitt 100

Capt. Augustine More 285

John More 2=;o

John Passones 780

Rebeckha Morgan ep

Thomas Roberts 250

208

APPENDIX

Mr. John Turner 50

Henry Lais 5°

Capt. Henry Jenkins 300

Mr. Francis Ballard per
Selden 460

29560

Henry Royall Sgeriff

A True & Perfect Rent Roll of all the Lands that is held in Warwick

County 1704

Major Wm. Cary

Mr. Nedler Plantacon

Rober Hubbert

Wm. Harwood

Richard Glanvills Orphans.

Wm. Hubbert

Henry Gibbs

Wm. Hewitt

James Hill

John Golden

Thomas Harwood

Jno. Harwood

Capt. Thomas Charles

Hump: Harwood

Matthew Wood

Edward Joyner

Coll. Dudley Diggs

Elizabeth Lucas

John Hillard

Edward Lof tes

Wm. Rowles Orphans

Samuell Hatton

Isaac Goodwin

George Robinson

Seymon Powell

John Dawson

Wades Orphans

Henry Dawson

John Bowger

Joseph Cooper

Robert Roberts

George Burton

Capt. Mills Wells

Roger Daniell Orphans

Jno Hansell

Emanuell Wells

Elizabeth Wells Widdow . .

Widdow Lewelling

Wm. Wells

Elias Wells

Widdow Pierce

Thomas Haynes

Jojin Scarsbrook

300 Francis Jones l5°

80 Matthew Jones 75°

101 Jno. Read 875

625 Mr. Brewer Land 135°

165 Mr. Henry Cary 670

200 Langhorne Orphans 602

315 Coll. Coles Orphans 1350

150 Peter Jones 150

135 Samuell Crew Orphans 150

50 Samuell Symons 173

575 Mrs. Elizabeth Whitaker. . 600

704 Capt. Miles Cary 600

100 John Cannon 75

400 John Linton 75

300 Richard Gough 60

60 'Coll. Miles Cary i960

4626 Mr. Jno. Mallnote 61

800 Rowlands Williams 170

74 Robert Chapell 150

60 James Chapell 100

150 Edward Powers 200

225 James White 40

225 Peter Sawers Orphans 95

70 Wm. Cotton 143

250 James Cotton 70

300 John Croley 100

100 Stephen Burgess 128

200 Widdow Yorgen 60

100 George Jackson 193

200 Sarah Ranshaw 125

60 Richard Wootton 243

330 Samuell Hoggard 120

425 James Floyd 100

196 Fr : Rice Orphans 200

100 Mr. Math Hoggard 270

325 Widdow Chapell 321

155 Thomas Ascow 50

100 Garrett Ridley 300

615 Samuell Ranshaw 238

50 Charle Stuckey 86

155 Jos Naylor 100

850 Jos Russell 150

850 Charles Allen 295

APPENDIX

209

Wm. Newberrey 100

John Turmer 100

Wm. Smith 150

Elizabeth Holt 150

James Browne 15°

Henry Royall 246

Edward Rice 375

Thomas Blackistone 75

Mark Noble 215

James Reynolds 75

John Holmes 200

Samuell Duberry 200

Edward Powers 200

Jno Hatton Orphans 93

Wm. Lowland 25

Thomas Morey 363

Wm. Bracey 150

Cope Doyley 500

Nath Edwards 100

Samuel Groves 490

Croncher Orphans 50

Henry Whitaker 60

Woodman Land 200

Wm Cook 29

Jno Tignall 392

Thomas Mountfort 890

Joseph Mountfort 558

James Priest 50

Abr • Cawley 80

Wm. Jones 70

Edward Davis 200

The County Land 150

Denbigh per Gleab 130

Mulberry Island Gleab 50

Thomas Hansford 75

Mr. Rascows Orphans 1 195

Thomas Hansford never
before paid

37685

75

37610
Persons out of the County

Jno Trevillian 248

Holman Orphans . . 200 448

Robert Hubberd Sherriff

A Rent Roll of all the Land In York County 1704

Wm. Jackson 200

Matt : Pierce 100

Jno. Latin 150

Robert Cobbs 100

Francis Sharp 100

Geo : Baskewyle 350

Richard Gilford 100

Jos : Frith 50

Wm. Jones 70

Nath : Crawley 384

Thomas Crips 750

Wm. Davis 200

Lewis Barnoe . . .*> 80

Arthur Lun 50

Jno. Bates 669

Jno Serginton 150

Wm. Taylor 100

Richard Page 150

Wm. Jorden 580

Jno. Lynes 150

Alex : Banyman 50

Wm. Cobbs 50

Mary Whaley 550

Henry Tyler 180

Richard Kendall 150

Wm. Hansford 300

Nicholas Sebrell 150

David Stoner 50

Ralph Hubberd 50

Wm. Harrison 5°

Jno. Wyth 100

Thomas Hill 93<>

Thomas Vines 200

Morgan Baptist 100

Phil. Deadman 75

Bazill Wagstaff 127

Wm. Allen 117

Robert Read 750

Jos : Mountf ord 307

Roger Boult 100

Edward Fuller 70

Thomas Jefferson 100

Henry Duke 25

Jno. Hansford 100

Robert Peters 160

Jno. Morland 100

Wm. Lee 350

Richard Burt 200

John Eaton 170

Rob : Starke 250

Robt. Harrison 200

Jno. Morris 125

James Bates 117

Elizabeth Jones 94

2IO

APPENDIX

Edward Young ioo

Robert Green 200

Tho: Fear 100

Edward Thomas 223

John Loyall 100

Stephen Pond 200

Wm. Wise 850

Cornelius Shoohorn 100

Joseph White 750

Daniell Park Esq 2750

Thomas Fear Jun 130

Orlando Jones 450

Ambrose Cobbs 163

Henry Dyer 5°

Wm. Davis 100

Wm. Buckner 302^

Tho. Barber 600

Elizb. Tindall 60

Dudley Diggs 1350

Wm. Hewitt 150

Mary Collier 433

Charles Collier 684

Tho. Hansford 75

Geo. Browne 150

Wm. Gibbs 50

Wm. Pekithman 650

Jno. Smith 150

Baldwin Matthews 1300

Jno Daniell 200

Seamor Powell 130

Jno. Lewis Esq 300

Wm. Timson 1000

Jno. Page 490

Jos. Benj afield 80

Tho. Stear 60

Stephen Fouace 565

Edmund Jenings Esq 850

Elizb. Archer 370

Wm. Coman 50

Elizb. Hansford 100

Samll: Hill 25

Jno. Anderson 50

Tho Buck 250

Lewis Burwell 2100

Robt. Crawley 400

Robt. Hyde 200

Robt. Harrison 250

Jeffry Overstreet 50

Tho. Overstreet 50

John Myhill 52

Mary Roberts 25

Benja. Stogsdall 50

Tho Wade 375

Jos: Walker 615

Jno. Sanders 100

Mongo Inglis 400

Tho Holyday 100

Jno. Williams 100

Antho : Sebrell 50

Robt. Jones 100

James Cansebee 200

Richd. Booker 200

James Morris 100

Henry Adkinson 82

Robt. Jackson 150

Anthoney Robinson 183

Hannah Lamb 50

James Calthorp 900

Tho Boulmer 265

Peter Pasque 12

Jno. Chapman 70

Jno. Pond 112

Sarah Tomkins 250

Robt. Kirby 200

Tho. Kirby 270

Edward Curtis 200

Jno. Forgison 200

Wm. Row 902

Jno. Hunt 550

Wm. Taverner 100

Armiger Wade 424

Richard Dixon 450

Edmund Jennings Esq 1650

Jno. Persons 300

Tho. Nutting 375

Peter Manson 150

Richard Slaughter 275

James Persons 350

Tho. Roberts 450

Jno. Toomer 335

Daniell Taylor 225

Robert Hayes 220

Henry Andros 274

Jno. Wells 750

Robert Curtis 250

Tho. Cheesman Sen 1800

Jos Potter 25

Hen : Heywood 1300

David Holyday 600

John Northern 130

Jno. Doswell 367

Isaac Powell 100

Symon Staice 200

Jno. Drewet 200

Robert Topladie 100

Jno. Potter 93

APPENDIX

211

Lewis Vernum 150

James Slaughter 250

Tho : Burnham 50

Jno : Doswell Jun 100

Robert Shields 400

Win. Wilson 50

Owen Davis 247

Tho. Walker 100

Richard Nixon 150

Henry Clerk 100

Elias Love 25

Wm. Howard 100

Jno. Sanderver 100

Jno. Cox 50

Tho. Gibbins 100

Tho. Hind 100

Tho Cheesman Jun 600

Wm. Browne 200

Jno. Rogers 650

Jno. Moss 150

Jno. Lawson 100

Nicho. Philips 150

Wm. Sheldon 750

Jno. Wayman 100

Tho Edmonds 150

Lawrence Smith 1700

James Paulmer 150

Wm. Gurrow 150

Peter Goodwin 400

Robt. Snead 50

Edward Cawley 150

Wm. Gorden 150

Jno. Hilsman 75

Jno. Wright IOo

Jno. Gibons 50

Elizb. Goodwin 1200

Samuell Cooper 150

Jno. Fips i50

Tho Wooton 150

Edward Moss 759

Rebecka Watkins 100

Wm. Whitaker 1800

Hampton Parish 200

Bruton parish Gleabe 300

Robt. Ivy he living in

James City County &

no Tennt. on ye Land 100

Added to make up the
old Roll

Wm. Barbar S Y C

6ii32l/2

168
61300H

The Rent Roll of the Land

A

Adkinson Tho 50

Adkinson Henry 250

Armestone Joshua . . . . 50

Adams Anne 150

Argo James 200

Abbitt Francis 100

Apercon Wm 80

Allen Richard 540

1420

B

Baker Jno 100

Bentley Jno 125

Bess Edmund 75

Burwell Lewis 1350

Beckitt Tho 60

Bray James 3500

Bryon Jno 100

Bingley James 100

Benham Jno 50

Brown James 250

in James City County 1704

Bowers Wm so

Broadnax Wm '. 1683

Bayley Wm IOO

Black Geo 200

Bush Jno " 800

Ballard Tho ..'.[ IOO

Bray David 5758

Burton Ralph ,[ 2oo

Blankitt Henry [ I00

Brand Richard ,. j25

Breeding Jno '' IOO

Bruer Thackfield ?=r0

Blackley Wm {L

Barratt Wm o0c

Barron Tho *. I(^

Blankes Henry AKn

BagbyTho.... .'.',] °J&

Barnes Francis 200

Brackitt Tho .' ISO

Browne Wm \ I0yo

Buxton Samuell .' 300

Bimms Christo '" 300

Ballard Wm ][[ ^qq

212

APPENDIX

Boman 9°

Benge Robert 6°

19123

C

Center Jno I0°

Clerk Wm "00

Charles Phill 200

Capell Tho 200

Cearley Wm 450

Clerk Robert 3<x>

Clerk Sarah 200

Cole Richard 80

Cooper Tho 60

Cook Richard 75

Cosby Charles 250

Crawley Robert 460

Cryer George 100

Cobbs Ambrose 350

Cock Jonathan 250

Cowles Thomas 675

4850

D

Dormar Jno 100

Drummond Wm 150

Deane Jno *5°

Duckitt Abraham 290

Danzee Jno Jacob Coignan 411 1

Deane Tho 80

Deane Wm 100

Drummond Jno 7°o

Deane Tho 150

Duke Tho 75<>

Davey Francis 778

Doby Jno 300

Duke Henry Jun 50

Duke Henry Esq 2986

1 1695

E

Elerby Elizabeth 600

Edmunds Elizabeth 175

Eggleston Joseph 55<>

Eglestone Benj 1375

Frayser Jno 250

Fox Wm 50

Fouace Stephen 150

Fish Jno 100

Freeman George 197

Furrbush Wm. 400

Flanders Francis 35°

1824

G

Goodrich Benj 1650

Gwin Jno 100

Garey Tho 60

Guilsby Tho 300

Graves Joseph 250

Goss Charles 171

Goodall Jno 400

Geddes 476

Gill Jno 100

Green Tho 50

Gregory Nicho 50

Green Wm 100

Ginnings Phill 400

Gibson Gibey 150

Goodman John 275

Goodwin Robert 150

Grice Aristotle 700

Greene Tho 500

Fearecloth Tho
Farthing Wm. ,

2700

277
50

5882

H

Hudson Wm 50

Herd Leph 100

Hadley Dyonitia 100

Hall Jno 50

Harvey George 1425

Howard Jno 25

Hughes Geo 250

Harfield Mich 50

Hudson George 100

Hudson Leonard 170

Hood Jno 250

Harris Wm 140

Hamner Nicho 500

Henley Leonard 360

Hooker Edward 1067

Higgins Jno 75

Henley Jno 100

Holiday Tho 250

Hitchcock John 100

Holeman James 150

APPENDIX

213

Hubert Matt 1834

Handcock Robt 300

Haley James 310

Hook Mick 260

Hill Tho 310

Hatfield Richard 100

Hilliard Jerimiah 225

Hilliard John 200

Hopkins John 120

Hunt Wm 1300

Hix John 115

Harrison Wm 150

Hawkins John 200

Hix Joseph 100

Harrison Benj. Jun 100

10936

J

Inch Jno 30

Jone Fred 300

Inglis Mingo 1300

Jenings Edmund Esq 200

Jaquelin Edward 400

Jeffrys Tho 60

Jackson Elizabeth 200

Jackson Richard 150

Jeffrys Matt 100

Johnson Antho 100

Jones Wm 50

Johnson Jno 260

Jones Wm 150

Jordan John 1000

4265

K

Knowstarp 150

L

Lawrence Richard 250

Ludwell Phil Esq 6626

Lattoon John 75

Lund Thomas 100

Lillingtone Benj 100

Lidie Robt 500

Loftin Comeles 200

Lightfoot Phil 1650

Lightfoot Jno. Esq 250

Love Jno 100

Loftin Comeles Jun 200

Liney Wm 55

10106

M

Mookins Roger 160

Macklin Wm 300

Marston Wm 150

Morris Edward Jun 100

Manningaren 150

Marston Tho 1000

Martin Richard 150

Maples Tho 300

Muttlow Jno 170

Morris James 800

Moris David 170

Myers Wm Jun 100

Mountfort Tho 600

Morris John 195

Marble Geo 135

Mallard Poynes 100

Merryman James 300

Morecock Tho 700

Meekings Tho 175

Marraw Dennis 30

Major John 100

5885

N

Norrell Hugh 328

Nicholson Jno 144

Nicholls Henry 100

Nailer Wm 300

O'Mooney Mary 126

998

P

Prince George 50

'Page John 1700

Page Mary 900

Pigot Benj 90

Pall Wm 450

Parker Tho 1650

Peper Stephen 100

Phillips Jno 300

Pattison Alex 100

Perkins Charles 320

Philips Edward 100

Philips Wm 300

Pearman Wm 270

Pearman Jno 200

Pendexter Tho 550

Parish Tho 100

Pattisson Tho 200

214

APPENDIX

Parke Daniell Esq 1800

Pattison Catherine 150

9330

R

Rhodes Randall 50

Ryder Mary 35°

Rhodes Francis 100

Rovell Jno 50

Revis Wm 150

Russell Samuell 350

1050

S

Stafford Mary 210

Sanders Jno 50

Sewell Jno 75

Sprattley Jno 350

Smith Christo 450

Short Jno 00

Smallpage Robt 190

Santo Robt 100

Smith Jno 114

Slade Wm 80

Soane Henry 750

Sykes Barnard 1012

Selvey Jacob 50

Sharp Jno 800

Shaley Jno 150

Simes Wm 650

Sorrell Mary 500

Sherman Elizb 500

6121
T

Tinsley Edward 100

Tinsley Richard 100

Tomson James 100

Thackson John 289

Tyery Wm 1590

Thurston John 500

Thomas Wm 150

Tyler Henry 730

Tullett John 625

Thomas Hanah 100

Thomson Henry 150

Twine Tho 100

Thomas Jno 250

4784

V

Vaughn Henry 1900

Udall Matthew 50

Verney Wm 50

Vaiding Isaac 300

2300

W

Weathers Tho 130

Wood Richard 130

Whitaker Wm 320

Ward Tho 100

Weldon Sarah 100

Whaley Mary 200

Winter Timo 250

Wilkins Samll 170

Wright Samll 100

Winter Wm 100

Williams Matt 75

Walker Alex 500

Williamson John 120

Walker David 150

Walker Alex. Jun 2025

Warberton Tho 190

Weldey Geo 317

Wragg Tho 500

Wooton Jno 150

Willson Jno 140

Wilkins Tho 600

Wood Edward 300

Wood Tho 200

Walker David 100

Ward Robt 800

Wright Mary 175

Woodward Lanslett 650

Woodward John 650

Woodward Geo 350

Woodward Samll 350

Ward Henry 150

Ward Edward 150

10662

Young Robt 350

Young Thomas 350

700
1 14780

APPENDIX

215

Benj. Shottwater of York

County 300

Tho. Sorrell 300

Mary Nosham at the
Blackwater 168

768

Henry Soane Junr. Sher.

