* English Rule
* Slavery
* The Gentry Class
* Cavaliers and Pioneers
* Settlers
* Video
* Images
English Rule in Early Virginia
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/cup.htm)
Royalist's silver cup
[_Full view and description_ (
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/cup.htm)
]
Virginia in the 1600s and through most of the 1700s was an extremely
inegalitarian society like the Stuart England that produced it. This was the
result of conscious choice, largely the vision of one man—Sir William Berkeley—
royal governor from 1642 to 1652 and from 1660 to 1677. When he assumed
authority in Virginia, the colony was a society in flux in many ways. Sir
William's ideal society was authoritarian, like the one he had known at home.
It would have a few ruling gentry families, a small class of yeomen farmers,
a larger group of white tenant farmers, and at the bottom, numerous
indentured servants (and eventually enslaved Africans). Social mobility would be
at a minimum, and everyone would know his place. These plans were hindered
by the staggering death rate in early Virginia, which made for a highly
fluid, unstable society. But as death rates dropped in the late 1600s, and
slaves replaced troublesome indentured servants, Berkeley's goal was largely
achieved. Thereafter, the colony was run by and for a small governing elite.
This class ruled Virginia until after the American Revolution. Ironically,
many scions of these dynasties would be the leaders in the rebellion
against King George III.
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/bacon.htm)
Bacon's Epitaph
[_Full view and description_
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/bacon.htm) ]
Sir William Berkeley's ideal society, however, needed not only a ruling
class, but also a people to be ruled. Most of Virginia's white immigrants were
either indentured servants or convicts. In 1618 Virginia had adopted the
headright, which gave fifty acres of land for each settler brought to
Virginia. Although England's unskilled and unemployed laborers had no money to
pay the ship's passage, it was paid for them if they signed an indenture or
contract to become a servant for four to seven years. The fifty acres went
to the man who actually paid their passage, not to the immigrants
themselves. They came with few possessions, were examined like livestock, and worked
under grueling conditions. Besides those who became servants voluntarily,
convicts, prostitutes, and prisoners of war were forcibly "transported" from
England to Virginia in large numbers.
Life in Early Virginia
In the 1600s, three-quarters of all English colonists experienced a term of
servitude. Half of them died before their service was completed. One
quarter remained poor afterward. The other quarter achieved a degree of
prosperity. Even so, the raw conditions of society before 1690 permitted a degree
of social mobility impossible in England. As a whole, women fared somewhat
better than men. Because of the preponderance of men in early Virginia,
wives were highly prized. A female servant who had completed her service could
easily find a husband, perhaps one of those fortunate servants who, having
gotten fifty acres upon completing his service, had saved enough money for
the legal fees, tools, seed, and livestock needed to become a planter
(which then meant farmer).
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/eskridge.htm)
"Rebecca Bonham Eskridge
[_Full view and description_
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/eskridge.htm) ]
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/fitzhugh.htm)
Henry Fitzhugh
[_Full view and description_
(
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/fitzhugh.htm) ]
Apart from Pocahontas, women do not appear prominently in histories of
early Virginia. Yet, in 1619, the General Assembly declared that "In a newe
plantation it is not knowne whether man or woman be the most necessary." Women
were central to the economy, producing not only necessities of life such
as food and clothing, but also adding to the work force by bearing and
raising children. In that age of inequality, however, women were seen as
inferior to men in mind and body, and a woman's duty was to find a man to govern
her. Slaves, servants, and mistresses of typical households worked from dawn
to dusk grinding corn, milking cows, butchering meat, brewing beer (water
was usually contaminated), growing vegetables, and washing and mending
clothes. Slave women were as likely as men to be sent into the fields. Life was
fleeting. Early Virginia was a land of widows, widowers, and orphans. Of
necessity, men often made their wives their executors and legal guardians of
their children. Daughters often were the only heirs. However, the death
rate gradually dropped, and as society became more stable, there also came a
return to the ideal, and the ideal then was patriarch—the absolute
authority of the husband and father. Thereafter, white women had few rights, free
black women fewer, and slave women none.