The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its PeopleHaynie, Miriam
History
The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its People
Haynie, Miriam
Northern Neck (Va.)
The value of the Indian servant was about the same as that of the
English indentured servant. The relationship between the Indian boy and
his master was the same as that between the master and the English
servant. Food, clothing and shelter was furnished by the master.
Records of the clothing lists included leather breeches, cotton
waistcoats, shoes and stockings.
_MONEY_
The indian word wampum meant "shells." Wampum and copper were the
Indians' substitute for gold and silver. The early settlers also used
the Indian wampum as a medium of exchange.
Wampum, in Virginia, was usually made from the oyster shell. The dark
wampum, which was made from the black or purple part of the shell, had
twice the value of the white. For instance, three of the dark beads or
six of the white beads equalled one English penny.
The beads were cylindrical in shape about an eighth of an inch in
diameter and one-fourth of an inch long. They were rubbed against stones
until they were polished smooth. A hole was bored through the center of
each bead with a flint instrument so that it could be strung on thread.
Much of this wampum was made by tribes who manufactured and carried on
commerce.
The most common wampum, made of white shell, was called rhoanoke. In old
records wampum was sometimes referred to as "a chain of pearl." In a
Northumberland County record there is listed among the items in the
estate of "James Claughton, dec'd: Mr. Richard Thompson per order 20
arms length of Rhoanoke." Another early settler of the Northern Neck,
Moore Fauntleroy, paid the Indians for his land "ten fathoms of peake"
and "thirty arms length of Rhoanoke."
The English went so far as to import imitation wampum of white porcelain
for sale to the Indians.
The early settlers also used beaver skins as currency. Northern Neck
records about 1656 show that Colonel Nathaniel Pope offered to go
security for John Washington "in beaver skins." Even hens were used for
currency.
Tobacco soon became the most important currency in the colony. The words
of the old song--"Where money grows on white oak trees," was almost true
in Virginia for there tobacco was money and tobacco grew everywhere.
Instead of gold and silver the colonial had his "tobacco note." The
chief reason that metallic coin was scarce throughout the whole
colonial period in Virginia was the fact that tobacco was currency.
It seems that there was always a small stock of coin in the colony, but
it was either used in trade with other countries or it was hoarded by
the colonists. A Virginia county record of 1700 says that: "Spanish
money may not be exported out of this colony, but that it may pass
currently from man to man and that all pieces of eight pass for five
shillings specie."
The most convenient metallic money in Virginia (1722-1835) was a
Portuguese gold coin called a johannes. A full johannes was called a
"half-joe," and a double johannes was called a "joe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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