The Totall of the Acres

in James City County

1 14780
Discovered of this for which

the Shreiff is to be allowed

the Qt. Rts. according to
his Ex.cy odrs in Council

6000

108780
108780 acres at 24 tob per
100 is 26107 tob

Whereof pd in Aronoco at

6 per Ct 4000

12.0.0
In Sweet Scented at 3s " 4d

per Ct 22107

92.2.3
104.2.3

New Kent County Rent Roll

A Rent Roll of the Lands held of her Miajtu in the Parish of St. Peters
and St. Paulls. Anno 1704.

Alford John 240

Allen Richard 55<>

Alex Abraham 100

Allen Robt 100

Austin 245

Austin James 700

Amos Fran lOO

Ashcroft Tho 180

Aldridge Jno 250

Atkinson Jno 300

Anthony Mark 190

Anderson Jno 100

Anderson Robt 900

Arise Margt 200

Austin Rich SO

Anderson Robt 700

Anderson David 300

Anderson Rich . .*> 200

Allen Reynold 205

Allvis George 325

Aron Josiah 200

Amos Nocho 50

Allen Daniell 250

Allen Samll 150

Anderson John ioo

Ashley Charles 100

6785

Bourn Wm 140

Bray Sarah 790

Bradbury Geo 100

Brothers Jno 200

Bayley Jno 80

Beck Wm Mr 200

Butts Alice 150

Burnell Mary Mrs 2750

Bassett Wm 550

Ball David 200

Baughan Jno Junr 300

Bassett Tho 350

Blackburn Rowland 700

Baker Christo 100

Beer Peter 100

Brooks Richd 85

Burnell Edwd 200

Brown Jno 100

Bullock Richd 450

Blackwell James Junr 200

Brooks Robt 45

Bulkley Benj 200

Blackwell 950

Baughan Jno 100

Baughan Joseph 100

Bostock Jno 100

Bostock Wm 80

Bumpus Robt 100

'Burwell Lewis 200

Bryan Charles IOO

Bullock Edwd 450

Blalock Jno 492

Baker Jno 130

Bearne Henry 50

2l6

APPENDIX

Buhly Jno 225

Bow Henry 200

Bradley Tho 255

Barker Cha 100

Bugg Samll 60

Baskett Wm. Esq 1250

Beck Wm 433

Beare Joseph 150

Barrett Christo 60

Baughtwright Jno 250

Bad Samll 150

Banks Andrew 50

Baker Richd 80

Bowles John 500

Bunch John 100

Burnett Jno 150

Barnhowes Richd 1600

Barbar Tho 500

Burkett Tho 41

Bates Edwd 50

Breeding John 300

Brewer Mary 100

Bassett Wm. Esq 4100

Bradingham Robt 150

Baxter James 90

21786

C

Cotrell Richd 200

Clarkson David 200

Crump Stephen 60

Crump Wm 330

Clopton Wm 454

Chandler Robt 160

Crump Richd 60

Cambo Richd 80

Crawford David Junr 400

Crawford David Mr 300

Chambers Edwd 235

Clerk Edwd 282

Collett Tho 100

Clerk Christo 300

Cocker Wm 1000

Case Hugh 100

Carley Richd 80

Chiles Henry 700

Cook Abraham 200

Crump Elizb 80

Colum Richd 130

Crump James 150

Crump Robt 150

Clough Capt 80

Chandler Wm 300

Chandler Francis 150

Cordey Tho 150

Currell Andrew 30

Croome Joell 600

Crutchfield Peter 400

Chesley Wm 500

Crutchfield Junr 400

Carlton Wm 140

Chambers George 100

Cox Wm 350

9251

D

Dolerd Wm 50

Dennett John 350

Durham James 100

Dumas Jerimiah 250

Deprest Robt 350

Dodd John 300

Dabony James 320

Davis Elizar 375

Duke Henry Esq 325

Dibdall Jno 800

Darnell Rachell 100

Duke Henry Esq 170

Davis John 80

Davenport Mest 125

Daniell John 150

3845

E

Eperson John 120

Elmore Tho 300

Elmore Tho Junr 100

Ellicon Garratt Robt 520

England Wm 490

Elderkin John 300

Elmore Peter 100

English Mungo 500

Ellis Wm 100

2530

F

Finch Edwd 300

Foster Joseph 800

Forgeson Wm 507

Fleming Charles 920

Francis Tho 150

Freeman Wm 200

APPENDIX

217

Fenton Widdo 270

Feare Edmd 200

Fisher W'm 100

3447

G

Goodger Jno 200

Green Edwd 200

Gibson Tho 370

Garrat James 375

Gonton Jno 250

Glass Tho 150

Graham Tho 250

Gleam Jno 300

Giles Jno 120

Gentry Xicho 250

Garland Edwd 2600

Glass Anne 150

Granchaw Tho 4S0

Greenfield Fran 80

Gillmett Jno 160

Gawsen Phillip 50

Gillmett Richd 150

Glassbrook Robt 400

Gadberry Tho 200

Gill Nicho 222

Gosling Wm 460

Goodring Alexander 100

Gills John 100

Grindge Richd 225

7442

H

Herlock John 320

Hilton Jno 300

Hughs Jno 180

Huberd Jno . . . , 827

Howie Jno 1^0

Howie Jno Junr 100

Hughs Robt 966

Harris Edmd 100

Harris Tho 100

Hawes Haugton 850

Harris John 146

Hill Jno 250

Hester Fra 300

Horsier Rowland 250

Horman Robt 300

Hughes Rees 400

Hill Samll 300

Holled Samll 100

Harrelston Paul 360

Hatfield W'm 318

Harris Wm 125

Harris Benj 100

Horkeey John 800

Hairy John 2S0

Haiselwood Jno 200

Haiselwood Tho 150

Hockiday W'm 300

Holdcroft Henry 95

Hogg Mary 140

Harmon W'm 350

Hogg Jno. Junr 260

Harris Wrm 100

Hopkins W'm 200

Howes Job 300

Hight John 100

Hankins Charles 340

Harris W'm 150

Harris Robt 75

Handey W'm 150

Hogg WTm 200

Ha^elwood Richd 100

Hariow Tho 230

Hulton Geo 150

11312

J

Jackson Tho 500

Izard Fran 1233

Jarratt Robt 1600

Johnson Mich 40

Jones John 100

Johnson W'm 265

Jones Jane 200

Johnson John 100

Johnson Edwd 150

Jennings Robt 100

Jones Fredirick 500

Johes John 100

Jeeves Tho 100

Jones Francis 200

Jones John 100

Jones Evan 500

5838

K

King Elizb 300

Kembro Jno 540

Kembro Jno Junr 150

Keeling Geo 1500

?400

218

APPENDIX

L

Lightfoot John Esq 3600

Littlepage Richtl 2160

Losplah Peter 100

Lestrange Tho 200

Liddall Geo 100

Lawson Nicho 200

Levermore Phill 1000

Lewis John Esq 2600

Lawson John 50

Lewis John 375

Lovell Geo 920

Lovell Charles 250

Leak VVm 280

Logwod Tho 100

Lacey Wm 500

Lacey Tho 100

Lacey Emanuell 180

Luke Jno 150

Lochester Robt 80

Lewis Tho 115

Lee Edwd 120

Lochester Edwd 80

Law James 100

Laton Reubin 100

Linsey Joseph 1 150

Linsey Wm 50

Lane Tho 100

14760

M

Millington Wm Junr 450

Mitchell Stephen Junr 75

Millington Wm 200

Moss Samll 200

Mitchell Tho 300

Meanley Wm 100

Minis Tho 200

Mitchell Stephen 200

Moor Pelham 125

Martin Tho 100

Martin Martin 150

Morris Robt 245

Moss Tho 430

Morgan Edwd 50

Moon Stephen 70

Maj or Wm 456

Murroho Jno 100

Moor Jno 250

Masey Tho 300

Martin John 400

Masey Peter 100

Madox John 300

Martin Wm 230

Martin James 100

Moss James 720

Moon Tho 65

McKing Alexander 170

McKoy Jno 300

Merridith Geo 400

Melton Richd 290

Morreigh John no

Merfield John 210

Mills Nicho 300

Mask Jno 41 1

Medlock John 350

Moor Edwd 65

McKgene Wm 13^

Merriweather Nicho 3327

Mage Peter 450

Mitchell Wm 512

Marr Geo 100

Moor Anne 75

Mutray Tho 382

Mirideth James 270

Mohan Warwick 850

Muttlow James 150

Morgan Matthew 210

Morris John 450

Markham Tho 100

Moxon Wm 100

Mackony Elizb 250

Meacon Gideon 270

16149^

N

Nucholl James 300

Neaves James 150

Nonia Richd 100

Norris Wm 100

650

O

Osling John 150

Otey John 290

Oudton Matt 190

630

P

Page John Junr 400

Pendexter Geo 1490

Pattison David 300

APPENDIX

219

Park Jno Junr 300

Park John 200

Pease John 100

Philip Geo 100

Penix Edwd 200

Plantine Peter 240

Pendexter Tho 1000

Pyraul James 15°

Pullam Wm 575

Purdy Nicho 200

Page Mary Madm 3450

Perkins John 120

Paite Jerim 220

Pasley Robt 300

Perkins Wm 305

Pait John 1500

Petever Tho 100

Pittlader Wm 147

Pickley Tho 281

Pittlader Tho 295

Petty Stephen 200

Porter John 100

Petty John 2190

Park Coll 7000

Purly John 100

21573

R

Raglin Evan 300

Raglin Evan Junr 100

Raglin Tho 100

Ross Wm 150

Richardson Henry 300

Raymond James 80

Reynold Tho 255

Reyley Jno 100

Reynolds Jonah 50

Rhoads Charles 175

Reynolds Samll 820

Rice Tho 300

Redwood John 1078

Rule Widdo 50

Richardson Richard 890

Russell John 550

Richardson John 1450

Richard Eman 1250

Round Free Wm 100

Randolph Widdo 100

8928

S

Styles John 200

Smith Nathll 82

Sanders Wm 40

Spear Robt 450

Sanders James 60

Scott John 300

Scrugg Richd 100

Strange Alexander 450

Smith Wm no

Scrugg Jno 50

Snead Tho 200

Sunter Stephen 478

Symons Josiah 100

Sanders John 130

Stephens Wm 100

Stanley Tho 150

Sandidge Jno 100

Sprattlin Andrew 654

Snead John 75

Smith James 80

Sexton Wm 80

Sims Jno 1000

Smith Roger 300

Sherritt Henry 100

Salmon Thomas 50

Sanders Tho 25

Symons George 125

Stamp Ralph 625

Stanop Capt 1024

Stanup Richd 325

Shears Paul 200

Stepping Tho 350

Slater James 700

9813

T

Tony Alexandr 170

Tovis Edmd 100

Turner Henry 250

Turner Wm 2-,o

Turner Geo 4^0

Thorp Tho 200

Thurmond Richd 131^

Tucker Tho -jqq

Turner James e0

Thompson James 100

Tully Wm 200

Turner Geo Junr 200

Tate James IOo

Town Elizb IOO

Thomasses Orphans 500

Tinsle}' Cournelius 220

Tyler .' 100

220

APPENDIX

Tinsley Tho 150

Tirrell Wm 400

Taylor Tho 25

Tinsley Jno 130

Tapp Jno 1 10

Tyrrey James 150

Tyrrey Alexandr 210

Thompson Capt 2600

Tyrey Thorn 190

Taylor Joseph 150

Taylor Lemuell 212

Taylor Thomas 350

Twitty Thomas 200

8708^

V

Upsherd Jon 60

Vaughan Wm 300

Via Amer 50

Venables Abr 100

Venables John 200

Vaughan John 250

Vaughan Vincent 410

I370

W

Wintby Jacob 250

Winfry Charles 100

Waddill Jno 40

Walker Wm 650

Walton Edwd 150

Wilson Jno 200

Waddill Wm 375

Warring Peter 88

Wingfield Tho 150

Weaver Sam 100 /

Wyatt Alice 1300 -J

West Nath 6370

Webb Mary 200

Wilmore Jno 100

Webster Joseph 80

West Giles 200

Wharton Tho 270

Willis Fran 134

Waddy Samll 150

Willford Charles 100

Waid James 150

White Jno 320

Wood Henry 100

Woody Symon 50

Woody Jno 100

Winstone Antho 310

Winstone Isaac 850

Woody James 130

Winstone Sarah 275

Watson Theophilus 325

Woodson Jno 600

Walton Edwd 450

Wood Walter 100

Watkins Wm 50

Wilkes Joseph 250

Williams Clerk 300

Willis Stephen 500

Williams Tho 100

Worrin Robt 300

Woodull James 200

Walker Capt 400

Wilson James 60

Wheeler John 75

Williams Wm ioo

White John 190

17292

Yeoman John
Yeoell Judith .

50
150

200

Quit Rents that hath not been
paid this 7 year viz.

Richarson Matt 200

Wm Wheeler 150

Coll Parkes 300

650

Lands that the Persons lives
out of the County viz.

Coll Lemuell Batthurst 800

Robt Valkes 500

The Heirs of Bray 500

1800

A 6785

B 21786

c 9251

D 3845

E 2530

£ 3447

£ 7442

H 11312

APPENDIX

221

J 5838

K 2490

L 14760

M i6i4r9lA

N 650

O 630

P 21573

R 8298

S 9813

T 8708^

V 1370

W 17292

Y 200

James Mosse Sherriff

173870

A full & Perfect Rent Rail of all the Land held of hsr Majtie in Charles
City County this Present Year 1704 by Patents &c.

A

Aliat John 100

B

Bradley Joseph 200

Baxter John 250

Bishop Robt 200

Bedingfield Theo : no

Botman Harman 100

Burton Henry 100

Burwell Lewis 8000

Brooks Robt 150

Blanks Richard Senr 250

Blanks Richd Junr 125

Blanks Tho 125

Bradford Richd 1397

Brown Marmaduke 100

Bray David 230

1 1337

Cole Robt 80

Codell Richd 100

Clark Edwd 962%

Clark Daniell 250

Clark Joseph 230

Christian Tho . . > 1273

Cock Edwd 350

Cock Richd 975

Davis Thomas
Davis Richd . .

D

3258

200
118

318

Epes John 500

Ele Samll 682

Evans John 800

2669^

Floyd Geo 243

Fowler Richd 150

Flowers Samll 200

593

Gunn James 250

Grosse Edwd 100

350

H

Hamlin Jno 143^

Hill Edwd 2100

Haynes Nicho 125

Harwood John 100

Howood James 200

Hattle Shard 112

Harwood Joseph 659

Harwood Samll 350

Harwood Robt 312^2

Hunt Wm 3130

Hunt John 1500

Harmon Elizb 479

Hyde Wm 120

Hamlin Stephen 80

Hamlin Tho 264

16015

Edwards John 287^2

Epes Littlebury 400

Irby Wm 103

Javox James 100

222

APPENDIX

Jordin Edwd ioo

Justis Justinian 200

503

Lowlin Danll 600

Lawrence James 100

700

M

Manders James 100

Minge James I086'

Mountford Jeffry 100

Marvell Tho 1238

Moodie Samll 82

Muschamp John 80

N

New Edwd
New Robt .

Owen Wm . .
Owen David

0

2686

100
300

400

100
100

200
P

Parker Tho l66r

Parish Wm IOO

Parish Charles ..... 100

Parker James ] IOq

Parish Edwd IOO

Parish John /... 100

2227

R

Roach Jno Senr A2n

Renthall Joseph ' 070

Russell Samll .... £.

