C. Malcolm Watkins
In his annual reports on manufactures to the Lords of the Board of Trade during the 1730s, Virginia's royal governor, William Gooch, mentioned several times an anonymous "poor potter" of Yorktown. At face value, Gooch's reports might seem to indicate that manufacturing was an insignificant factor in Virginia's economy and that the only pottery-making endeavor worth mentioning at all was so trivial it could be brushed aside as being almost, if not quite, unworthy of notice. Occasionally, historians have selected one or another of these references to the "poor potter" to support the view either that manufacturing was negligible in colonial Virginia or that ceramic art was limited to the undeveloped skills of a frontier potter.[183] The recent development of archeology, however, as an adjunct of research in cultural history—especially in the historic areas of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown—has produced substantial evidence challenging both the accuracy of Gooch's reports and the conclusions drawn from them, which, contrary to Gooch's statements, proves that pottery making in Yorktown was highly skilled and much at odds with the concept of a "poor potter."
The observation that a remarkably developed ceramic enterprise had been conducted in or near Yorktown was first made by Mr. Noël Hume, the archeologist partner of this paper, in 1956 when he identified fragments of saggers used in firing stoneware, which were excavated in association with numerous stoneware waster sherds and a group of unglazed earthenware sherds of good quality at the site of the Swan Tavern in Yorktown.[184] The question naturally arose, could these expertly made wares have come from the kilns of the "poor potter"? Although ultimate proof is still lacking, identification with him is sufficiently well supported by documentary and artifactual hints that—until further scientific findings are forthcoming—it is presented here as a hypothesis that the "poor potter" did indeed make them. This portion of the paper considers not only the specifics of artifacts and documents, but also the state of manufactures in Virginia before 1750 and their relationship to the character and attitudes of Governor Gooch.
The Crown and Colonial Manufacture
It should be noted that, in general, the history of pottery making in colonial America is fragmentary and inconclusive. Scattered documents bear hints of potters and their activities, and occasional archeological deposits contain the broken sherds and other material evidence of potters' products. Difficulty in obtaining information about early pottery manufacture may be related in large part to a reluctance on the part of the colonists to reveal evidence of manufacturing activity to the Crown authorities. It was the established principle of the Mother Country to integrate the colonial economy into her mercantile system, which was run primarily for her own benefit. As a consequence, there increasingly developed a contest between those who sought to protect English manufactures by discouraging production of colonial goods and those who, in America, tried to enlarge colonial self-sufficiency, the latter inevitably resorting to evasion and suppression of evidence in order to gain their advantage.
The outlines of this struggle are suggested in the laws and official reports relating to colonial manufactures. In Virginia, during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, influential landowners encouraged manufactures as a way to offset the dominance of tobacco in the colony, while several acts were passed in the Virginia Assembly to establish official port towns which, it was thought, would result in flourishing craft communities. Although, for a variety of reasons inherent in Virginia's economy and geography, most of these failed, the acts nonetheless were consistently opposed by the Crown authorities. The 1704 Act for Ports and Towns, for example, was vetoed by the Crown in 1709 for the following reasons:
The whole Act is designed to Encourage by great Priviledges the settling in Townships, and such settlements will encourage their going on with the Woolen and other Manufactures there. And should this Act be Confirmed, the Establishing of Towns and Incorporating of the Planters as intended thereby, will put them upon further Improvements of the said manufactures, and take them off from the Planting of Tobacco, which would be of very ill consequence, not only in respect to the Exports of our Woolen and other Goods and Consequently to the Dependance that Colony ought to have on this Kingdom, but likewise in respect to the Importation of Tobacco hither for the home and Foreign Consumption, Besides a further Prejudice in relation to our shipping and navigation.[185]
This forthright exposition of official English attitudes reiterated the policy of colonial economic dependence. The wording of the veto—"encourage their going on with the Woolen and other Manufactures" and "a further Prejudice in relation to our shipping" [italics supplied]—shows that the dangers feared by the Board of Trade regarding the establishment of towns had already become a reality and a threat to English economic policy.
Victor S. Clark, in The History of Manufactures in the United States, points out that the colonists passed so many laws to encourage their own manufactures "that such British intervention as occurred must be regarded rather as indicating the passive disposition of the home government than as defining an administrative policy vigorously carried out."[186] Nevertheless, from 1700 until the Revolution, reports on American manufactures made by royal governors to the Board of Trade demonstrate not only that the Americans were vigorously promoting manufactures but also that they were being evasive and secretive in doing so in the face of official disapproval. The Board of Trade reported in 1733: "It is not improbable that some former governors of our colonies ... may, in breach of their instructions, have given their concurrence to laws, or have connived for many years at the practice of trades prejudicial to the interest of Great Britain...."[187] Governor Belcher of Massachusetts in his report to the Board of Trade complained that "we cannot conceal from your lordships that it is with the greatest difficulty we are able to procure true informations of the trade and manufactures of New England; which will not appear extraordinary when we acquaint your lordship, that the assembly of the Massachusetts Bay had the boldness to summon ... Mr. Jeremiah Dunbar [Surveyor General of his Majesty's woods in North America] before them and pass a severe censure upon him, for having given evidence at the bar of the House of Commons of Great Britain with respect to the trade and manufactures of this province...."[188]
After the Port Act of 1704 was disallowed, the Virginians were harder pressed than the northern colonists, who managed to maintain their frowned-upon industries. Ignoring the Virginians' resentment at being limited almost exclusively to the growing of tobacco, additional economic pressures were put upon them. For example, whereas stripped tobacco—the leaves separated from the stalks—had constituted the principal form of exported tobacco, an Act of Parliament was introduced on January 17, 1729, containing clauses prohibiting the importation into England of "Stript Tobacco." John Randolph, Clerk of the Council of Virginia, wrote a letter to Parliament, petitioning the repeal of the clause. By having to export the stalks, he complained, the planters