The Planters of Colonial VirginiaWertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson
History
The Planters of Colonial Virginia
Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson
Slavery -- Virginia; Virginia -- Economic conditions; Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
All in all the story of these men tends to confirm the conclusions
hitherto arrived at. It must be remembered that the mortality among the
servants in the tobacco fields in the early days of the colony was
extremely heavy. It is not improbable that of our sixty-one servants,
twenty or more succumbed before the completion of their first year. That
of the remaining forty-one, fourteen or fifteen established themselves
as solid farmers, while several became men of influence in the colony,
is a striking proof that at this period many freedmen had the
opportunity to advance. Taking it for granted that the records of some
of the sixty-one have been lost, or that our research has failed to
reveal them, we once more come to the conclusion that a full thirty or
forty per cent of the landowners of the period from 1635 to 1666 came to
the colony under terms of indenture.
On the other hand, it is equally positive that the class of poor
planters was recruited in part from free immigrants, men who paid their
own passage across the ocean and at once established themselves as
freeholders. Of this too, the records furnish ample testimony. Thus in
1636 we find that Richard Young was granted 100 acres in Warwick "due
him for his personal adventure and for the transportation of his wife
Dorothy Young."[4-83] A year later Roger Symonds received 100 acres in
Charles City "due him for the transportation of his wife, Alice, and one
servant, Richard Key."[4-84] Similarly in May 1636, Thomas Wray was
allowed 50 acres for his "personal adventure." Such cases could be
multiplied indefinitely.[4-85]
A careful analysis of the patent rolls from 1623 to July 14, 1637,
published in the _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_ for April,
1901, shows conclusively that the lists contain the names of many
persons who at no time were under terms of indenture. Of the 2,675 names
appearing in the records, the editor states that 336 are positively
known to have come over as freemen, many of them being heads of
families. "There are 245 persons whose names do not occur as headrights
and yet of whom it is not positively shown that they were freemen,
though the probability seems to be that by far the greater number were.
And there were 2,094 persons whose transportation charges were paid by
others. This last number includes some negroes, all those specifically
termed 'servants' and all others.... It would probably be a fair
estimate to say that of the names represented in the patents cited,
there were about 675 free men, women and children who came to Virginia
and about 2000 servants and slaves."[4-86] Similarly in the issue of the
magazine for January, 1902, the editor says that "for some years, about
this period, it is probable (from the best calculations which can be
made) that seventy-five per cent of the emigrants to Virginia were
indentured servants."[4-87]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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