Roper John ' 2™

Royall Joseph * 2g2

1635

S

Smith Obidiah 100

Sampson Widdo 211

Stith Drewry 1240

Stith John 1395

Stockes John 476

Stockes Silvanus Senr 250

Stokes Silvanus Junr 550

Speares Geo 225

4447

T

Tanner Tho 2000

Tarendine John 150

Turner Edwd 195

Trotman Anne 120

2465

V

Vernon Walter 240

W

Wyatt Widdo 800 J

Woodam Tho IOO

Waren John 54

954

A

£ 100

r ll337

n 3258

p 3i8

P 2669H

r 593

H 350

Y 16015

L 503

M 7oo

N 2686

o 400

p 200

R 2227

c l635

T 4447

V 2465

w'::::::::" if

954

52059^

APPENDIX

223

An account of what Land that
I cannot get the Quit Rents
the Persons living out of the
County

Josep Parish at Kiquotan. . . 1

Richd Smith James City Cty 350

Danll Hayley 200

Wm Lagg Henrico Cty 100

Tho Parker Sherif

750

The Quit Rent Roll of King William County

Armsby John 200

Alvey Robt 400

Andrew Wm 100

Abbott Robt 100

Arnold Anthony 100

Arnold Benj 1000

Alcock John 190

Adam James 400

Anderson Wm Capt 150

Burwell Majr 4700

Bunch Paul 150

Baker John .1 250

Burges Edwd 150

Buttris Robt 400

Bibb Benj 100

Browne Joseph 270

Bell Edwds 580

Burch Henry 200

Burrel Suprian 350

Baker Tho .•> 100

Bobo Elizb 200

Bird Wm Maj Qr 1200

Burrus John 60

Butler Thomas 150

Burrus Thomas 60

Bassett Coll Qr 1550

Bray James Qr 1400

Browne Abraham 250

Brightwell Elizb 300

Bickley Joseph 150

Claibourne Wm Coll • 3000

Claibourne Tho Capt * 1000

Claibourne John 50

Coakes Robert 100

Cradock Samll 600

Cockram Wm 200

Cockram Joseph 600

Celar John 100

Chadwick Wm 150

Cathern John 180

Carr Thomas 500

Chiles Henry Qr 700

Craushaw Thomas 150

Clark Margarett 100

Coates Wm 50

Douglas Wm 200

Davis Lewis 200

Davis Wm 200

Downer John 300

Downes Elias 300

Davenport Davis 200

Dorrell Sampson Qr ....?■. 5000

Davenport Martin 100

Davis Robert 200

Dickason Wm 100

Dickason Thomas 100

Dillon Henry 150

Dabney James 200

Dabney George 290

Dabney Benj 200

Davis John 200

Elly Richd 100

Egny Elizb 100

Elliot Thomas 480

Edward James 350

Elliott James 1700

Fox John Capt 600

Fox Henry 2000

Finton Francis 100

Fuller Anthony 150

Foord John Junr 300

Foord Wm 800

Fullalove Thomas 100

Fleming Charles Qr 1700

Graves John Qr 100

Garratt Thomas 200

Geeres Thomas 100

Green John 100

Gravatt Henry 150

Goodin Majr Qr 200

Glover Wm 100

Herriott George 200

Hollins John 200

Higgason John 350

Holderbee Wm 100

Holliday Wm 100

Hayfield Wm 100

Hampton John 50

224

APPENDIX

Huckstep Edwd 15°

Hurt Wm Junr go

Hurt Wm Senr 250

Hurt John 500

Hendrick Hans 700

Handcock Thomas 200

Hayden John 150

Hobday Edwd 150

Hill Thomas 150

Hutchinson Wm 600

Hill Francis 300

Hill Gabricll 250

Hill Edwd Coll Qr 3000

Hayle Joseph 200

Johns Jane 240

Johnson Wm 300

johnson'Coll Qr 600

Johns Wm 100

isabell Wm 150

James Jonathan 300

Inge Vincent 100

Jones Frederick Qr 2850

Jenings Coll Qr 4000

King Robert Qr 300

Kettlerise Symon 200

Lee John 20

Lypscomb Ambrose 600

Lasy Wm 100

Lypscomb Wm 300

Littlepage Richd Capt Qr . . 2600

Lypscomb John 200

Mallory Thomas 150

Mallory Roger 100

Miles Daniell 350

Mr Gehee Thomas 250

Marr John 200

Morris Wm 440

Maybank Wm 100

Mr Donnell John 150

Maddison Henry 650

Merriweather Nicho Qr . . . 600

Mullene Matthew 150

Madison John Qr 300

Norment Joseph 800

Norment Samll 100

Xoyce Wm 650

\apier Robert 100

Owens Hugh 300

Oustin John 350

Oakes John 350

Oliver John 140

Palmer Martin 1200

Peek Tohn 100

Pynes Nathaniell 1400

Pee Thomas 400

Purlevant Arthur 100

Powers David 200

Pollard Wm Qr 500

Pemberton Geo 180

Page John Qr 1000

Pickrell Gabricll 100

Parks Coll Qr 4500

Quarles John 100

Reynolds Wm 100

Robert Maurice 200

Randall John 100

Ray James 100

Rhodes Nicholas 150

Sandlan Nicholas 700

Strutton Thomas 150

Streett Wm 350

Shilling George 300

Satterwhite Charles 150

Slaughter Geo 100

Slaughter Martin 130

Stark John 500

Sanders Jushua 100

See Mathew 200

Sellers Jacob 350

Spruse Jeremy 150

Smith Edmd 150

Spencer Thomas 600

Slaughter John 00

Smith Christo Qr 800

Slaughter Henry 100

Toms Wm 150

Towler Matthew 150

Terry Thomas 300

Terry Stephen 330

Tomason Thomas 150

Terry James 400

Traneer John 100

Vickrey Henry 450

West John Coll 1800

Winfree Henry 300

West Tho Capt 1000

Whitworth John 200

Whitlock John 200

Willeroy Abraham 550

Williams Phillip 100

Williams Griffith 240

Wood Thomas 300

Whitehead John > 100

Woolsey Jacob 130

Williams John 150

Williams Samll 600

APPENDIX

225

Wright Thomas 150

Whitbee Robert 800

West Nathanll Capt 2000

Waller John Majr 800

Willis Wm 250

Wheelis Joseph 130

Wormley Madam Qr 3000

Winston William 170

Whitehead Phillip * 3000

Yancey Charles 100

Yarborough John 150

Yarborough Richard 300

100950

Wm Stanard M.S 1000

James Wood K.Q 500

Zachary Lewis K.Q 45°

Peter Kemp G.C 600

Wm Beck N.K. 1600

Tho. Hickman K.Q 550

Benj Clement G.C 600

David Bray J.C.C 1000

Job House N.K 2000

Harry Beverley M.S 600

Chillian White G.C 300

A True Account of the Lands in King & Queen County as it was
by Robt. Bird Sherriff in the year 1704.

A

Alford John

Austin Danll

Asque John

Adams Johns . . .
Arnold Edwd . .
Allin Thomas . . .
Adkinson John . .
Austin Thomas . .
Adamson David
Anderson Richd
Allcock Dorothy

B

Baker Wm

Beverley Robt. Qr

Bennett Alexander

Breeding Geo

Bennett Wm N.

Bowles Robt

Bennett Sawyer

Baylor John

Bell Roger

Burford Wm

Bray John

Blake Wm

Boisseau James Quart

Blake Wm Junr

Brown Lancelet

Burch Jno

Burch Wm

Brown Tho. Blakes Land
Bridgeforth James

2300

350
3000
200
200
150
100

150
3000

150
LSO
230
290
900
210
385
100
100
300
355

Bagby Robt

Banks Wm

Bullock John

Bird Wm

Broach Jno

Braxton Geo

Blanchet John

Bowker Ralph

Bine Edmd

Barber James

Burgess Wm

Bond Jno

Breemer John

Bland Henry

Breemer John Junr

Bowden Tho

Barton Andrew . .
Barlow Henry

Baskett John

Batterton Tho.

Baker James

Bill Robt

Bocus Reynold . . .
Bourne George . . .
Bird Robt.

C

Cane Jno

Chessum Alexandr .
Cook Benjamin
Cook Thomas Junr .
Cook Thomas Senr

Cook Jno

Cleyton John

taken

55o

1079

200

572

1200

2825

125

330

in

75o

100

100

1100

150

200

150
150

200
LSO
IOO
322
150
I50
200
1324

22535

300
150
200
50
IOO

50

400

226

APPENDIX

Chapman Mary 200

Clcyton Jeremy 3^5

Crane Wm I2°

Camp Thomas 2^°

Carlcton Christo 20°

Carleton Jno 3<x>

Carter Timo ^°

Coleman Tho 300

Coleman Darnell .......... 4/<>

Cleyton Susannah Widdo . . 700

Collier Robt I0°

Crane Wm 3W

Crane Tho 320

Chapman John 200

Caughlane James I0°

Cotton Catherine 50

Collier Charles 45©

Collier John 400

Collins Wm 35°

Cammell Alexandr 200

Chin Hugh I0°

Conner Timo 1410

Collins James Yard Qr . . . . 300

Corbin Gowin 20O°

Crisp Tobias IO°

Carters Qr 3O0

Carlton Tho 200

Carlton Anne 300

Clough George Qr 390

12235

Clerk and Cordell both

in Glocester 1000

D

Widdo Durrat 200

Day Alexander Maj.

Beverley Qr 300

Doe Wm 300

Dilliard Nicho 150

Dilliard Edwd 150

Dimmock Tho 150

Dismukes Wm 200

Duett Charles 9°°

Didlakc James 200

Durham John 1 00

Dunkley John 380

Duson Tho 448

Davis Nathll 3<x>

Deshazo Peter 450

Davis Jno 00

Davis Edwd 100

Dillard Thomas 170

Davis Richd 250

Dillard Geo 325

Duglas James 275

Dayley Owen 180

5618
E

Eachols John 220

Ellis John 400

Eastham George 300

Ewbank Wm 350

Eastham Edwd Junr 800

Edwds John 100

Eastham Edwd 100

Eastes Abraham 200

Eyes Cornelius 100

Emory Ralph 100

Ellis Timothy 350

3020
F

Forsigh Thomas 150

Farquson James 300

Flipp John 80

Farish Robt 1400

Fielding Henry 1000

Farmer John 50

Fothergill Richd 675

Fortcon Charles 400

Forgett Charles 150

Robt Fothergill 150

Farmer John not paid for.
Fox Margarett not pd for.

4355

200
100

G

Gadberry Edwd 100

Griffin Edwd 100

George Richd 100

Griffin David 100

Graves Robt 150

Graves Jno 150

Gardner Ringing 200

Gray Joseph 200

Gilby John 300

Gray Samll 40

Gresham Jno 200

Gresham Edwd 175

Good John 200

Gresham Geofgc 150

APPENDIX

227

Garrett Danll 200

Gamble Tho. Majors Land 450

Gresham Tho 225

Graves Jno J50

Guttery Jno 230

Greogory Frances Widdo . . 700

Gotigh Alice Widdo 800

Griggs Francis 250

Garrett John 330

Garrett Humphrey 200

Gibson Widdo 200

Garrett Robt 200

6100

H

Hand Thomas 150

Hayle John Qr o°5

Honey James 200

Holloway Wm I(x>

Herndon James IO°

Hoomos George 725

Hodges Thomas 250

Hayle Joseph 250

Hayes John IO°

Haynes Wm 494

Holcomb Wm Bradfords

Land 7°°

Henderson John Thackers

Land 200

Hodgson Widdo 200

Henderson Widdo 3°°

Henderson Wm 162

Housburrough Morris, Harts

Land 200

Hesterley John 200

Hill John 200

Hordon Wm 70

Harris Wm 250

Hart Tho 2°°

Hockley Robt 100

Howard Peter 300

Hardgrove Wm 100

Herring Arthur 50

Hickman Thomas 700

Hunt Wm 3"

Hobs Wm 250

Hicks Richd 250

Howden Wm 100

Howerton Thomas 300

Holt Joseph lives in

Maryland 321

Mayward Tho in Glocester. . 000

J

Jones Tho l5P

Jones Robt 200

Jeffrys Richd 337

Jones Robt Junr 130

Johnson James 200

Jones Wm °oo

1917

K

King John *50

Kallander Timo IO°

Kink Anne 275

King Edwd 200

Knowles Dorothy Qr 150

King Robt 100

Kenniff Danby I0°

King Daniell 200

1335

L

Loveing John I0°

Lyon Peter 25°

Leigh John 6200

Lumpkin Robt 400

Lee Wm 23°

Loob Wm IO°

Loft Richd 320

Lewis Tachary 350

Lumpkin Jacob 95°

Lewis David I2°

Lewis John Esq 10100

Lewis Edwd Moo

Lemon Elizb I0°

Lynes Rebecea 405

Levingstone John 000

Levingstone Samll *oo

Lawrence Matthew 210

Letts Arthur 475

Langford John J50

Levingstone Jno Sowels

Land 750

23310

Leftwich Thomas in Essex 75

228

APPENDIX

M

May John 300

M usick George ioo

Major Jno 250

Martin John 300

More Austines Qr 200

May Tho 300

Moore Samll 100

Maddison Jno 500

Morris Wm 130

Martin Elizb 400

Mackay Sarah 177

May John Piggs Land .... 200

Major Francis 700

Mansfield Thomas 60

Morris Henry IOO

Major John 400

Melo Nicho 200

Marcartee Daniell 200

Morris Wm 300

Mead Wm 100

Matthews Edwd 160

Martin Cordelia Wido .... 200

5377

N

Xelson Henry 440

Neal John 50

Nason Joshua 200

Norman Wm 300

Xorris James IOO

1090

O

Owen Ralph 120

Ogilvie Wm 300

Orrill Lawrence 290

Orrill Wm 500

Orsbourn Michaell 90

Overstreet James Qr 180

ditto at home 50

1530

P

Powell Robt 500

Prewitt Wm 200

Paine Bernard 130

Pomea Francis 100

Philip Charles 250

Pettitt Thomas 548

Pollard Robt 500

Pollard Wm 100

Pliinkett Elizb 500

Pemberton Tho 115

Pickles Tho gj

Potters Francis Wido

Meals Land 100

Parks James 200

Purchase Geo Qr 580

Page Jno 100

Pritchett David 225

Pigg Henry 61

Page John Junr 300

Pigg Edwd 250

Phelps Tho 400

Pendleton Philip 300

Pendleto Henry 700

Pann John 200

Paytons quarts 500

Pigg John 100

Pamplin Robt 150

Pryor Christo 175

Paulin Elizb 175

7552

Pate John in Glocester 1000

Q

Quarles James 300

Quarles Dyley Zacha :

