| [211] | Representation in Virginia, Chandler, 1896, p. 7. |
XXI
The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves—
Virginia's Attitude (Concluded)
Approaching the subject from another side, and reviewing all the sources of evidence, we may reach certain fairly accurate conclusions. At the close of the Revolution, Virginia was the largest slaveholding state in the Union. There soon grew up the conviction that in the dispersion or colonization beyond her borders of at least a large portion of this population lay the only method of effectually solving the slavery and racial problems. In consequence of this condition, various movements were evolved, some designedly for the attainment of these objects and others, while without such purpose, yet working to the same end.
DEPORTATION OF SLAVES FROM VIRGINIA
As we have seen, slaves when emancipated were required to leave the state within one year from such date. Masters, ex-slaves and colonization societies were, therefore, all earnest to achieve this result. Hence arose the first cause for deportation—an influence and custom which continued up to the Civil War.
The prospects of improving their fortunes by emigrating to the newer states of Kentucky, Missouri and the South impelled large numbers of slaveholders to leave Virginia. They carried their slaves with them and hence arose a second cause which operated to deport each year many slaves from the state.
The ever increasing difficulty of obtaining (especially on the part of large slaveholders) any appreciable profit from the labor of their slaves in the grain and tobacco fields of Virginia induced these proprietors to purchase cotton and sugar plantations in the South and thither from time to time to transport their slaves. These slaveholders did not always emigrate themselves. They simply changed the situs of their slaves, the latter being often accompanied by the sons of their masters. Thus a third cause carried annually from Virginia many hundreds of slaves.