Patrician and plebeian in Virginia : or, The origin and development of the social classes of the Old Dominion ...

Preface

The origin of the aristocracy of colonial Virginia is a subject which has caused much controversy among students of the history of the Old Dominion. It was for many years the general belief that the leading planters were the descendants of English families of high rank, and that their aristocratic instincts were their birth-right, the heritage left them by noble ancestors. Others have maintained that the best families of Virginia came from the great English middle class, and the evidences upon the debated question which have been unearthed in recent years, tend to confirm this view. The author's own studies have led him to the conclusion that but few men of rank ever came to the "wilderness of Virginia," and that the planters were in most cases the descendants of merchant ancestors. With this as a basis he has sought to point out the operation of the economic, social and political forces that operated upon the colonists and instilled into them those instincts of chivalry and of pride that were so pronounced at the time of the Revolution.

vi PREFACE

The Second Part, devoted to the middle class, dwells upon the immigration of free families of humble means to Virginia and the part they played in the colony's upbuilding. Much space is given to the indentured servants, their numbers and character, and the extent to which they survived and entered into the middle class which was forming in the 17th century.

In conclusion it only remains for the author to express his appreciation of the kindness of those who have aided him in his work. He wishes especially to acknowledge the services rendered by Dr. R. H. Dabney, of the University of Virginia; by Mr. Charles Puryear, of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College; by Mr. J. S. Patton, Librarian of the University of Virginia; by Mr. P. L. Windsor, formerly Librarian of the University of Texas; by Dr. H. R. Mcllwaine, Virginia State Librarian; and by Mr. William Clayton- Torrence, of Richmond, Virginia.

Thomas J. Wertenbaker.

Charlottesville, Va.

March 8, ipio.

PART ONE r I "HE aristocratic character of Virginia so- -*- cietywas the result of development within the colony. It proceeded from economic, political and social causes. On its economic side it was built up by the system of large plantations, by the necessity for indentured or slave labor, by the direct trade with England ; politically it was engendered by the lack of a vigorous middle class in the first half of the 17th century, and was sustained by the method of appointment to office; on its social side it was fostered by the increasing wealth of the planters and by the ideal of the English gentleman.

It will be necessary, in explaining this development, to determine the origin of the men that composed this aristocracy; for it will be impossible to understand the action of the forces which prevailed in Virginia during the colonial period unless we have a knowledge of the material upon which they worked. Much error has prevailed upon this subject. It was for years the general belief, and is still the belief of many, that the wealthy families, whose culture, elegance and power added such luster to Virginia in the 18th century, were the descendants of cavalier or aristocratic settlers. It was so easy to account for the noble nature of a Randolph, a Lee or a Mason by nobleness of descent, that careful investigation was considered unnecessary, and heredity was accepted as a sufficient explanation of the existence and characteristics of the Virginia aristocracy.

We shall attempt to show that this view is erroneous. Recent investigation in Virginia history has made it possible to determine with some degree of accuracy the origin of the aristocracy. Yet the mixed character of the settlers, and the long period of time over which immigration to the colony continued make the problem difficult of accurate solution, and the chances of error innumerable. Out of the mass of evidence, however, three facts may be established beyond controversy, that but few men of high social rank in England established families in Virginia; that the larger part of the aristocracy of the colony came directly from merchant ancestors ; that the leading planters of the 17th century were mercantile in instinct and unlike the English aristocrat of the same period.

Much confusion has resulted from the assumption, so common with Southern writers, that the English Cavaliers were all of distinguished lineage or of high social rank. The word "Cavalier," as used at the time of Charles I, denoted not a cast, or a distinct class of people, but a political party. It is true that the majority of the gentry supported the king in the civil war, and that the main reliance of Parliament lay in the small landowners and the merchants, but there were many men of humble origin that fought with the royalist party and many aristocrats that joined the party of the people. Amongst the enemies of the king were the Earls of Bedford, Warwick, Manchester and Essex, while many leaders of the Roundheads such as Pym, Cromwell and Hampden were of gentle blood. Thus the fact that a man was Cavalier or Roundhead proved nothing as to his social rank or his lineage. 1

