The Planters of Colonial Virginia

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

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 England, upon the Virginians and Marylanders as Englishmen, 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 primarily 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 industrial 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 structure 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 Seymour 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 Attorney-General, "make tobacco."[8-7] It would be unfair to say that the British Government took just the same view of the colonists as did Seymour, but there can be no doubt that their chief concern in the plantations was centered upon the size of their exports 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 conquering 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.[8-8]

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 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 movement 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 everywhere bereft of honor," wrote Virgil, while Lucian bewailed the departed peasants whose places were taken by fettered slaves.[8-9]

The importation of slaves to Virginia had somewhat similar 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, reducing the poor man to dire poverty. Against this unfortunate development the Virginia yeoman was helpless. Instinctively 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 neighborhood 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.[8-10] 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 consequences of the Navigation Acts. The Virginia yeoman moved on to other colonies because he found it impossible to maintain 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 down 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.