Lewis Land 300

600

R

Richard Robt 300

Rings Quarter 1000

Robinson Daniel IOO

Roger Giles 475

Rice Michaell 200

Richeson Tho 460

Richeson Elias 180

Read Elizb 550

Russell Alexandr Wyatts

Land 400

Robinson Robt 980

Rowe John 100

Richards John 914

Richards Wm 400

Richards Oliver 250

Riddle Tho Reads Land . . . 700

Roy Richd 1000

Ryley Elias 200

APPENDIX

229

Rollings Peter 150

8359
John the son of Robt
Robinson hold, which

nobody pays for 750

S

Sebrill John 130

Stone Mary 100

Smiths in Bristoll Qr 2800

Stone Jno 295

Stubbelfield Geo Qr 400

Scandland Denis 1470

Swinson Richd 170

Smith Christo 200

Smith Jno Cooper 273

Smith Alexander 275

Seamour Wm 268

Sones Tho 150

Shepai d Jane 100

Southerland Danll 200

Shoot Tho 100

Shepheard Joseph 100

Shea Patrick 200

Southerland Danll 200

Smith Nicho 700

Sanders Nathll 200

Smith John Sawyer 80

Shuckelford Roger 250

Skelton John 100

Snell John 150

Simpio Charles 100

Sawrey John 113

Stringer Margt 175

Spencer Tho 300

Sykes Stephen 50

Smith Francis 100

Smith Richd 150

Sparks John 200

Surly Tho 100

Stapleton Tho 200

Story John 3000

Spencer Katherine 600

M599

Shippath Sr Wm Which is

not paid for 700

Stark Tho of London which

is not paid for 920

Stubblefield Geo in Glocester 400

Smith Austin in Glocester.. 4000

T

Turner Richard 200

Todd Thomas Quarts 2300

Taylor James 4000

Toy Thomas 175

Taylor Danll 70

Thomas Rowland 610

Tunstall Tho 550

Todd Richd 1050

Towley John 200

Trice James 350

Tureman Ignatius 100

Turner Thomas 267

Thacker C C 1000

10872

U

Vaughan Cornelius 500

Vize Nathll 100

Uttley John 200

800

W

Wood James 800

Wilkinson John 100

Wright Tho 300-

Watkins Wm 137

Wiltshier Toseph 60

Watkins Edwd 98

Watkins Philip 203

White Thomas 200

Walker John 6000

Wilson Benj Wyats Land . . 420

Wyat Richd 1843 ■/

Walton Thomas 200

Wyat John 53° K

Withy Thomas 50

Williams Thomas 200

Watts Tho 235

Ward Samll 160

Watkins Benj 60

Watkins Tho Junr 125

Williams Elizb 900

Waldin Samll 275

Ware Edwd 735

William John 125

Ware Vallentine 487

Willbourn Tho 250

Wildbore Wm 100

Ware Nicho 718

White Jerimiah 200

230

APPENDIX

\\ herein John 200

Wise Richd quarts 209

Walker John, Johnsons

Land 1000

16920
Wadlington Paul not paid

for being 150

Y

York Matthew 100

A 2300

B 22535

^ 12235

D 5618

E 3020

F 4355

G 6100

H 8098

J 191/

f- J335

t-r 23310

M 5377

N 1090

Q 600

R 8359

5. r4599

1 10872

U 800

W 16920

Y 100

158522

Lands returned not paid for

C 1000

£ 300

n 920

p 75

r 1000

5 "50

^ 6020

W iso

10215

Glocester Rent Roll
A Rent Roll in Petso Parish

Capt David Alexander 1050

James Amis 250

John Acre 100

Wm Armistead 430

Ralph Baker 150

Martha Brooken 600

Thomas Buckner 850

Samll Bernard 550

Wm Barnard 810

Richd Bailey 600

Mary Booker 100

Thomas Cook 350

Wm Crymes 400

Jno Cobson 100

'Robt. Carter j I02

W m Collone 400

Hannah Camell 100

Benj Clements 400

Jno Cleake IOO

Wm Cook Xor

Jno Coleman 200

Jno Day 400

Jerim Darnell x^o

Jno Darnell 60

James Dudley 780

Richd Dudley 400

Thomas Dudley 200

Thomas Dixon 300

Jno Drument 80

Samll Fowler 150

Wm Fleming 600

Wido Forginson 150

Wm Fockner 180

Jno Grymes 1400

Susannah Grinley 200

Darcas Green 400

Jno Grout 300

Jno Harper 100

Wm Howard 300

Richd Hubard 100

Wm Hasford 500

Jno Hanes 150

\K xtnder How 120

Richd Hill -0

Robt Hall IO0

Richd Hull 250

San 11 Hawes 200

Stephen Johnson 150

APPENDIX

231

Wm Jones for Northington 530

Glebe Land 127

Jno Kingson 400

Capt Edwd Lewis 1000

Richd Lee Esq 1 140

Nicho Lewis orphen 350

Wm Milner 900

Richd Minor 250

Edwd Musgrove 100

Hayes an orphan 60

Elizb Mastin 360

Jno Mackwilliams 50

Robt Kettles 300

Wm Norman 150

Isaac Oliver 100

Dorothy Oliver 130

Jno Pritchett 850

Jno Pate 1 100

Richd Price 600

Madm Porteus 500

Madm Page 550

Pobt Porteus 892

Guy Parish 100

Wm Roane 500

James Reynolls 200

George Robinson 300

John Royston 570

Thomas Read 2000

Wm Richards in Pamunkey 150

Jno Shackelford 280

Edward Symons 500

Nicho Smith 280

John Stubs 300

Thomas Sivepson 280

John Smith 1300

Augustin Smith 200

Augustin Smith Junr 500

Wm Starbridge 159

Wm Thornton Senr 525

Wm Thornton Junr 800

Wm Thurston 200

Wm Upshaw 490

Francis Wisdom 150

Thomas West 112

Thomas Whiting 450

George Williams 100

Conquest Wyatt 2200

Seth Wickins 50

Walter Waters 200

Jane Wothem 60

Robt Yard 450

Robt Hall 250

Wm Whittmore Desarted . . 150

Wm Parsons Orphen 100

Edwd Stephens 70

John Kelley Orphen 150

41132

Tho Xeale

Glocester Rent Roll
A Rent Roll of Kingston Parish

Rose Curtis 400

Robt Peyton 680

Richd Perrott 35

Henry Preston . . v 1500

Sarah Green 200

Robt Cully 200

Thomas Hayes 140

Andrew Bell 128

Humphry Toy 1 100

Anne Aldred 350

Dunkin Bahannah H3/4

Richd Hunley 50

Capt Gayle 164

Math. Gayle Junr 250

James Hundley 100

John Hundley 130

Philip Hundley 660

Tho Cray 200

Hen. Knight 240

John Williams 50

Richd Beard 380

Timothy Hundley 300

Thomas Bedford 50

Jno Floyd 250

John Bohannah 1 13^

Capt Armistead 3675

Christopher Dixon 300

Robt Bristow Esqr 900

Edwd Gowing 100

Tho Ryland 272

John Nevill 100

Lawrence Parrott 340

Wm Brooks 720

Joseph Bohannah 1.48

232

APPENDIX

Win Hampton 348

Widdo Green 150

Capt Dudley 650

Capt. Knowles S75

Capt. Tho. Todd 775

Win I Ward IOO

Win. Tomkins 100

Henry Bolton 50

W m Fliott 1060

Humphrey Tompkins 100

Daniel Hunter 200

Thomas Peyton 684

Richd Dudley 350

James Ransom Junr 310

Tho. Peters 30

Robt. Elliott 1247

Mich. Parriett 100

Jno. Meachen Junr 600

Caleb Linsey 140

Alexandr Ofield 22,

Mark Thomas 300

Jno. Garnet 250

Wm. Plumer 510

Wm. Brumley 750

Wm. Credle 50

Charles Jones 225

Robt. Sadler 50

Edwd Sadler 20

Geo Roberts 170

Richd Longest 600

Tho. Fliping 300

Charles Watters 100

Wm. Grundy 200

Thomas Kemp 200

Tho. Allaman 842

Coll Kemp 200

Ralph Shipley 43©

George Turner 50

Coll. James Ransom 1400

Thomas Putman 300

Richd Marchant 180

Widdo Sinoh 300

Christopher Rispue 200

Benj . Read 550

Walter Keble 550

Joseph Brooks 500

Capt. Gwin 1 100

Lindseys Land 390

Thomas Garwood "jy

John Callie 1000

Tho. Miggs 100

Richd Glascock 500

Jno Lylley 584

Geo. Billups 1200

Robt. Singleton 650

James Foster 225

John Andrews 50

Thomas Rice 34

John Martin 200

Capt. Smith 550

Capt. Sterling 1 100

John Diggs 1200

Wm. Howlett 300

Jno. Miller 100

Andrew Ripley 40

Francis Jarvis 460

Wm. Armistead 300

John Banister 650

Tho. Plumer 400

Isaac Plumer 200

James Taylor 50

Edwd Borum 360

Widdo Davis 300

Sam. Singleton 300

Wm. Morgan Senr 50

Wm. Morgan Junr 200

John Bacon 825

Henry Singleton 600

John Edwards 534

Patrick Berry 250

Anne Forest 500

Ambrose Dudley

1705

46537

Glocester Rent Roll
A Rent Roll in Ware Parish

Thomas Poole 600

Anne Croxson 300

Thomas Purnell 163

Nocholas Pamplin 210

Simon Stubelfield 200

Jno. Price 600

Saml. Vadrey 400

Samll Dawson 350

APPENDIX

233

Nathan : Burwell 600

John Dawson 780

Tho. Bacop 200

Robt. Francis 400

Walter Greswell 50

Tho. Read 400

James Shackellield 35

Robt. Freeman 135

Jno. Marinex 100

Isaac Valine 100

Tho. Haywood 70

Hugh Marinex 50

Leonard Ambrose 200

Philip Grady 200

Capt. Wm. Debnam 1250

James Burton 100

Jno. Spinks 300

Wm. Hurst 200

Sarah More 67

John Ray 100

Robt. Pryor 300

Christo. Greenaway 270

Capt. Throgmorton 500

James Clark 250

Philip Cooper 200

Jno. Kindrick 100

Samll. Simons 120

Wm. Radford 200

John Robins 900

Alice Bates 200

Jno. Easter 350

James Davison 100

Robt. Morrin 200

Anne Bray 100

Grace Easter 200

Sampson Dorrell 300

Capt. Francis Willis 3000

Thomas Powell 460

Wm. Holland 300

Capt. Cook N. 1500

Giles Cook 140

Wm. Jones 120

Tho. Collis 100

Philip Smith 700

Tho. Cheesman 650

Geo. More 40

James Morris 250

Abraham Iveson Senr 1000

Robert Bristow Esqr 2050

Anthony Gregory 700

Richd. Bailey 800

Wm. Foulcher 100

Widdo. Jeffes 216

Richd. Dudley Junr 300

John Buckner 900

Thomas Todd 884

John and Peter Waterfield . . 143

Henry Whiting 800

Madm. Whiting 950

Jno. Goodson 150

Wm. Morris 350

Mary Lassells 200

Peter Ransone 220

Charles Waters 200

Dorothy Kertch 220

Dorothy Boswell 1600

Richd. Cretendon 280

Elizb. Anniers 250

Elizb. Snelling 250

Joseph Boswell 230

John Bullard 100

Anthony Elliot 100

Wm. Armistead 100

Peter Kemp 650

Majr. Peter Beverley 800

Ditto per Tillids Lands .... 150

Dudley Jolley 100

Robt. Couch 100

31603

Glocester Rent Roll
A Rent Roll of Abbington Parish

Mr. Guy Smith

James Cary

Wm. Sawyer

Edwd. Cary

Robt. Barlow

Tho. Cleaver Sworne
Edwd. Stevens

30 Henry Stevens 60

50 Chillion White 100

150 Jerimah Holt 350

100 of Ditto for the Widdo Babb 150

62 Robt. Yarbborrow 100

200 Robt. Starkey 100

80 Henry Seaton 170

234

APPENDIX

Hugh Howard 200

Capt. Booker 1000

Jno. Stoakes 300

Jno. Dobson 400

Wm. Dobson 950

Edmd. Dobson 350

Hugh Allen 1250

George Jackson 117

Jno. Teagle 30

Widdo Jones 45

1 Mary Thomas 100

' Thomas Seawell 200

Benj. Lane 50

Valentine Lane 80

Jeffry Garves 33

Thomas Coleman 250

Johanna Austin 40

Majr. Burwell 3300

Jno. Satterwight 50

Jerimiah Holt Junr 150

Charles Stevens 75

Richd. Roberts for wife... 300

Jno. Sadler 125

James Steavens 100

Susannah Stubbs 300

Richd. Foster 150

Henry Mitchell 50

Nathanll. Russell 550

Elizb. Richardson 500

Wm. Camp 175

James Row 300

John Butler 100

John Smith Esqr 2000

Ditto for Robt. Byron.... 400

Capt. Blackbourne 550

Peter Richeson 250

Benj a Clements 500

Thomas Graves 70

Robt. Page 75

Joseph More 150

Richard Dixon 200

Elizb. Turner 150

Owen Grathmee 250

Richd. Woodfolk 125

Jno. Waters 50

VVm. Hilliard 80

Richd. Heywood 100

Mary Hemingway 150

Wm. Kemp 75

Robt. Francis 104

Joshua Broadbent 200

Joseph Coleman 200

Grustam Clent 100

Philip Grady 150

Jno. Hall 125

Tho. Walker 300

Jno. Mixon 400

Tho. Sanders 450

Wm. Smith for Kittson ... 50

John Banister 2750

Madm. Mary Page 3000

Jno. Lewis Esq 2000

28426
Richd. Cordell

Ware 31603

Petso 41 123

Kingston 46537

147698

A Perfect Role of the Land in Middlesex County Anno Dom. 1704

Richard Atwood 100

Richard Allin 150

Tho. Blewford 100

Mrs. Blaiss 300

John Bristow 140

Robt. Blackley 100

Coll Corbin 2260

Coll Carter 1150

John Cheedle 50

Wm. Carter 170

Widdo Chaney 800

Nath. Cranke 50

Tho. Dyatt 200

John Davie 75

Wm. Daniell 150

Robt. Daniell 225

Henry Freeman 200

John Goodrich 50

Geo. Goodloe 50

Geo Guest 50

Richd Gabriell 30

Wm. Finley 50

Wm. Gardner 100

Robt. George 180

David George 150

Widdo. Hazellwodd 200

John Hoare 100

Richd. Reynolds 50

APPENDIX

235

Jno. Southerne 100

Richd. Shurly 200

_Tho. Hapleton '. 200

Wm. Southworth 50

Wm. Jones 300

Evan Jones 50

Esqr. Wormley Estate 5200

Wm Churchhill 1950

Jacob Briston 100

Jno. Pace 200

John Logie 300

John Price 519

Henry Perrott 1 100

Richd Kemp 1 100

Tho Kidd 250

Francis Weeks 225

Widdo Weeks 225

Henry Webb 100

Tho Wood 70

Robt. Williamson 200

Tho Lee 100

Edmd. Mickleburrough .... 200

Valentine Mayo 100

Wm. Mountague 500

Garrett Minor 225

Marvill Mosseley 225

Joseph Mitcham 75

Minie Minor 225

Humphrey Jones 150

Jno. North 200

Henry Tugill 200

Henry Thacker 1875

Thomas Tozeley 500

Charles Moderas 100

Wm. Mullins 150

John Smith 7°°

James Smith 400

Harry Beverley s IOOO

George Wortham 400

Capt. Grimes 900

Sarah Mickleborough 1000

Christo. Robinson 4000

John Vibson 100

James Daniell 150

Tames Curtis 300

Tho. Cranke 54

Phil. Calvert 200

John Hipkins 100

Richd. Daniell 210

Geo. Blake 100

Edwd Williams 100

Pat Mammon 100

Alexander Murray 250

Poplar Smith 550

Olixer Seager 380

Edwd Gobbee 90

Henry Barnes 200

John Davis 100

Paul Thilman 300

Hugh Watts 80

Edwd Clark 300

Charles Williams 100

Edwin Thacker Estate 2500

Thomas Dudly 200

Thomas Mackhan 200

Richd. Paffitt 200

Tho. Hiff 100

Peter Bromell 100

Tho Blakey 100

John Robinson 1350

Roger Jones 100

John Xicholls 200

George Berwick 100

Widdo Hurford 50

Widdo Hackney 300

Wm. Kilbee 600

Ezikiah Rhodes 300

John Handiford 100

John Miller 200

Wm. Scarborow 200

Wm. Heme 75

Robt. Dudley 300

Widdo Mason 100

Peter Chilton 100

Francis Dobson 150

James Dudley 200

Capt. Berkley 750

Wm. Sutton 150

Sr. Wm. Skipwith 350

Cull Kemp 900