No less misleading has been the conception that in Great Britain there existed during the 17th century distinct orders of society, similar to those of France or Spain at the same period. Many have imagined the English nobility a class sharply and definitely separated from the commonalty, and forming a distinct upper stratum of society. In point of fact no sharp line of social demarkation can be drawn between the peerage and the common people. For in England, even in the days of the Plantagenets, the younger sons of the nobles did not succeed to their fathers' rank, but sank to the gentry class, or at most became "knights." They usually married beneath the rank of their fathers and thus formed a link binding the nobility to the commons of the country. Often the sons and brothers of earls were sent to Parliament as representatives of the shires, and as such sat side by side with shopkeepers and artisans from the towns. It is this circumstance that explains why so many middle-class Englishmen of the present day can trace back their lineage to the greatest and noblest houses of the kingdom. The healthy political development which has been such a blessing to the English nation is due in no small measure to the lack of anything like caste in British society.

These facts help to explain much in the origin of the Virginia aristocracy that has only too often been misunderstood. They make evident the error of presuming that many persons of gentle blood came to Virginia because there was an immigration of so called Cavaliers, or because certain families in the colony could trace back their ancestry to noble English houses.

Immigration to Virginia during the seventeen years after the founding of Jamestown was different in character from that of any succeeding period. The London Company in its efforts to send to the colony desirable settlers induced a number of men of good family and education to venture across the ocean to seek their fortunes in the New World. Since the Company numbered among its stockholders some of the greatest noblemen of the time, it could easily arouse in the influential social classes extraordinary interest in Virginia. It is due largely to this fact that among the first settlers are to be found so many that are entitled to be called gentlemen.

Moreover, the true nature of the task that confronted the immigrants to the wilds of America was little understood in England at this time. Those unhappy gentlemen that sailed upon the Discovery, the Godspeed and the Susan Constant hoped to find in Virginia another Mexico or Peru and to gain there wealth as great as had fallen to the lot of Cortez or of Pizarro. Had they known that the riches of the land they were approaching could be obtained only by long years of toil and sweat, of danger and hardship, they would hardly have left their homes in England. That the First Supply took with them a perfumer and six tailors shows how utterly unsuited they were to the task of planting a new colony. Many, doubtless, were men of ruined fortune, who sought to find in the New World a rapid road to wealth. When it became known in England that gold mines were not to be found in Virginia and that wealth could be had only by the sweat of the brow, these spendthrift gentlemen ceased coming to the colony.

It is true, however, that the proportion of those officially termed "gentlemen" that sailed with the early expeditions to Jamestown is surprisingly large. Of the settlers of 1607, out of one hundred and five men, thirty-five were called gentlemen. 2 The First Supply, which arrived in 1608, contained thirty-three gentlemen out of one hundred and twenty persons. 3 Captain John Smith declared these men were worthless in character, more fitted "to spoyle a commonwealth than to begin or maintain one," and that those that came with them as "laborers" were really footmen in attendance upon their masters. In the Second Supply came twenty-eight gentlemen in a total company of seventy. 4 The conduct of those of the Third Supply shows them to have been similar in character to their predecessors. Smith calls them a "lewd company," among them "many unruly gallants packed thither by their friends to escape il destinies." 5 These men, however, made practically no imprint upon the character of the population of the colony; for by far the larger part of them perished miserably within a few months after their arrival. Of the five

l Nar. of Early Va., p. 125.

hundred persons alive in Virginia in October, 1609, all but sixty had died by May of the following year. 6

As years went by, this influx of dissipated gentlemen began to wane. It could not be concealed in England that the early settlers had perished of starvation, disease and the tomahawk, and those that had been led to believe that Virginia was an Eldorado, turned with a shudder from the true picture of suffering and death told them by those that returned from the colony. Moreover, the London Company soon learned that no profit was to be expected from a colony settled by dissipated gentlemen, and began to send over persons more suited for the rough tasks of clearing woods, building huts and planting corn. Their immigrant ves-

