History of the Colonial Virginia (3 Volumes Edition). Thomas J. Wertenbaker

the existence of a bond of fellowship between themselves and the field laborers. When the negro slave had supplanted the indentured servant upon the plantations of the colony a vast change took place in the pride of the middle class. Every white man, no matter how poor he was, no matter how degraded, could now feel a pride in his race. Around him on all sides were those whom he felt to be beneath him, and this alone instilled into him a certain self-respect. Moreover, the immediate control of the negroes fell almost entirely into the hands of white men of humble means, for it was they, acting as overseers upon the large plantations, that directed their labors in the tobacco fields. This also tended to give to them an arrogance that was entirely foreign to their nature in the 17th century. All contemporaneous writers, in describing the character of the middle class in the 18th century, agree that their pride and independence were extraordinary. Smythe says, "They are generous, friendly, and hospitable in the extreme; but mixed with such an appearance of rudeness, ferocity and haughtiness, which is, in fact, only a want of polish, occasioned by their deficiencies in education and in knowledge of mankind, as well as their general intercourse with slaves." Beverley spoke of them as being haughty and jealous of their liberties, and so impatient of restraint that they could hardly bear the thought of being controlled by any superior power. Hugh Jones, John Davis and Anbury also describe at length the pride of the middle class in this century.

      Thus was the middle class, throughout the entire colonial period, forming and developing. From out the host of humble settlers, the overflow of England, there emerged that body of small planters in Virginia, that formed the real strength of the colony. The poor laborer, the hunted debtor, the captive rebel, the criminal had now thrown aside their old characters and become well-to-do and respected citizens. They had been made over—had been created anew by the economic conditions in which they found themselves, as filthy rags are purified and changed into white paper in the hands of the manufacturer. The relentless law of the survival of the fittest worked upon them with telling force and thousands that could not stand the severe test imposed upon them by conditions in the New World succumbed to the fever of the tobacco fields, or quitted the colony, leaving to stronger and better hands the upbuilding of the middle class. On the other hand, the fertility of the soil, the cheapness of land, the ready sale of tobacco combined to make possible for all that survived, a degree of prosperity unknown to them in England. And if for one short period, the selfishness of the English government, the ambition of the governor of the colony and the greed of the controlling class checked the progress of the commons, the people soon asserted their rights in open rebellion, and insured for themselves a share in the government and a chance to work out their own destiny, untrammelled by injustice and oppression. At the outbreak of the Revolution, the middle class was a numerous, intelligent and prosperous body, far superior to the mass of lowly immigrants from which it sprang.

      FOOTNOTES:

      1. Fiske, Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 12.

      2. Nar. of Early Va., p. 125.

      3. Ibid., pp. 140–141.

4. Ibid., pp. 159–160.

5. Ibid., p. 192.

6. Fiske, Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. I, p. 154. The facts here presented form a complete refutation of the assertion, so frequently repeated by Northern historians, that the Virginia aristocracy had its origin in this immigration of dissipated and worthless gentlemen. The settlers of 1607, 1608 and 1609 were almost entirely swept out of existence, and not one in fifty of these "gallants" survived to found families. Most of the leading planters of Virginia came from later immigrants, men of humbler rank, but of far more sterling qualities than the adventurers of Smith's day.

7. Nar. of Early Va., p. 415.

8. Neill, Va. Carolorum.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Va. Mag. of Hist. and Biog., Vol. XI, p. 317.

14. Fiske, Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 182.

15. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 179.

16. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 170.

17. As late as the year 1775 we find Dr. Samuel Johnson, with his usual dislike of America, repeating the old error. In speaking of the rebellious colonists, he says: "Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Temple Classics, Vol. III, p. 174.

18. Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Va., Vol. II, pp. 380, 366.

19. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 377.

20. Neill, Va. Carolorum.

21. Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Va., Vol. II, pp. 372, 377, 574.

22. Bruce, Soc. Hist. of Va., p. 164; Econ. Hist. of Va., Vol. II, p. 531.

23. Wm. and Mary Quar., Vol. IV, p. 39.

24. Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 153.

25. Va. Mag. of Hist. and Biog., Vol. XI, p. 366.

26. Bruce, Soc. Hist. of Va., p. 91.

27. Fiske, Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 16.

28. Bruce, Soc. Hist. of Va., pp. 18 and 19.

29. Va. Maga. of Hist. and Biog., Vol. I, p. 215.

30. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 217.

31. Fiske, Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 187.