Wm. Barbee 150

Wm. Wallis 300

Adam Curtin 200

Capt. Wm Armistead 2325

49008

236

APPENDIX

A True & Perfect Rent Roll of all the Lands held in Essex County this

present year 1704

Abbott Wm 150

Andrews Geo 200

Adcock Edwd 230

Adcock Henry 250

Acres James 100

Arving Wm .'. 100

Allin Erasmus IOO

Allin Wm 100

Ayres Wm 200

Acres Wm 200

1630

Baulwar James 800

Bendall John 135

Butler John 125

Bowers Arthur 600

Baulwar James 200

Beesley Wm 100

Barron Andrew 50

Bartlett Tho 100

Brown Buskinghan 400

Beeswell Robt 100

Beeswell Robt. Junr 150

Brown Wm 420

Brown Charles 1000

Buckner Richd 1200

Buckner Tho 1000

Brice Henry 400

Bourn Jno 100

Beverly Harry 1000

Battail John noo

Baulwar John 50

Booth Widdo 800

Butler Jno 100

Butcher Jno 150

Bendrev Widdo 700

Bird Widdo 100

Beckham Symon 100

Brutnall Richd 100

Brook Robt 400

Ball Jno 150

Brooks James 100

Billington Mary 200

Brooks Peter 275

Bowman Peter 400

Brooks Robt 150

Brasur Jno 300

Brush Richd 250

Baker Henry 35<>

Bradburn Richd 100

Brown Francis 150

Brown Danll. Junr 150

Bryom Henry 100

Burnett Tho. Junr 1000

Baughan James Senr 600

Baughan James 150

Baughan Henry 100

Brown Danll. Senr 450

Brown Tho 50

Blackiston Argail 200

Burnett John 365

Burnett Tho. Junr 130

Bailer Jno 800

Brakins Qrtr 250

Bell Thomas 100

19980

Condute Nathll 20

Cary Hugh 50

Connoly Edwd : 200

Cogwell Fredirick 250

Copland Nicho 300

Cattlett Jno 1800

Covengton Richd 1000

Cook John 112

Chew Larkin 300

Crow Tho 300

Covington Wm 400

Cheney John 200

Cole Wm 200

Cheney Wm 700

Corbin Tho. Or 440

Cockin Tho 120

Coates Samll 300

Cooper Richd 100

Cooper Tho 100

Copland Jno 175

Crow Jno 440

Chew Larkin 550

Cooper Wm 50

Compton Wm 50

Cox Wm 500

Callaway Jos 87

Coleman Robt 450

Cobnall Symon 100

Chamberlain Leond 350

9764

APPENDIX

^37

Daniell James 100

Devillard Jacob 80

David Tho 150

Dudding Andrew 230

Davis Evans 150

Dobbins Danll 550

Dressall Timo 175

Daughty John 200

Dyer Wra 100

Daingerfield Jno 270

Daingerfield Wm 270

Dunn Wm 220

Dyer Jeffrey 100

Day Richd 100

Dicks Thomas 500

12959

Evans Rice 200

Edmondson James 500

Elliott Alice 75

Evitt Tho 100

Emondson Tho 700

Flowers. Isaac 250

Faulkner Nicho 100

Farrell Charles 50

Franklin Nicho 130

Foster Robt 200

Foster Jno 200

• Fisher Jonathan 250

Fisher Benja. . . .' 150

Frank Tho 175

Fullerton James 400

Fossett Wm 100

Ferguson Jno 150

Faulkner Edwd 530

17219

Green George . . N 300

Gray Abner 350

Goulding Wm 200

Gannock Wm 2100

Gaines Barnerd 450

Griffin Tho 200

Gibson Jonathan 700

Grigson Tho 300

Gouldman Francis 300

Goulding John 200

Goulding Edwd 380

Good Richd 200

Garnett John 150

Glover John 100

Hawkins John 1066

Hinshaw Samll 200

Hutson Tho 100

Harrison James 400

Harrison Andrew 300

Hilliard Thomas 100

Harper Wm 240

Harmon Henry 75

Hoult Richd IOO

Humphrie Joe 100

Hail Jno 900

Harper John 748

Harper Tho 350

Hould David 100

Hudson Wm 100

Hinds Thomas 100

Howerton Thomas 175

Hodges Arth 100

Hows Qrtr 300

Harwood Peter 125

Harway Tho 1000

Hudson Tho 50

Hudson Wm 300

Hill Leond .' . 300

Harwar Samll 300

Jamison David 250

Jones Wm 165

Jenkins David 50

Jewell Tho 100

Johnson Widdo 300

Jones Walter 100

Johnson Richd 50

Johnson Wm 650

Jones John 300

Jones Richd 350

Jenkins John 93

Jones Wm 300

Journey Wm 243

Johnson Thomas 500

Jones Rice 500

Key Robt 209

Kerby Henry 60

Landrum John 300

Landrum James 100

Long Richd 300

Lomax John 2000

Loyd George 800

Lawson Claudy 100

Little Abraham 60

Lacy John 100

Law John 300

Lattaine Lewis 250

Leveritt Robt 100

Micou Paul 150

238

APPENDIX

Martin John 400

Morgain John 100

Miller John 150

Medor Tho 3°o

Moseley Benja 1100

Mottley John 100

Morris John .• 200

Moss Robt 180

Merritt Tho 124

Merritt John 100

Munday Tho 500

Magcon David 400

Mice Hno 200

Mosseley Robt 100

Mayfield Robt 100

Matthews Richd 250

Moseley Edwd 550

Merriweather Francis 3200

Mefflin Zach 400

Michaell Jno 200

Merriweather Tho 2100

Mefflin Lath 400

Medor John 100

Morse John 400

Matthews Benja 200

Mountegue Wm 850

Newbury Nathll 200

Nixson Henry 500

North Wm 900

Newton Nicho 100

Nightingall John 100

Osman James 300

Presser John 450

Poe Samll 800

Pley Widdo 800

Parker Jno 250

Pitts Jon 200

Piskell Jno 300

Pain Jno 135

Price Wm 100

Peteras Tho 200

Powell Honor 7-

Powell Wm 72

Powell Place 72

Powell Tho 72

Payne Widdow 1000

Perkin Henry 300

Prichett Roger 167

Paggett Edmd 7°o

Price John 1 100

Pickett John 800

Perry Samll 225

Price Wm 100

Quarter Xtpher Robinson.. 2200

Quartr Tho. Corbin 4000

Qrtr Robt. Thomas 200

Quartr John Hay 1000

Quartr. Wm. Smith 3000

Quartr Gawen Corbin 2000

Quartr Peter Ransom 300

Quartr David Gwin 950

Quartr Wm. Uipshaw 1000

Quartr Leversons 600

Quartr Tho Todd 550

Ridgdall John 300

Ramsey Tho 550

Rowze Ralph 610

Rucker Peter 500

Rowze Edwd 300

Royston John 1000

Roberts Edmd 300

Rebs Henry 400

Reeves Joseph 200

Reeves James 200

Roberts John 50

Richardson Robt 200

Reynolds James Senr 500

Reynolds James 500

Ransom Peter 1200

Strange Jno 100

Stepp Abra 390

Samll. Antho 300

Sail Cornelius 7^

Salmon John 60

Spiers Jno 160

Smith Wm 150

Stokes Richd 500

Smith Charles 3000

Sullenger Peter 400

Sales Widdo 1 150

Shipley Jno 200

Spearman Job 300

Smith Francis 500

Stallard Samll 100

Ship Jos 350

Short Tho 150

Scott Wm 1 100

Stogell Jno 100

Stephens Jno 100

Slaughter Phebe 352

Smith Jno 75

Smith Jonas 100

Sanders John 300

Stanton Jno 95

Shepherd Jeremiah 300

Smith Tho 50

APPENDIX

=39

Shackelford Francis 300

Sthrashley Tho 200

Staners Tho 500

Snead Tho 950

Shackelford Henry 50

Thorp Widdo 400

Tinsley Tho ill

Thacker Samll no

Tomlin Widdo 400

Taliaferro Francis 1300

Thornton Fran 700

Tomlin Wm 1600

Thomas John 100

Taliaferro Charles 300

Thomas Wm 200

Taliaferro John 2000

Turner George 200

Tomlin Wm 950

Trible Peter 100

Taylor Richd 650

Tilley Matthew 200

Vanters Bartho 400

Virget Job 50

Vincent Vaus 450

Wakeland Wm 100

Wood Tho 50

Winslow Tho 150

Winslow Henry IOO

Williams John 450

Williams Wm 100

Wilson David 50

Wilton Richd 150

Wheeden Edwd 50

Ward Widdo 200

Whitehorn Widdo 260

Wms. Emanuell 100

Watkins Thomas 400

Waters John 150

Webb James . . . ,\ 200

Webb John 200

Wead Wm 200

Wood Tho 300

Williamson Tho 100

Williamson Wm 100

Williamson John 100

Webb Robert 375

Webb Isaac 200

Woodnatt Henry . . . ., 300

Waginer John 400

Ward Geo 350

Wheeler Tho 250

Young Wm 1000

Young Giles 100

Muscoe Salvator 100

Moody John 150

Maguffe John 100

Brookins Quartr 250

Smith Jno. Quartr 1000

Newton Henry 100

Newton Henry 175

Nowell Dall 400

Nowell Widdo 300

Garrett Tho 1000

Gould Price 200

Green Samll 97

Gouldman Fran 300

Gawdin Wm 100

Grimmall Wm 100

Gaitwood John 400

Games John 475

Samll. Thompson 1000

140580
Lands held in the above said County

the Rents not paid and held by

the severall Gentlemen as followth

vizt.
John Smith Esqr. of Glo-

cester County 800

Wm. Buckner of Glocester

by information 1500

Jno. Light foot Esqr. New

Kent County 900

Jno. Bridgate in Engld 700

Richd. Wyatt & Jno. Pettus

of King & Queen Cty. . . . 800
Wm. Berry of Richmond

Comity 400

Richard Covington

Accomack Rent Roll

Alexander Richards 150

Arthur Upshot 2020

Antho. West 700

Ann Simkins 1000

Arthur Donas 100

Arnoll Harrison 630

Alex. Harrison 400

240

APPENDIX

Alex. Bagwell 413

Anne Chase 200

Arthur Frame 500

Alexdr West 550

Abraham Lambedson 100

Alex Benstone 270

Anne Blake Widdo 120

Anne Bruxe 180

Ar. Arcade Welburn 1854

Burnell Niblett

Majr. Bennit Scarbrough

918/

100

521

621

C

Corneline Hermon 321

Christo Stokly 200

Charles Scarbrough 1000

Charles Leatherbeny 1 100

Charles Bally 959/^

Charles Pywell 150

Churchhil Darby 125

Charles Evill 55°

Charles Champison 270

Christo Hodey 50°

Cornelius Lofton 166

Charles Stockley 170

Charles Taylor" 580

Catherine Gland 217

63123-

D

Dorman Derby 225

Daniell Derby Senr 300

Dorothy Littlchouse 250

David Watson 200

Delight Shield 300

Daniel Derby Junr 125

Daniel Harwood 100

Dennis Mores 200

Daniel Gore 397^

5676

E

(nil Edmd Scarbrough ... 2000

Edwd Hitchins 170

Edwd Turner 75°

Edwd Killam 720

Edmd Allin 200

Edwd Bagwell for Coll Wm.

Custis 200

Edmd. Jones 800

Elizb. Tinley 200

Edwd Taylor 300

Edmd Tatham 200

Edmd Bally 800

Edmd Ayres 1000

Edwd. Miles 413

Elizb. Mellchop 210

Edwd. Bell 101

Edwd. More 500

Edwd. Gunter 600

Edwd Brotherton 600

Elias Blake 430

Edwd Robins 782

Edwd Bally 300

Elias Taylor 1500

Elizb. Wharton 200

Mrs. Elizb Scarbrough 4205

17181

F

Mr. Francis Mackenny 5109

Francis Robts 200

Francis Wainhouse 700

Francis Crofton 200

Francis Young 100

Finley MackWm 100

Francis Ayres 300

Francis Jester 200

Francis Benstone 400

Francis Wharton 600

7009

G

Geo. Anthony 100

Geo. Hastup 300

Coll Geo Nicho Halk 2700

Capt. Geo Parker 2609

Gervis Baggally 700

Garrat Hictlims 170

Geo Parker Sco. Side 1200

Griffin Savage 650

Geo Middleton Senr 588

Geo Trevit 400

Geo. Pounce 400

Geo Middleton Junr 150

Geo Johnson 200

APPENDIX

241

Capt. Geo Hope 900

1 1067

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henrv

Hill D

Henry

Henry

Henry

Henry

H

Armtrading 175

Chance 445

Selman 180

Ubankes 400

Lurton 363

Stokes 208

Custis 774

Bagwell 412

Read 350

Ayres 250

rummond 483

Toules 300

Hickman 135

Gibbins 250

Truett 240

496S

T

John Tounson 200

Joseph Stokley 664

Jno. Read 200

Jno. Blake 310

Joseph Ames 375

Joseph Clark 200

Jno. Fisher 200

James Gray 900

Jno. Huffington 240

Jno. Legatt 300

James Lary 100

James Longoe 200

Jno. Merrey 350

Jno Milloy 500

Jno. Pratt 50

Jno. Revell 1450

Jno Road no

Jno. Rowles 650

Jno. Savage Senr 350

Jno Charles 480

Jno Willis Senr 430

Jno Willis Junr 350

James Fairfax 000

Joseph Milby 830

John West Junr 5,00

J no Jenkins 400

Jonathan James 150

John Rodgers 100

jno Collins 100

Jno Sincocke 125

Jno Metcalfe, Isaac Metcalfe

and Samll. Metcalfe 600

Joseph Touser 200

Jno Stanton 200

Jno Bally 1000

I37I5

Jno Melson 180

Jno Bernes Senr 657

Jno Littletone 200

John Nock 300

Jno Killy 100

Jacob Morris 200

Jno Morris 640

Jona. Aylworth 200

James Davis 1000

Jno Parkes 200

Jno Evans 200

Jno Hull 100

Jno Blocksom 700

Jno Abbott 1 170

Jno Arew 234

Jno Grey 116

Jno Baker 400

Jno Wharton 150

James Taylor 100

Jno Glading 207

Jno Loftland 167

James Smith 756

Majr Jno Robins 2700

Jno Collins for Asban 1666

James Walker 525

Jno Whelton 90

Jno Marshall 1666

Jona Owen 230

Jacob Wagaman 150

Capt John Broadhurst 1100

Jno Dyer 200

Mr. John Watts 2450

Jno Booth 300

John Bradford 364

Ingold Cobb 150

Jno Griffin 150

Jno Mitchell 400

John Parker 970

James Alexander 1250

Jno Burocke 200

James Sterferar 50

Jno Perry 217

Jno Drummond 1550

Jno Carter on Foxs Island 203

242

APPENDIX

Jno Warington ioo

Jno Bagwell 465

Jno Wise Senr 800

Jno Wise Junr 400

Jno Dix 500

Isaac Dix 500

Jno Hickman 454

jno Onians 200

Coll Jno Custis Esqr 5950

John Coslin 50

46692

M

Michaell Recetts 300

Mrs. Mattilda West 3600

M arke Evcll 250

Mary Wright 200

4350

N

Nicholas Mellchops 285

Nathaniel Williams 64

Xathaniell Rattcliff 300

649

O

Owen Collonell 500

Overton Mackwilliams .... 200
Obedience Pettman 1 15

815

P

Peter Major 113

Philip Parker 150

Peter Rogers 167

Perry Leatherbury 1750

Peter Turlington 79

Peter Ease 250

Philip Fisher 433

Peter Chawell 250

3192

R

Roht. Pell 650

Richd Bally Senr 2100

Richd Bally Junr 180

Richd Garrison 468

Roules Major 157

Rouland Savage Senr 950

Robt. Taylor 95

Richd. Rodgers 450

Richd Killam 1900

Robt. Wattson 425

Richd Jones 500

Robt. Hutchinson 934

Reynold Badger 150

Robt. West 400

Richd Cuttler 450

Robt. Cole 125

Richd Drummond 600

Robt. Stocomb 300

Robt Norton 1050

Richd Grindall 350

Roger Hickman 135

Robt Lewis 200

Roger Abbott 450

Richard Hill 350

Ralph Justice 1050

Richd Hinman 1800

Robt Davis 384

Ragnall Aryes 300

Roger Miles 200

Richd Bundike 773

Richd Kittson 1300

Robt. Bally 100

Richd Starlin 150

Richd Flowers 200

Richd Price 100

Robt. Pitts 2300

Robt Adkins 200

Rebeckha Benstone 270

Richd Hillayres 300

22816

S

Samuell Benstone 300'