6 Fiske, Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. I, p. 154. The facts here presented form a complete refutation of the assertion, so frequently repeated by Northern historians, that the Virginia aristocracy had its origin in this immigration of dissipated and worthless gentlemen. The settlers of 1607, 160S and 1609 were almost entirely swept out of existence, and not one in fifty of these "gallants" survived to found families. Most of the leading planters of Virginia came from later immigrants, men of humbler rank, but of far more sterling qualities than the adventurers of Smith's day.

sels were now filled with laborers, artisans, tradesmen, apprentices and indentured servants. It is doubtless true that occasionally gentlemen continued to arrive in Virginia even during the last years of the Company's rule, yet their number must have been very small indeed. When, in 1624, James I took from the London Company its charter, the colony contained few others than indentured servants and freemen of humble origin and means. In 1623 several of the planters, in answering charges that had been brought against the colony by a certain Captain Nathaniel Butler, said that the inhabitants were chiefly laboring men. 7

With the downfall of the London Company one influence which had tended to send to Virginia persons of good social standing ceased to exist. The personal interest of those noblemen that had owned stock in the enterprise was no longer exerted to obtain a desirable class of settlers, and economic forces alone now determined the character of those that established themselves in Virginia. During the remainder of the 17th century it was the profit that could be obtained from the planting of tobacco that

' Nar. of Early Va., p. 415.

brought the most desirable class of settlers to the colony. It is true, however, that dissipated and spendthrift gentlemen still came over at times, seeking in Virginia a refuge from creditors, or expecting amid the unsettled conditions of a new country to obtain license for their excesses. It was this element of the population, doubtless, that the Dutch trader De Vries referred to when he asserted that some of the planters were inveterate gamblers, even staking their servants. 8 Such a character was Captain Stone, whom DeVries met at the home of Governor Harvey. This man was related to families of good standing in England, but strutted, was lewd, swore horribly and was guilty of shameless carousals wherever he went. While in New Amsterdam he entered upon a drinking bout with Governor Von Twiller, and stole a vessel of Plymouth. In Massachusetts he called Roger Ludlow a just ass, and later, having been detected in other crimes, was forced to flee from the colony. Beyond doubt men similar to Stone were to be found in Virginia during the first half of the 17th century,

8 Neill, Va. Carolorum.

but they became rarer and rarer as time went on. 9

How few men of good social standing there were in the colony in this period is shown by the number of important positions filled by uneducated persons of humble origin and rank. The evidence is conclusive that on many occasions indentured servants that had served their term of bondage and had acquired property were elected by the people to represent them in the House of Burgesses. This is notably true of the first half of the 17th century, when the government was largely in the hands of a few leading planters, and when pressure from above could influence elections very decidedly. Had there been many men of ability or rank to select from, these Plebeians would never have found a place in the Assembly of the colony. The author of Virginia's Cure stated that the burgesses were "usuall such as went over as servants thither," and although this is doubtless an exaggeration, it shows that there must have been in the Assemblies many men of humble extraction. In the case of some of the burgesses, it has been

9 Ibid.

shown definitely that they came to Virginia as servants. Thus William Popleton was formerly the servant of John Davies ; Richard Townsend was in 1620 the servant of Dr. Potts; William Bentley arrived in the colony in 1624 as a hired man. All three of these men were burgesses. 10 The preacher, William Gatford, testified that persons of mean extraction had filled places of importance and trust. 11 Governor Berkeley, stated in 1651 while addressing the Assembly, that hundreds of examples testified to the fact that no man in the colony was denied the opportunity to acquire both honor and wealth. At times men of humble origin became so influential that they obtained seats in the Council, the most exclusive and powerful body in the colony. Thus William Pearce, who came over in the days of the Company as a poor settler, was a Councilor in 1632, and was before his death one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the colony. 12 In 1635 we find in the Council John Brewer, formerly a grocer of London. 13 Mal-

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Va. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Vol. XI, p. 317.