Sarah Beach 300

Sillvanus Cole 250

Symon Sosque . . 325

South Littleton Widdo 2870

Stephen Woltham 244

Steph. Warrington 400

Symon Mitchell 300

Stephen Drummond 300

Selby Harrison 50

Sollomon Evell 125

Samll Young 50

Sarah Reyley 150

Sebastian Dellistations Senr 500

APPENDIX

243

Sebastian Dellistations Junr 400

Skinner Wollope 2485

Samll. Sandford 3250

Sebastian Silverthorn 150

Symon Smith 200

Sarah Coe 900

Samll Taylor 1232

Sarah Evins 150

Sebastian Croper 600

Samuell Jester 200

IS73I

T

Tho Burton 600

Tho Bud 500

Tho Boules 300

Tho Clark 100

Tho Middleton 350

Tho Stringer 600

Tho Haule 500

Tho Taylor 100

Tho Fockes 300

Tho Bagwell 465

Madm Tabitha Hill 3600

Tho Rose 7

Tho Webb 50

Tho Savage 450

Tho Jones 100

Tho Scott 100

Tho Reyley 225

Tho Ternall 150

Tho Simpson 520

Tho Coper 711

Tho Miles 202

Thomas Bonwell 300

Tho Bell Senr 100

The Bell Junr 100

Tho Touson Kiquotan 800

Tho Stockley 363

Tho Jester 100

Tho Smith 300

Thomas Crippin 648

Tho Wilkinson 50

Tho Jenkinson 374

Tho Moore 166

Tho Allen 700

Tho Smith Savannah 200

Tho Perry 232

Tho Tonnson 400

Tho Smith Gingateague . . . 693

Lieut Coll Robinson 600

IS956

W

Wm. Robins 200

Wra Patterson 200

Wm Bevens 400

Wm Matthews 400

Wm Shepherd 200

Wm Whett 400

Winfred Woodland 333

Wm Andrews 300

Wm Custis 1500

Wm Darby 83

Wm Fletcher 200

Wm Killam 450

Wm Lingoe 300

Wm Maj or 130

Wm Meeres 150

Wm Mack Sear 800

Wm Savage 150

Wm Waite no

Wm Sill 200

Wm Waite Junr 600

Wm Bradford 3500

Wm Rogers 200

Wm Wise 400

Wm Finey 800

Wm Consalvins 100

Wm Phillips 200

Wm Parker 362

Wm Cole 375

Wm Merill 150

Wm Johnson 150

Wm Lewis 150

Walter Hayes 130

Wm Chance 450

Wm Milby 250

Wm Nicholson 600

Wm Burton 500

Wm Willett 842

Wm Hudson 270

Wm Lewis 300

Wm Young 144

Wm Liechfield 154

Wm Bunting 150

Wm Nock Junr 400

Wm Lucas 300

Mary Mellechop 498

Wm Daniell 200

Wm Silverthorn 160

Wm Garman 475

Wm White 600

Wm Broadwater 500

Wm Taylor 100

Wm Williamson 600

Wm Brittingham 538

244

APPKXDTX

Win. Benstone Jun 270

Win Dickson for Mr. Lit-
tleton 1050

Win Waite Senr 225

Win Taylor 1400

24599

196899**

Added to this Rent Roll the
following Lands of which
the Quit Rents may pos-
sibly be recovered tho the
Owners live out of the
Country Viz.

Jonas Jackson 500

Robt. Andrews 500

Joseph Morris 200

Robt. Meros 200

Hillory Stringer 950

Tho Fisher 133

Jno Fisher 133

Timo Coe 4100

David I Iagard 130

6846

An Account of what Land
in Accomack County the
owners whereof are not
dwellers.
Tho Preson of Northamp-
ton 200

Geo Corbin Ditto 150

Joshua Fichett Ditto 200

Alexdr Merey Maryld 200

Tho Dent 500

Mr. Wm Kendalls orphans

of Northampton County. 2850
Mr Hancock Lee dividing

Creeks 4050

Richd Watters in Maryland 1057

Francis Lailor Northamp.. 100

Obedience Johnson Qtrs... 300
Henry Smith at the South-

erd 1000

Grattiance Michell North.. 200

Matt. Tyson Southerd 3°o

Teagle Woltham Maryld.. 200

Peter Waltham New Engld 200

Jno Waltham Maryld 200

1 1707

Jno Wise Sheriff

The Rent Roll of Northampton County for the Year of our Lord God 1704

A

Andrews Robt 300

Andrews Andrew 100

Addison John 350

Abdell Tho 125

Abdell Jno 200

Abdell Wm 125

Alligood John 300

Angell James 100

Alligood Henry 100

B

Bullock Geo 100

Boner Geo 150

Brown Tho 1862

Benthall Joseph Senr 793

Benthall Joseph Junr 150

Branson Francis 100

Bateson 200

Billot Jno 400

Bell Geo 400

Billott Wm 100

Brewer Jno 50

Blackson Jno 100

Brooks Jeane 100

Beadwine Jno 200

Berthall Danll 258

Baker John 400

Brickhouse Geo 2100

C

Cob Samll 130

Coape Wm 200

Custis Jno Coll 3400

Collier Bartho 150

Carpenter Charles 240

Cox Jno 500

Church Samll 143

Cleg Jno. Senr 204

Clog Henry 204

Carvy Richd 100

Cowdry Josiah 167

Cormeck Mich 100

Clerk Jno 100

APPENDIX

245

Corban Geo 2=50

Clerk Geo 833

Caple Nath 100

Callinett J no ico

Crew John 300

Costin Francis 275

Custis Majr John 3250

Custis Hancock c;o

Chick Tho 100

Downing Jno 70

Dewy Geo 300

Dewy Jacob 100

Delby Margery 450

Dowty Rowland 150

Dunton John 170

Dunton Tho 400

Dowman John 100

Dullock John 100

Denton Tho 400

Dunton Tho Junr 120

Dunton Wra _|20

Dunton Benj 220

Duparks Tho 90

Davis Jno 850

Dunton Joseph 120

Dixon Michaell 460

Eshon Jno 600

Evans John 200

Edmunds David 500

Evans Tho 300

Esdoll Geo 100

Eyres Tho 1 133

Eyres Nich 325

Eyres Capt Jno 774

Eyres Anne Wido, J2>i

Esdoll Edwd 100

Fisher John 6371/'

Francisco Dan 150

Fisher Tho 637^2

Foster Robt 1 50

Fabin Paul 60

Frost Tho 100

Frank Jno 500

Floyd Charles 378

Freshwater Geo 200

Frizell Geo i_jo

Freshwater Win 200

Fitchett Joshua 100

Floyd Berry & Matthew .. 555

G

Gogui David 150

Gill Robt 200

Gascoyne Robt 125

Gascoyne Wm 525

Greene Jno Senr 2200

Giddens Tho 227

Grice Peter j0o

Godwin Devorix 600

Goffogan Tho 100

Guelding Charles 200

Griffith Jerimiah ' 345

Griffith Benja 200

II

Hill Francis 100

Henderson John 250

Haggaman Isaac 750

Harmonson Jno 1600

Harmonson Henry 1250

Han by Charles 25

Hanby Richd 75

Hanby Danll 50

Hanby John 1 c;0

Harmonson Capt Wm 308

Harmonson Geo 1586

Harmonson Tho 400

Hawkins Jno Senr 66

Hawkins Jno Junr 66

Hawkins Gideon 66

Hunto Groton 485

Hunt John 440

Hunt Tho 290

Hall Francis Widdo 340

Johnson John Senr 250

Johnson John Junr 100

Johnson Jacob 350

Isaacs John Jnr 100

Joynes Major 150

James Joan Widdo 250

Johnson Obedience Capt . . . 400

Johnson Tho Junr 75

Johnson Thomas Senr . . . 400

Jackson Jonah & John .... 625

Joynes Edmd 200

Joynes Edwd 200

Johnson Jeptha Senr 50

246

APPENDIX

Jacob Phillip Senr 350

Johnson Jepha Junr 200

Johnson Obedience & Jepha

Sen 250

Johnson Edmd 400

Jacob Richd 200

Jacob Abraham 50

K

Kendall Wm 2410

Knight John 100

L

Lawrence John 120

Lailler Luke 100

Lucas Tho 100

Lewis Robt 100

Littleton Susannah Wido. . 4050

Luke John 400

M

Marshall Geo 250

Farshall Jno 250

Maddox Tho 1500

Michaell Yeardly 400

Matthews John 275

Major John 390

Map John 50

Moore Matthew 175

Mackmellion Tho 300

More Gilbert 225

Morraine John 119H

More Jno 545

More Eliner 175

N

Nicholson Wm 600

Nottingham Wm 150

Nottingham Joseph 150

Nottingham Richd 350

Nottingham Benja 300

Nelson John 100

O

Only Clement 200

Odear John 100

P

Parramore Tho 400

Preson Tho 610

Powell Frances Widdo ... 1225

Palmer Samll 1502

Pvke Henry 150

Powell John 636^

Pittett Tho 300

Pittet Justian 200

Pittett John 275

Powell Samll 200

Paine Daniell 150

Piggott Ralph 1368

R

Read Thomas 150

Rascow Arthur 100

Ronan Wm 150

Roberts Jno 200

Richards Lettis 150

Robins Jno Majr 1180

Rollins Littleton 1000

Rabishaw Wm 55

Roberts Obedience 200

Robinson Benjamin 250

S

Shepherd Jno 200

Smith Joseph 250

Smith Samll 150

Smith Jno 200

Savage Tho 450

Smith Tho 400

Smith Abrah 300

Seady Antho 120

Sott Widdo 750

Smith Richd minor 300

Scot Geo 100

Smith Richd 99

Scot Jno 100

Scott Henry 800

Scot David 300

Smith Peter 450

Sanders Richd 100 ■

Smaro John 800

Shepherd Tho 140

Sanders Eustick 100

Sanderson John 636

Savidge John 410

Stringer Hillary 1250

Savidge Capt Tho 1600

Savidge Elkington 750

Scot Wm Senr 153

Straton Benja 745

Smith Geo 133

Stockley Jno Senr 370

Shepheard Widdo 830

Seamore John 200

APPENDIX

247

Tilnev Jolm . . .
Tryfort Barth .
Teague Simeon
Turner Richd .
Teague Tho . .
Tankard Wm .
Tanner Paul . .

W

Webb Henrv

Wills Thorn

White John

Wilson Tho

Westerhouse Adryan Senr.

Walker John

Ward Tho

Walter John

Waterfield Wm

Warren John ,

Warren Argoll

Widgeon Robt

Wilkins Jno

Webb Edwd

Wilcock Jno

Warren James

Waterson Wm

350
147
100
50
200
450
148

100
300
400
250
200
300
120
400
200
5^5
350
100
150
200
200
SO
855

Warren Robt 190

Water Lieut-Coll Wm 700

Webb Charles I33T4

Willett Wins 2650

Waterson Richd 150

Wilkins Argoll 150

Walter Elizb Widdo 100

Warren Joseph 50

99671

Lands not paid for vizt
Gleab formerly Capt Fox-
crofts 1500

John Majr at Occahannock 200

Hogbin not being in Virginia ICO

Tho Smith 300

Tho Marshall orphan 75

Jno Rews not in Virginia . . 100

2275

The total on the other

side is 99671 acres

Added to it ye Glebe

land 1500

101171 acres

The preceding Sheets are true copys of the Rentrolls for the year 1704 given
in and accounted for by the several Sherifs in April 1705 and sworne to before
his Excellcy according to which they made up their accounts of the Quitrents
with

Will Robertson Clerk.

v*

INDEX

INDEX

A

CCOMAC,

farms and tithablcs of, 58; 79.
Allen, Arthur,

six tithables, 57.
Allen, William,

Burgess in 1629, 73.
Allcrton, Jsaac,

deals in servants, 48.
Ambrose, Robert,

deals in servants, 49.
Anbury, Major,

describes Virginia upper class, 158.
Andros, Sir Edmund,

29; 35; 52; hesitates to deprive wealthy

of land holdings, 143-144.
Archer, George

deals in servants, 49; extensive land-
owner, 79.
Armetrading, Henry,

79.
Artisans,

became planters in Virginia, 27; called

for in broadside of 1610, 28; on the

plantations, 156-157.
Ashton, Peter,

deals in servants, 48.
Austin, James,

deals in servants, 48.
Avery, Richard,

his cattle, 101; inventory' of, 106.

B

acon, Nathaniel, Sr.,
109; 110.

Bacon, Nathaniel, Jr.,

describes poverty in Virginia, 91; re-
bellion of and Navigation Acts, 92-93;
says peoples hoped in Burgesses, 109;
113.

Baker, John,

buys Button's Ridge, 49.

Baldwin, William,
landowner, 79.

Ballard, Thomas,
109.

Ball, William,
has 22 slav'

Baltic,

English trade of, 8; Denmark controls
entrance to, 9; wars endanger trade to,
9; cheap labor of. 16; 17; tobacco trade
to. 118-119; trade to injured by wars,
131. 148.

Banister, John,

has 88 slaves, 158.

Barbadoes.

complain of Navigation Acts, 94.

Barnett, Thomas,

servant, Burgess in 1629, 74.

Bassett, William,

deals in servants, 48.

Beer, George Lewis,

defends Navigation Acts, 86-87; says
trade restrictions did not cause Bacon's
Rebellion, 92; statement of concerning
county grievances, 93; denies that ser-
ious opposition existed to Navigation
Acts, 93-94.

Bell, Richard,

landowning freedman, 74.

Bennett, Richard,

estate of described, 108.

Bennett, Samuel,

landowning freedman, 74.

Berkeley, John,

conducts iron works in Virginia, 18.

Berkeley, Lord John,
90.

Berkeley, Sir William,

describes servants, 34; describes early
mortality among servants, 39; estimates
servants at 6,000 in 1671, 41; instructed
to prohibit foreign trade, 69; permits
foreign trade during Civil War, (,'i ;
calls Virginia land of opportunity, 75;
proclaims Charles II, 84, 111; 89; de-
scribes poverty of Virginia, 90, 91, 92,
93; controls Assembly, 94; goes to Eng-
land to combat Navigation Acts, 94-95;
plans to establish manufactures, 95;
denounces Navigation Acts, 95-96; 98;
secures body guard. 111; elected Gover-
nor prior to Restoration, 112; fears
King's resentment, 113; small planters
turn against in Bacon's Rebellion, 113;
estimates slaves at 2,000 in 1670, 124;
125; 160.

Beverley, Robert, Sr.,

extensive dealer in servants, 48, 109;
113.

Beverley, Robert, Jr.,

61; imports slaves, 130; describes pride
of poor whites, 155.

Bibbie, Edmund,

deals in servants, 49.

Binns, Thomas.

eight tithables, 57.

Bishop, John.

Burgess and landowner, 78.

Blackstone, John,

patents land, 74.

Bland, John.

remonstrates against Navigation Acts
88-89; 93.

251

252

INDEX

Blair, Rev. John,

asks funds for college, 50, 136.
Blewit, Capt.,

sets up iron works in Virginia, dies, 18f.

Board of Trade,

arrears of quit rents reported to, 51;
Nicholson writes to concerning rent roll,
52; says servants not slaves, 60; Berke-
ley protests to, 95, 119; asks reasons for
emigration of Virginia whites, 140;
seeks to limit size of land grants, 143;
again alarmed at emigration from Vir-
ginia, 145, 147, 157.

Boiling, Mrs. Mary,
has 51 slaves, 158.

Brent, Giles,

deals in servants, 48; 109; 113.

Bridger, Joseph,

deals in servants, 48; 109.

Briggs, Gray,

has 43 slaves, 158.

British Empire,

beginnings of misunderstood, 14; begun,
19; important role of tobacco in, 27.

Broadnat, John,
128.

Broadside,

in 1610 calls for settlers for Virginia,
28.

Browne, Robert,

landowning freedman, 74.

Browne, William,

nine tithables, 57.

Bruce, Philip Alexander,

desoribes small planters, 54.

Brunswick,

land patents in small, 145.

Bullock, William,

denies that servants are slaves, 60.

Burgesses,

54, petition King, 65; complain of high
freight rates, 72; freedmen among, 73-
75; Navigation Acts and, 94-95; repre-
sent interest of small planters, 109; defy
the king, 110; petition of, 110; rule Vir-
ginia. 1652-1660, 112; growing influence
of, 109.

Burwcll, Francis,

patents land in James City, 77.

Burwell, John,

has 42 slaves, 158.

Burwell, Lewis,

deals in servants, 48; 109.

Burchcr, William,
patents land, 79.

Bushood, John,
sells land, 49.

Butt, Thomas.

deals in servants, 48.

Button, Robert,

receives estate, 49.

Button, Thomas,

owner of Button's Ridge, A0.