achy Postlethwayt, a writer of several treaties on commerce, states that even criminals often became leading men in Virginia. Although this is obviously an exaggeration, Postlethwayt's testimony tends to add force to the contention that many of humble rank did at times rise to positions of honor. "Even your transported felons," he says, "sent to Virginia instead of to Tyburn, thousands of them, if we are not misinformed, have, by turning their hands to industry and improvement, and (which is best of all) to honesty, become rich, substantial planters and merchants, settled large families, and been famous in the country ; nay, we have seen many of them made magistrates, officers of militia, captains of good ships, and masters of good estates." 14 In England stories of the rapid advance of people of humble origin in Virginia gave rise to the absurd belief that the most influential families in the colony were chiefly composed of former criminals. Defoe in two of his popular novels, gives voice to this opinion. In Moll Flanders we find the following: "Among the rest, she often told me how the greatest part of the inhabitants of that colony came hither in very indifferent circumstances from England; that generally speaking, they were of two sorts : either, 1st, such as were brought over. . . .to be sold as servants, or, 2nd, such as are transported after having been found guilty of crimes punishable with death. When they come here .... the planters buy them, and they work together in the field till their time is out. . . . (Then) they have. . . .land allotted them. . . . and (they) . . . .plant it with tobacco and corn for their own use; and as the merchants will trust them with tools .... upon the credit of their crop before it is grown, so they plant every year a little more (etc). Hence, child, says she, many a Newgate-bird becomes a great man, and we have. . . .several justices of the peace, officers of the trained band, and magistrates of the towns they live in, that have been burnt in the hand." 15 In Mrs. Behn's comedy The Widow Ranter, the same belief finds expression, for Friendly is made to say : "This country wants nothing but to be peopled with a well-born race to make it one of the best col-

15 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 179.

onies in the world ; but for want of a governor we are ruled by a council, some of whom have been perhaps transported criminals, who having acquired great estates are now become Your Honour and Right Worshipful, and possess all places of authority." 16 It is absolutely certain that the Virginia aristocracy was not descended from felons, but this belief that found voice in works of fiction of the 17th century must have had some slight foundation in truth. It tends to strengthen the evidence that many men of humble origin did attain places of honor and profit in the colony, and it shows that in England in this period people were far from imagining that many aristocrats had come to Virginia to settle. 17

Although it is impossible to determine with accuracy the lineage of all the leading families of Virginia during the 17th century, it is definitely known that many of the most wealthy

"Ibid, Vol. II, p. 170.

"As late as the year 1775 we find Dr. Samuel Johnson, with his usual dislike of America, repeating the old error. In speaking of the rebellious colonists, he says: "Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Temple Classics, Vol. Ill, p. 174.

and influential houses were founded by men that could boast of no social prominence in England. In the days immediately following the downfall of the London Company there was no more influential man in the colony than Abraham Piersey. In matters of political interest he took always a leading part, and was respected and feared by his fellow colonists. He was well-to-do when he came to Virginia, having acquired property as a successful merchant, but he was in no way a man of social distinction or rank. John Chew was another man of great distinction in the colony. He too was a plain merchant attracted to the colony by the profits to be made from the planting and sale of tobacco. 1S George Menifie, who for years took so prominent a part in the political affairs of Virginia, and who, as a member of the Council was complicated in the expulsion of Governor Harvey, speaks of himself as a "merchant," although in later years he acquired the more distinguished title of "esquire." Menifie possessed an ample fortune, most of which was acquired by his own business ability and foresight. It is stated that his "large

18 Bruce, Econ. Hist, of Va., Vol. II, pp. 380, 366.

garden contained the fruits of Holland, and the roses of Provence, and his orchard was planted with apple, pear and cherry trees." 19 Samuel Mathews, a man of plain extraction, although well connected by marriage, was a leader in the colony. In political affairs his influence was second to none, and in the Commonwealth period he became governor. He is described as "an old planter of above 30 years standing, one of the Council and a most deserving Commonwealth man, .... He hath a fine house, and all things answerable to it ; he sows yearly store of hemp and flax and causes it to be spun; he keeps weavers and hath a tan house .... hath 40 negro servants, brings them up to trade, in his house ; he yearly sows abundance of wheat, barley, etc. . . .kills store of beeves, and sells them to victual the ships when they come thither; hath abundance of kine, a brave dairy, swine great store and poultry." 20 Adam Thoroughgood, although he came to Virginia as a servant or apprentice, became wealthy and powerful. His estates were of great extent and at one time he owned forty-nine sheep and one-

19 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 377.

"Neill, Va. Carolorum.

hundred and seventeen cattle. 21 Captain Ralph Hamor, a leading planter in the days of the Company, was the son of a merchant tailor. Thomas Burbage, was another merchant that acquired large property in Virginia and became recognized as a man of influence. Ralph Warnet, who is described as a "merchant," died in 1630, leaving a large fortune. 22 That these men, none of whom could boast of high rank or social prominence in England, should have been accepted as leaders in the colony shows that the best class of settlers were of comparatively humble extraction. Had many men of gentle blood come to Virginia during the first half of the 17th century there would have been no chance for the "merchant" class to acquire such prominence.

Nor did men of plain extraction cease to occupy prominent positions after the Restoration, when the much misunderstood "Cavalier" immigration had taken place, and the society of the colony had been fixed. Amongst the leading planters was Isaac Allerton, a man dis-

21 Bruce, Econ. Hist, of Va., Vol. II, pp. 372, 377, 574.

22 Bruce, Soc. Hist, of Va., p. 164; Econ. Hist, of Va., Vol. II, p. 531.

tinguished for his activities both in the House of Burgesses and the Council, and the founder of a prominent family, who was the son of an English merchant tailor. 23 The first of the famous family of Byrds, which for nearly a century was noted for its wealth, its influence, its social prominence, was the son of a London goldsmith. 24 Oswald Cary, who settled in Middlesex in 1659 was the son of an English merchant. 25 There was no man in the colony during the second half of the 17th century that exerted a more powerful influence in political affairs than Philip Ludwell. He was for years the mainstay of the commons and he proved to be a thorn in the flesh of more than one governor. He was admired for his ability, respected for his wealth and feared for his power, an admitted leader socially and politically in the colony, yet he was of humble extraction, his father and uncle both being mercers. The noted Bland family sprang from Adam Bland, a member of the skinners gild of London. 20 Thomas Fitzhugh, one of the wealthiest and

23 Wm. and Mary Quar., Vol. IV, p. 39.

24 Ibid, Vol. IV, P- 153.

^Va. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Vol. XI, p. 366. 20 Bruce, Soc. Hist, of Va., p. 91.

most prominent men of the colony, was thought to have been the grandson of a maltster.

It was during the second half of the 17th century that occurred the "Cavalier" immigration that took place as a consequence of the overthrow of Charles I. Upon this subject there has been much misapprehension. Many persons have supposed that the followers of the unhappy monarch came to Virginia by the thousand to escape the Puritans, and that it was from them that the aristocracy of the colony in large part originated. Even so eminent a historian as John Fiske has been led into the erroneous belief that this immigration was chiefly responsible for the great increase in population that occurred at this time. "The great Cavalier exodus," he says, "began with the king's execution in 1649, and probably slackened after 1660. It must have been a chief cause of the remarkable increase of the white population of Virginia from 15,000 in 1649 to 38,000 in 1670." 27 This deduction is utterly unwarranted. The increase in population noted here was due chiefly to the stream of indentured servants that came to the colony at this period. At the time when the so-called Cavalier immigration was at its height between one thousand and fifteen hundred servants were sent to Virginia each year. In 1671 Governor Berkeley estimated the number that came over annually at fifteen hundred, and it is safe to say that during the Commonwealth period the influx had been as great as at this date. The constant wars in Great Britain had made it easier to obtain servants for exportation to America, for thousands of prisoners were disposed of in this way and under Cromwell Virginia received numerous batches of unfortunate wretches that paid for their hostility to Parliament with banishment and servitude. Not only soldiers from King Charles' army, but many captives taken in the Scotch and Irish wars were sent to the colony. On the other hand after the Restoration, hundreds of Cromwell's soldiers were sold as servants. If we estimate the annual importation of servants at 1200, the entire increase of population which Fiske notes is at once accounted for. Moreover, the mortality that in the earlier years had been so fatal to the newcomers, was now greatly reduced owing to the introduction of Peruvian bark and to the precautions taken by planters to prevent disease on their estates. Governor Berkeley said in 1671 that not many hands perished at that time, whereas formerly not one in five escaped the first year.