Byrd, William 1.

says rent rolls inaccurate, 52; 109; uses
slaves, 130.

Byrd, William II,

gives reasons for emigration to Carolina,
146.

V^/ARTER, John,

109.

Carter, Robert,

has 126 slaves, 153.

Carleill, Capt. Christopher,

urges trade with America, 11.

Carolina,

emigration to from Virginia, 99-100.
139-146.

Cattle.

plentiful in Virginia, 101.

Chambers, William,

servants and slaves of, 59.

Chandler, John,

landowning freedman, 74.

Charles I,

considers smoking harmful, 26; tries to
limit tobacco planting in Virginia, 27;
tries to limit English tobacco crop, 63;
limits price of tobacco, 65; regulates
tobacco trade, 67-69; 70; defied by As-
sembly 110; 111.

Charles II,

33; proclaimed in Virginia, 84; 111; 93;
96; not restored in Virginia before
Restoration in England, 112; tyranny of
114.

Charles City,

plantations small, 53; 54; farms and
tithables of, 58; 79; 81.

Chastellux,

describes poor whites of Virginia, 152;
notes indolence of poor whites, 155.

Chew. Larkin,

dealer in Spots vylvonia land, 154.

Claiborne, William,

deals in servants, 48.

Clayton, Thomas,
80.

Clergy,

many plant tobacco, 28.

Clothing,

want of felt in Virginia, 103.

Cloyse, Pettyplace,

landowning freedman, 74.

Cole, Edward,

patents land in James City, 77.

Colonial expansion,

sought as remedy for British economic
dependence, 10; urged by economists,
11; 12; 13.

Colonial system,

68; imperfectly enforced prior to 1660,
67-69; 85-86; embodied in Navigation
Acts, 85; colonics to supplement Eng-
land, 86; workings of at end of 17th
century, 120; British conception of, 136.

Commerce,

of England with Baltic, 8; principles of
long known, 11; of England with Eu-
rope and East, 12; of England with
France declines. 13; affords key to his-
tory, 22; in reexported tobacco, 70; in

INDEX

253

tobacco revives after 1683, 114-115; in
reexported tobacco, 116-120; importance
of in tobacco for England, 119, 122.

Commonwealth,

tobacco high under, 66; Virginians trade
abroad under, 69; 98; attitude of Vir-
ginia under, 110-11.

Constable, John,

trades illegally, 69.

Cooke, John,

landowning freedman, 74.

Cornell, Samuel,

servants and slaves of, 59.

Council,

65; complains of high freight rates, 72;
90; describes poverty in Virginia, 91;
says Virginia ready to revolt to Dutch,
96; 109; 110; members of hold land il-
legally, 143; gives reasons for immigra-
tion out of Virginia, 145; describes
misery in Virginia, 150; declining in-
fluence of, 159.

Creighton, 'Henry,

sells 100 acres, 50.

Criminals,

few sent to Virginia, 32, 33; make no
imprint on social fabric, 33.

Crocker, Wm.,

servants and slaves of, 59.

Cromwell, Oliver,

sends Irish servants to Virginia, 33.

Crump, Thomas,

servant, Burgess in 1632, 74; landowner,
75.

Culpeper, Lord,

fears ruin of Virginia, 91, 114.

Custis, John,

E

109.

D,

'aingerfield, William,

has 61 slaves, 157.
Dawson, William,

landowning freedman, 74.
Day, Tohn,

80.
Delaware,

manufactures of lure poor Virginia

whites, 141; migration to, 139-146.
Delk, Roger,

landowning freedman, 74.
Dicks, John,

purchases land, x49.
Digges. Dudley,

109.
Diggs, William,

has 72 slaves, 158.
Dinwiddie county.

poor whites in, 151; small slave holders

of, 153; large slave holders in. 158.
Dodman. John,

landowner, 79.
Dorch. Walter,

inventory of, 106.
Duties,

French put on English woolens, 13; on

reexported tobacco partly refunded, 70;

on reexported tobacco. 117; on tobacco

yield grown large revenue, 120.

dwards, John,
slaves of in plot, 128.

Edwards, William,

has six tithables, 57; slaves of in plot,
128.

Effingham, Lord,

tyranny of in Virginia, 114.

Elizabeth City,

plantations of small, 53; farms and
tithables of, 58; servants and slaves in,
59.

Emigration,

from Virginia in years from 1660 to
1725, 40, 62, 139-146; not caused by
large land grants, 144-145; extent of,
146.

England,

colonial expansion necessary for, 7;
forests depleted, 7; industry declining, 8;
Baltic trade of, 8; future depends on
colonies, 13; 14; joy of at founding of
Virginia, 15; disappointed in Virginia,
19; tobacco bill of, 26; supplies Virginia
with labor, 31; poverty in, 31; cannot
consume entire colonial tobacco crop,
86; tobacco planting in prohibited, 87;
glut of tobacco in, 68-89; adheres to
colonial policy, 95.

Epes, Francis,
79, 127.

Essex,

land transfers in. 46; plantations of
small, 53; farms and tithables of, 558.

-T alling Creek,

iron works at, 17; destroved in 16 32,

18.
Fane, Francis,

says slave labor cheapens tobacco, 132.
Fish,

plentiful in Virginia, 15.
Fithian, Philip.

describes poor whites of Virginia, 152,

155.
Fitzhugh, William,

109; refers to slave imports, 130.
Flax.

in Virginia, 15.
Fleet, tobacco,

brings servants, 35; size of in 1690 and

1706, 122.
Foster, Armstrong,

79, 80.
Foster, Robert,

buys 200 acres, 50.
Fowl, wild.

abundant in colonial Virginia, 102.
Fox, William,

has 25 slaves, 153.
France.

exports wine and silk, 12; Rrilish trade

with declines, 13; tobacco trade to, L19;

trade to injured hy war, 131.
Frecdmen,

80 per cent of servants become. 40;

prior to 1660 remained in Virginia, 40;

254

INDEX

form large part of population, 41; an-
nual recruits of, 41; usually young, 42;
might acquire property, 43; perform
bulk of work, 43; what became of 43;
become small planters, 60; outfit of, 61;
not entitled to land, 61; prosperity of
hinges on tobacco, 62; Virginia land of
opportunity for, 71; profits of from to-
bacco, 71-72; in Burgesses, 73-74; pros-
perous, 74-80; little hope of advance-
ment for after 1660, 97-100; few in rent
roll of 1704, 122-123.

Freemen,

entitled to headrights, 35; many come
to Virginia, 36; become small planters,
60-75; many pay own passage, 81-82.

Freight rates,

high from England, 71-72; excessive,
90.

Fruit.

12, abundant in Virginia, 102.

Fuel,

abundant in Virginia, 105.

Gardens,

common in Virginia, 102, 105.

Garnet, John,

buys 600 acres, 50.

George, The,

takes cargo of tobacco to England, 25;
64.

Gilbert, George,

patents land in James City, 77, 79.

Gilbert, Sir ^Humphrey,

voyage to Americaj 11.

Glass,

possibilities for in Virginia, 15; begin-
ning made of in Virginia. 17; early his-
tory of in Virginia, 18-19.

Gloucester,

average plantation in, 54; farms and
tithables of, 58; 80; 113; poor whites
of, 151; small slave holders in, 154;
large slave holders in, 157; 159.

Good, John,

describes poverty in Virginia, 91.

Gooch, Governor,

says large holdings no impediment to
settlement, 145; says poor whites make
best tobacco, 147.

Governor,

plants tobacco, 28; appoints sheriffs, 51;
makes efforts to collect quit rents, 51;
65; neglects servants, 73; 90; 109; elect-
ed by burgesses, 1652-1660, 112.

Goring, John,

servants and slaves of, 59.

Grain,

abundance of in Virginia, in_\

Graves, Ralph,

his servant valued at £10, 127.

Grey, lames,

buys 200 acres, 49.

Grey, John,

his cattle, 101; inventory of, 106.

Grey. Francis,

Burgess and landowner, 78-79.

Grey, Thomas,
78.

JL

Laki.uyt, Richard,
advises colonial expansion, 11; shows
British dependence on Spain, 12; ex-
pects surplus of population in England
to emigrate to America, 16; 19.
'Hammond, John,

[ advice to servants, 61; describes Vir-

ginia residences, 104.

Harmar, Charles,

imports slaves, 124.

Harris, John,

Burgess in 1629, 73.

Harrison, Benjamin
109.

Hart, Henry,

his slave in plot, 128.

Hartwell, Henry,

deals in servants, 48.

Harvey, Sir John,

complains of low prices for tobacco, 65;
asks freedom of trade for Virginia, 68;
testifies to illegal foreign trade, 68-69;
complains of high freight rates 72;
ejected by people, 110.

Hatfield, James,

landowning freedman, 75.

Headrights,

described, 34; 35; averaged about 1750
a year, 41; determine size of land
grants, 47; brought in by well known
planters, 48; do not belong to servant.
61; appear in wills, 76; transfer of by
sale, 76; become landowners, 77; not all
servants, 77; compared with rent roll,
97-99.

Hemp,

in Virginia, 15.

Henrico,

false returns in, 55; farms and tithables
of, 58; servants and slaves in, 59; 79.

Hill, Edward,
109.

Hill, John,

landowning freedman, 75; book binder
at Oxford, 75.

Hodge, John,

servants and slaves of, 59.

Holding, John,

landowner, 79.

Holland,

exports fish, 12; trade of declines, 13;
controls slave trade, 31; 125; tobacco
exports to, 86-89; Navigation Acts cut
exports to, 87; distributor of English
colonial tobacco, 88; plants own tobacco,
88; wars with, 89; Virginians threaten
to revolt to, 91, 96; 116; tobacco ex-
ports to, 120; fights to preserve her
monopoly of slave trade, 126; seeks to
control tobacco trade on continent, 149-
150.

Honey,

produced in Virginia, 102.

INDEX

255

/Hotten's Emigrants to America,

gives lists of servants, 42; 73.

Houses,

comfortable in Virginia, 103-104. f

Howlett, William,

buy 200 acres, 50.

1 U MIGRATION.

volume of in 17th century, 35-36; fixes
character of eastern Virginia, 36; not
restricted to servants, 36.

Indentures,

system of, 32; terms of, 61.

Indians, desire to convert, 14; revere to-
bacco, 24; unsuited for laborers, 30.

Industry,

22; pictured in Virginia, 28; Virginia
not suited for, 29.

Inventories,

throw light on distribution of servants
and slaves, 59; 73; typical examples of,
106-107.

Iron,

smelting of exhausts forests, 8; could
be smelted in Virginia, 15; early manu-
facture of in Virginia, 17-18.

Isle of Wight county,

farms and tithables of, 58; 79.

J ackson. William,

has 49 slaves, 158.

Tames I.

forced to use tobacco, 25; considers
smoking harmful, 26; regulates tobacco
trade, 67.

Tames II,

tyranny of, 1 14.

James City county,

plantations and tithables of, 58; land-
owners listed as headrights in, 76-77;
79; slave plot in, 128.

James River.

iron works on, 17; 39; 70; 148.

Jamestown,

14; glass furnace at, 18; streets of
planted with tobacco, 25; 86; 111; 112.

Jefferson, Thomas,

says slavery made whites lazy, 155.

Jeffreys, Jeffrey,

imports slaves, 131.

Jennings, Edmund,

109; describes slave plot, 128-129; says
slaves injure credit of Virginia, 130;
says few servants in 1708, 130-131; de-
scribes slave trade, 130-131; describes
migration of poor whites, 145-146.

Johnson, John,
sells land, 49.

Johnson, Joseph,

transports servants, 78-79.

Jones, Anthony,

servant, becomes landowner, 74.

Jones, Hugh,

says tenants small part of population,
45; 155; says negroes make poor arti-
sans, 156.

Jordan, Lt. Col.,

pays taxes on seven tithables, 56.

JVemp, Richard,

says immigrants mostly servants, 82.
King William county,

farms and tithables of, 58.
King and Queen county,

farms and tithables of, 58.
Kinsman, Richard,

makes perry, 108.
Knight, Sir John,

says Virginia ready to revolt to Holland,

96.

JL/ABOR,

lack of in Virginia, 16; foreign at
Jamestown, 18; lack of handicaps indus-
try, 19; 20; in Virginia determined by
tobacco, 23; cheap needed in Virginia,
29; serious problem, 29; Indians un-
suited for, 30; slave, 30; England sup-
plies, 31; indenture system to supply,
32; influx of, 35.

Lancaster,

79; poor planters in, 151; small slave
holders of, 153.

Land,

cheap in Virginia, 29; 45; transfers of
in Surry county, 46; in York, 46; in
Rappahannock, 46; listed in rent roll of
1704-5, 53; monopoly of said to cause
migration from Virginia, 141-143; large
tracts gratned, 142-144.

Land grants,

average extent of, 47; determined by
method of transporting immigrants. 47:
vary greatly in size, 47; not index to
size of plantations, 49.

Landowners,

few large in 17th century, 43; glad to
sell in small parcels, 45; chiefly small
proprietors, 46; in census of 1626, 46;
in York county, 46; in Essex, 46; often
avoid quit rents, 51; listed in rent roll
of 1704-5. 53; small proprietors neg-
lected in history', 54; often poor men,
55; many work farms with own hand?,
57; Government expects servants to be-
come, 62; profits of from tobacco, 71-72.

Larkin, George,

describes large land holdings, 144.

Lawrence, Richard,
landowner, 79.

Leah and, Rachel,
61.

Lee, Richard,

imports 80 slaves, 125.

Leightenhouse, Thomas,
127.

Linton, John,

estimates colonial tobacco, 115; esti-
mates amount of reexported tobacco,
118; declares Baltic tobacco trade
ruined, 148; describes tobacco raising
in Holland, 149.

256

INDEX

London Company,

national character of, 13; plans manu-
factures for Virginia, IS; cannot se-
cure laborers for Virginia, 16; sets up
iron works at Falling Creek, 17-18; dis-
pleased at tobacco culture in Virginia,
25; tobacco only hope of, 26; expects
Virginia to duplicate England, 28; high
price of tobacco pleases, 64; 73; 75.

Ludwell, Philip,
109; 113.

Ludwell, Thomas,

places average tobacco crop at 1200
pounds, 64; 90; says tobacco worth
nothing, 90; 91; 96.

N.

M.

.ANUFACTURES,

attempts to establish in Virginia, 15-19;
cause of failure, 19; purchased from
Dutch, 68-69; colonial system based on
expectation of, 86; Berkeley tries to
establish, 95; local in Virginia, 103; of
tobacco in England, 119, 122; exports of
to tobacco colonies, 120; in northern
colonies lure Virginia whites, 140; 141;
on plantations, 108; 156-157.

.Market,

not free for tobacco, 66; tobacco sent to
foreign, 67-70; Navigation Acts cut of
foreign, 87; tobacco reexported to con-
tinental, 116-120; Virginia and Maryland
furnish for England, 120.

Maryland,

emigration of whites from, 140; House
of Delegates of explains migration, 191.

Mason, Francis,

seven tithables, 57.

Mason, Winfield,
has 40 slaves, 158.

Massacre,

iron works destroyed during, 18.

Matthews, Samuel.

his estate described, 108.

Merchant marine,

threatened in England by lack of ship-
building materials, 9; part of sea de-
fense, 10; depleted at end of 16th cen-
tury, 10; tobacco exports aid British,
26, 119, 122.

Mcnefie, George,

his estate described,

Middlesex,

plantations small, 53;
bles of, 58.

Milner, Thomas,

deals in servants, 48.

Moseley, Capt. William,

buys part of Button's Ridge, 50, 109.

Muir, Francis,

has 47 slaves, 158.

Muscovy Company,

Baltic trade of, 8; not exempt from cus-
toms, 9; urged to trade with America,
11.

108.
farms and titha-

ANSEMOND,

plantations of small, 53; plantations and
tithables in, 58.

Xavigation Acts,

69; described, 84-86; resented in
Holland, 88-89; Bland's remonstrance
against, 88; cause of war with Holland,
89; cause extreme poverty in Virginia,
90-92; connected with Bacon's Rebel-
lion, 92-93; why Virginia Assembly
did not protest against, 94-95; Berkeley
protests against, 94-95; 98; retard
growth of population, 98-99; design of,
116.

Neve Albion,

describes abundance of food in Vir-
ginia, 103; advises settlers in Virginia
as to clothing, 104.

Neva Description of Virginia,

presents optimistic picture of Virginia,
63; puts price of tobacco at 3d a pound,
66; describes foreign tobacco trade, 69;
describes Virginia houses, 104; cites
cases of wealth in Virginia, 107.

New Kent,

farms and tithables of, 58.

Newport, Capt. Christopher,

returns to England in 1607, 15; brings
iron ore to England in 1607, 17.

New Jersey,

manufactures of lure Virginia whites,
141.

Nicholson, Sir Francis,

29; 50; orders accurate rent roll in
1690, 51; again attempts rent roll in
1699, 52; completes rent roll, 52; 54;
makes rent roll accurate, 55, 97; 114;
gives reason for migration from Vir-
ginia and Maryland, 140, 141; sues Col.
Lawrence Smith for arrears of quit
rents, 143; testifies to large land grants,
144.

Norfolk,

plantations of small, 53; farms and tith-
ables of, 58; slave plot in, 129.

Northampton,

farms and tithables of, 58; 79.

North Carolina,

servants flee to, 83.

Northern Neck,

omitted in rent roll, 50; 54; 55.

Norton, Capt. Wm„

brings glass workers to Virginia, 19;
dies, 19.

1 age, Matthew,

109.
Page, Mann,

has 157 slaves, 157.
Pagett, Anthony,

Burgess in 1629, 73.
Parke, Daniel,

109.
Patent Rolls,

in Virginia Land Office, 34; average

grants in, 47; show large dealers in

INDEX

257

servants, 48; 7.5; reveal names of
freedmen, 74-75.
Pattison, Thomas,

landowner, 79.
Pearson, Christopher,
inventory of, 107.
Pelton, George,

102.
Pennsylvania,

manufactures of lure Virginia whites.
191; migration to, 139-146.
Perfect Discription,

numbers cattle in Virginia. 101.
Perry Micajah,

reports on tobacco trade, 119.
Plantations,

Virginia made up of, 29; cheap in Vir-
ginia, 29; labor for, 29-37; unhealthful
sites for, 39; few large, 43; small hold
own with large, 44; small outnumber
large, 45; 46; transfers of in Surry
county, 46; patents not index to size of,
49; tendency to break up large into
small, 49; listed in rent roll of 1704-5,
53, largest in various counties, 53;
average size of, 53; accurately listed in
rent roll, 55; comparison of number of
with workers, 55; number in each
county, 58; settlers buy on frontier,
76; part only of each cultivated, 105.
Popleton, William,

Burgess in 1629, 73.
Population,

28; 29; growth of from 1649 to 1675,
98; growth of slow, 99, 142.
Potash,

England's need for, 8; found in Vir-
ginia, 15; first efforts to produce in Vir-
ginia, 17.
Pott. Dr. John,

incites people against Sir John Harvey,
110.
Poultry,

plentiful in Virginia, 102.
Poverty,

in England, 31; Navigation Acts cause
in Virginia, 91; one cause of Bacon's
Rebellion, 92-93.
Present State of Tobacco Plantations,

describes tobacco trade to France and
Spain, 119; puts tobacco duties at
£400,000, 121; describes ill effects of
wars on tobacco trade, 148.
Prince George county,

plantations and tithables of, 58.
Princess Anne county,

plantations of small, 53; 54; farms and
tithables of, 58; slave plot in, 129;
small slave holders in, 154.
Public Record Office,

has copy of rent roll of 1704, 52.

C^uarY, Colonel,

says wars ruin tobacco trade, 148; 157.

Quit rents,

collected by Crown on land, 50; revenue
from considerable, 50; 51; often in ar-
rears, 51; roll of in 1704, 51-55.

Kamshaw, William,

landowning freedman, 75.
Randall, Robert,

seven tithables, 57.

Randolph, Edward,

remarks on slow growth of Virginia
population, 99; says holdings of large
tracts of land causes migration from
Virginia, 141-143; says quit rents avoid-
ed, 142; suggests limiting size of grants,
143.

Randolph, William,

imports slaves, 130.

Rappahannock county,

land transfers in, 46; landowners of
listed as headrights, 76; 79.

Rent Roll.

Nickolson orders, 51; attempted in 1699,
52; completed in 1704-5, 52; shows
small plantations, 53; accuracy of, 54-55;
5,500 farms listed in, 55; compared with
tithables of 1702, 57-58; compared with
headrights, 97-99; contains names of
few freedmen, 122-123.

Restoration Period,

brings suffering to Virginia. 84; 97;
104; 115; 116.

Rich, Nathaniel,

buys tobacco at 2s a pound, 64.

Roberts, Robert,
buys land, 49.

Robertson, William,

makes copy of rent roll of 1704, 52.

Robins, Sampson,

79; patents land, 80.

Robinson, John,

landowning freedman, 75.

Rolfe, Capt. John,

first to cure Virginia tobacco, 24; 25.

Rooking, William,

servants and slaves of, 59.

Rowlston, Lionell,

servant, Burgess in 1629, 73; Burgess
in 1632, 74; landowner, 74.

Russell, John,

landowning freedman, 75.

Russia,

tobacco trade to, 118-119; 148.

Oamuel, Anthony,

buys 300 acres, 50.
Sandys, George,

selects site for iron works, 17; describes

failure of glass works in Virginia, 19;

writes for servants, 30; gives wages of

laborers, 44.
Sandys, Eir Edwin,

expects Virginia to duplicate England,

Savadge, Thomas,

landowning freedman, 74.
Scotchmon, Robert,

servant, Burgess in 1632, 74.
Scott, Thomas,

has 57 slaves, 158.
Scruely, Richard,

patents land, 79.

258

INDEX

Servants,

London Company sends to Virginia, 16;
Indian children as, 30; system of in-
dentures for, 32; not criminals, 32;
political prisoners among, 33; Irish
among, 33; Oliverian soldiers among,
33; they plot against Government, 33;
Scotchmen among, 33; Sedgemour pris-
oners among, 33; chiefly Englishmen,
34, 36; list of preserved, 34; headrights
from, 35; influx of, 35; four or five
years of service for, 38; become part of
Virginia social fabric, 39; hardship and
perils encountered by, 39; 80 per cent,
become freedmen, 40; prior to 1660 re-
mained in Virginia, 40; length of ser-
vice for, 40; usually young when freed,
41, 42; estimated at 6,000 in 1671, 41;
"seasoned," 42; become small part of
population, 43; merchants bring to com-
plete cargoes, 47; individual orders for,
48; in immigrant ships, 48; dealers in,
48; numbers in 1704, 56; listed as tith-
ables, 56; distribution of, 58-59; not
slaves, 60; like English apprentices, 60;
outfit of on expiration of term, 61; not
entitled to land, 61; hope to become
landowners, 61-62; Virginia land of op-
portunity for, 71; freedmen often pur-
chase, 72; of early period become pros-
perous, 73-80; list of, 78; proportion of
among immigrants, 81-82; little hope
for advancement of after 1660, 96-100;
importation of in Restoration period,
98-99; inventories which show none,
106-107; many freed to fight in Baco-n's
Rebellion, 113; few become landowners
at end of 17th century, 112-113; useful-
ness of as compared with slaves, 126
price of, 127; not always docile, 128
slave labor curtails importation of, 134
England opposes migration of, 135
vast numbers imported, 142.

Seymour, Attorney-General,

tells Virginians to make tobacco, 136.

Sheep,

scarce in Virginia, 102.

Sheriff,

collects quit rents, 51; draws up rent
roll, 52; unearths false returns, 54-55.

Sherwood, William,

calls Bacon's men rabble, 93.

Shipbuilding,

materials for needed in England, 8;
lack of injures merchant marine, 9; ma-
terials for found in Virginia, 15; Capt.
Smith explains why Virginia cannot pro-
duce materials for, 17.

Shurley, Daniel,

landowning freedman, 74.

Sickness, The Virginia,

Capt. Blewit dies of, 18; glass workers
die of, 19; servants die of, 33; described,
39; terrible mortality from, 39, 80;
abates before end of 17th centry, 40:
not fatal to slaves, 128.

Silk,

from South Europe, 12; in Virginia, 15.

Slaughter, John,
80.

Slave trade,

in hands of Dutch, 31; restrictions on,
45.

Slaves,

adequate for tobacco raising, 29; first
cargo of in Virginia, 30; few in Vir-
ginia prior to 1680, 31; influx of, 40;
numbers in 1704, 56; listed as tithables,
56; distribution of, 58-59; inventories
show that many planters had none, 106-
107; used by wealthy men in 17th cen-
tury, 108; first cargo of, 124; few prior
to 1680, 124; importations of, 124-125;
Dutch control trade in, 125-126; fitness
of for tobacco culture, 126; price of, 127;
labor of crude, 127-128; health of good,
128; docile, 128; plots among, 128-129;
no wrong seen in, 129; duty on importa-
tion of, 129; large importations of, 1680-
1708, 130-131; 6,000 by 1700, 130;
12,000 in 1708, 130; 30,000 in 1730, 131;
use of cheapens tobacco, 132; use of
curtails importation of servants, 134;
England favors use of in Virginia, 135-
136; pernicious effect of in ancient
Rome, 137-139; effect of on Virginia
yeomanry, 139-155; causes migration of
whites, 139-146; at first produce only
lower grades of tobacco, 147; become
more efficient, 147; contempt of for poor
whites, 152; small holders of, 152-159;
cast stigma on labor, 155; large holders
of increase in numbers, 155-159.

Smelting,

wood needed for, 8; in Virginia, 15;
machinery for sent to Virginia, 17; be-
gun at Falling Creek.

Smith, Capt. John,

describes Baltic trade, 8; explains diffi-
culty of building up manufacturers in
Virginia, 17.

Smither, William,

buys 200 acres, 50.

Smyth,

describes poor whites of Virginia, 152,
155.

Spain,

commerce with, 12; growing domains of,
14; tobacco of used in England, 25, 26;
tobacco of excluded from England, 67,
68, 86, 87; tobacco trade to, 119; trade
to injured by war, 131.

Spanish Succession, War of,

103; 115; 119; cuts off tobacco trade to
France and Spain, 131; 148.

Sparshott, Edward,

landowning freedman, 74.

Smith, Lawrence,

sued for arrears of quit rents, 143.

Sparkes, John,

landowning freedman, 74.

Spencer, Capt. Robt.,

servants and slaves of, 59.

INDEX

259

Spencer, Secretary,

writes of reviving tobacco trade, 115;

says slaves cheaper labor than whites,

132.
Splitimber, John,

his cattle, 101; inventory of, 106-107.
Spotsylvania,

large grants in, 145; poor whites in,

151; small slave holders of, 153-154;

land transfers in, 154; large slave hold-
ers in, 157; 159.
Spotswood, Alexander,

says slaves cause over production of

tobacco, 129; 151; has 60 slaves, 158.
Storey, John,

imports negroes, 130.
Stuarts, second despotism of,

affects Virginia, 114.
Stublefield, George,

has 42 slaves, 158.
Surry,

land transfers in, 46; tithables in, 56.

58; inventories and wills in, 59; negroes

plot in, 128.
Sweden,

tobacco trade to, 118-119.
Symonds, Roger,

granted 100 acres, 81.

1 aliaferro, Richard,
has 43 slaves, 158.

Tenants,

few in Virginia, 44, 45, 62.

Thoroughgood, Adam,

servant, Burgess in 1629, 73; Burgess
in 1632, 74; landowner, 75; brother of
Sir John Thorouhggood, 75.

Tithables,

those listed as, 56; in Surry, 56-57;
number of in various counties, 58.

Tobacco,

history of Virginia built on, 20, 23;
Indians revere, 24; first cured in Vir-
ginia by Rolfe, 24; Virginia suited for,
24; ready market for, 24; extensively
used in England, 24; used by James I,
25; Virginians turn eagerly to culture
of, 25; send first cargo of to England,
25; London Company displeased at cul-
ture of, 25; England reconciled to, 26;
Virginia's only hope, 26; Crown tries to
divert Virginia from, 27; cultivation in
Virginia universal, 27; shapes immigra-
tion, 29; requires unskilled labor, 29;
prosperity of freedmen hinges on, 62;
amount of one man could produce, 63-
64; over production of in 1640, 63; price
of prior to 1660, 64-67; account for
migration of 1618-1623, 64; rich re-
turns from, 64; restrictions on trade
of, 67-69; growing of in England pro-
hibited, 67; tax on, 67; illegal foreign
trade in, 68-69; reexported from Eng-
land, 70; Virginia underbids world in,
70; returns from, 71-72; freight on high,
72; effect of Navigation Acts on, 85-96;
foreign trade in prohibited, 85; requires

world market, 86; planting in England
prohibited, 87; exports of to Spain, 87;
reexported, 87; planted in Holland, 88;
glut in England causes price of to drop,
89-91; exhausts soil, 105; Charles I
makes offer for, 110; trade of revives,
115-116; production of increases, 115-
116; returns from, 116; reexports of,
116-120; production of abroad, 117;
duty on yields crown large revenue,
121; price of still low at end of 17th
century, 123; slaves adequate to its
cultivation, 127-128; wars interfere
with trade in, 131; slaves cheapen pro-
duction of, 132; poor whites produce the
best, 146-147; foreign trade in ruined by
war, 148-150; advantages of large plan
tations for, 156-157.

Towns,

few in Virginia, 29.

Townsend, Richard,

Burgess in 1629, 73.

Trussell, John,

landowning freedman, 74.

Turnbull, Robert,

has 81 slaves, 158.

U ndervvood, John,

patents land in James City, 77.
Upton, John,

landowning freedman, 75.

V EGETABLES,

abundant in Virginia, 102.
/ 'irginia's Cure,

says Burgesses mostly freedmen, 74.
Virginia Unmasked,

describes Virginia houses, 104.
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,

shows that many freedmen migrated to

Virginia, 81.
/ 'irginia Richly Valued,

advises emigrants as to outfit, 104.

w,

high in Virginia, 16; 29; 30; low in

England, 31.
Wage earners,

few in Virginia, 44; mostly recently

freed servants, 44.
Walker, Robert,

has 52 slaves, 158.
Warburton, Thomas,

patents land in James City, 77.
Warden, Thomas,

landowner, 79.
Warwick,

average plantation of, 53; farms and

tithables of, 58; 81.
Washington, Richard,

deals in servants, 48.
Watson, John,

landowning freedman, 75.
Weaver, Samuel,

landowning freedman, 75.

260

INDEX

Webster, Roger,

servant, Bury ess in 1632. 7-4.
Whitlock, Thomas,

will of, 105-106.
Williamsburg,

35; 54.
Williams, William,

buys 200 acres, 50.
Wills.

throw light on distribution of servants

and slaves, 59; 73; headrights mentioned

in, 76.
Wine,

prospect for in Virginia, 15.
Woolens,

need of potash for, 8; French dutv on,

13.
Woolritch, William,

landowning freedman, 74.
Wormsley, Ralph,

109; letter to from Fitshugh, 130.
Wray, Thomas,

granted 50 acres, 81.

I ates, William,

has 55 slaves, 158.

Yeomanry, largest class in Virginia, 59, 62;
freedmen in, 72-82; 85; desperately
poor, 90-91; driven to revolt by poverty,

92-93; no advancement for after 1660,
97-100; enjoy plentiful food, 101-103;
often suffer for proper clothing, 103-
105; Burgesses represented interests of,
109; aid in ejecting Harvey, 110; many
favor Parliament in Civil War, 110-111;
in control from 1652 to 1660, 112; chief
sufferers from Navigation Acts, 113;
support Bacon in rebellion, 113; struggle
for political rights, 114; few recruits to
at end of 17th century, 122; condition
of at end of 17th century, 123; effect of
slavery on in ancient Rome, 137-139;
migration of from Virginia,. 139-146;
produce higher grades of tobacco, 146-
147; misery of in 1713, 150; many sink
into poverty, 151-154; many become
slave holders, 152-159; slaves make less
industrious, 155; 160.

Yeardley, .Sir George,

29; instructed to enforce free exchange
of goods, 65.

York,

land transfers in, 46; plantations of
small, 53; farms and tithables of, 58;
servants and slaves in, 59; landowners
of who had been headrights, 76; 79;
107; 130.

Young, Richard,

granted 100 acres, 81.

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