Nor can the increased number of births in the colony be neglected in accounting for the growth of population. The historian Bruce, referring to the period from 1634 to 1649, in which the population trebled, says : "The faster growth during this interval was due, not to any increase in the number of new settlers seeking homes in Virginia, but rather to the advance in the birth-rate among the inhabitants. There was by the middle of the century a large native population thoroughly seasoned to all the trying variations of the climate and inured to every side of plantation life, however harsh and severe it might be in the struggle to press the frontier further and further outward." 28 It may then be asserted positively that the growth of population between the dates 1649 and 1670 was not due to an influx of Cavaliers.

Had many men of note fled to Virginia at

28 Bruce, Soc. Hist, of Va., pp. 18 and 19.

this period their arrival would scarcely have escaped being recorded. Their prominence and the circumstances of their coming to the colony would have insured for them a place in the writings of the day. A careful collection of the names of those Cavaliers that were prominent enough to find a place in the records, shows that their number was insignificant. The following list includes nearly all of any note whatsoever: Sir Thomas Lunsford, Col. Hammond, Sir Philip Honeywood, Col. Norwood, Stevens, Brodnax, Welsford, Molesworth, Col. Moryson, John Woodward, Robert Jones, Nicholas Dunn, Anthony Langston, Bishop, Culpeper, Peter Jenings, John Washington, Lawrence Washington, Sir Dudley Wiat, Major Fox, Dr. Jeremiah Harrison, Sir Gray Shipworth, Sir Henry Chiskeley and Col. Joseph Bridger. Of this number a large part returned to England and others failed to establish families in the colony. How few were their numbers is shown by the assertions of colonial writers. Sir William Berkeley reported in 1671 that Cromwell's "tyranny" had sent divers worthy men to the colony. Hugh Jones, writing in 1722, speaks of the civil wars in

England as causing several families of good birth and fortune to settle in Virginia. This language certainly gives no indication of a wholesale immigration of Cavaliers.

Some writers have pointed to the number of families in Virginia that were entitled to the use of coats-of-arms as convincing proof that the aristocracy of the colony was founded by men of high social rank. It is true that in numerous instances Virginians had the right to coats-of-arms, but this does not prove that their blood was noble, for in most cases these emblems of gentility came to them through ancestors that were mercantile in occupation and in instinct. During the 17th century the trades were in high repute in England, and to them resorted many younger sons of the gentry. These youths, excluded from a share in the paternal estate by the law of primogeniture, were forced either into the professions or the trades. It was the custom for the country gentleman to leave to his eldest son the whole of his landed estates; the second son he sent to Oxford or to Cambridge to prepare for one of the learned professions, such as divinity, medicine or law; the third was apprenticed to some local surgeon or apothecary ; the fourth was sent to London to learn the art of weaving, of watchmaking or the like. It was the educating of the youngest sons in the trades that gave rise to the close connection between the commercial classes in England and the gentry. Great numbers of merchants in the trading cities were related to the country squire or even to the nobleman. These merchant families, since they did not possess landed estates, could not style themselves "gentlemen," but they clung to the use of the coat-of-arms that had descended to them from their ancestors. Thus it happened that some of the immigrants to Virginia possessed coats-of-arms. Since they still looked upon the life of the country squire as the ideal existence, as soon as they were settled upon the plantations, they imitated it as far as possible. With the possession of land they assumed the title of "gentleman." Since the squire or nobleman from whom the right to the coat-of-arms came to them might have lived many generations before the migration to Virginia, the use of this emblem could give but little ground for a claim to gentle blood.