{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Courier New;}} \viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs20 T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes\par "Myne Owne Ground" Race & Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676\par New York: Oxford University Press, 1980\par \par NOTE: Text is uncorrected OCR for class use only.\par \par \par Introduction\par \par Slavery is an American embarrassment. The nation's historic treatment\par of black men and women has compromised its perfectionist and egali-\par tarian ideals. The American conflict between slavery and freedom has\par its roots in the seventeenth century. It was then that Europeans first\par displayed a dramatically heightened devotion to liberty in Europe itself\par while enthusiastically building a far-flung mercantile empire based on\par slave labor. As David B. Davis observes, despite the visionary expecta-\par tions of many of North America's first colonizers, "Far from bringing a\par message of hope and redemption, America provided an unlimited field\par for the exploitation of man's fellow beings."1\par \par We would be confronted with a considerable anomaly if some\par form of bonded labor had not taken root in early Virginia. Chattel slav-\par ery existed in every colony in the New World from Canada to Rio de la\par Plata. Men had been enslaving one another for over three thousand\par years, receiving philosophic justification from every major Western\par thinker from Plato to Locke.2 Not until the mid-eighteenth century,\par with the emergence of Quaker abolitionist organizations, was sustained\par and coherent objection raised against the institution. The historian's\par task, therefore, is not to explain why slavery took hold in the English\par colonies, but rather to examine the particular evolutionary forms this\par labor system assumed in the West Indies, the Chesapeake, and the\par Carolinas. And to avoid parochialism, we must remember to view\par North American slavery fully within the context of the developing\par South Atlantic trading system.3\par \par 4\tab "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par At its height the South Atlantic slave trade linked the four conti-\par nents that face on the Atlantic Ocean. After a hesitant beginning in the\par late fifteenth century, the trade achieved its mature form by 1600. Eu-\par ropeans brought iron bars, textiles, firearms, and liquor to the western\par coasts of Africa, receiving consignments of slaves in return. The slaves\par were transported to Brazil, the Caribbean, and after 1640, to continen-\par tal North America. The highly profitable tropical staples produced by\par this slave labor\emdash sugar, tobacco, indigo, cotton\emdash were then shipped\par back to European markets.4 The slave trade peaked during the late eigh-\par teenth century, with annual volume figures exceeding seventy thousand\par in the 1780s, and it was not finally extinguished until the mid-nine-\par teenth century\emdash after over ten million people had been transported.\par The largest forced migration in human history, the slave trade involved\par the union of European capital and African labor in the newly colonized\par American tropics. The Atlantic slave trade drew on an African slave\par trade ancient in origins and it linked these small-scale, domestic, and\par variegated African forms of bondage with radically different large-scale\par plantation labor systems in the Americas.5\par \par The arrival of black slaves in mid-seventeenth-century Virginia\par confronted English settlers with problems for which there were no obvi-\par ous Old World solutions. First, slavery was moribund in England itself,\par and had been since the thirteenth century. Slavery remained on the En-\par glish statute books in the institution of villenage, dating back to Roman\par times. However, during the period from the late fourteenth to the sev-\par enteenth century, personal feudal services gave way to impersonal rents,\par contractual obligations, and money payments. Villenage in practice be-\par came extinct in all but the remotest parts of England. Slavery, as a legal\par status, only occasionally received statutory implementation. A tempo-\par rary law of 1547 mandated that beggars fleeing from enforced service\par were to be branded on the forehead with the letter "S," indicating that\par they would be "slaves" until death.6 A second problem for the Virginia\par colonists resulted from their sense of cultural superiority, particularly as\par it related to vaguely racialist conceptions of the "genius" of the English\par people. This cultural chauvinism made it unlikely that the colonists\par would accept blacks into their society in any kind of participatory fash-\par ion. To accept massive numbers of people so profoundly alien to En-\par glish traditions risked permanent disjunctions within the social order.\par Their unfamiliarity with the institution of slavery and their xenophobia\par presented the colonists with two equally undesirable alternatives. They\par \par INTRODUCTION\tab 5\par \par could reintroduce the institution as the special and exclusive province\par for Africans and Indians, or they could attempt to moderate their cul-\par tural parochialism and bring blacks into their society after a period of\par apprenticeship as bonded laborers.\par \par We know the tack they ultimately took. But, as this study reveals,\par the route to this decision was more circuitous than many have\par imagined. The process of black debasement and degradation was not\par linear and foreordained. As the following examination of free blacks in\par seventeenth-century Northampton County, Virginia, suggests, English-\par men and Africans could interact with one another on terms of relative\par equality for two generations. The possibility of a genuinely multiracial\par society became a reality during the years before Bacon's Rebellion in\par 1676. Not until the end of the seventeenth century was there an inexo-\par rable hardening of racial lines. We argue that it was not until the slave\par codes of 1705 that the tragic fate of Virginia's black population was fi-\par nally sealed. An awareness of the awesomeness of this tragedy\emdash for\par white and black alike\emdash must not blind us to the variety of human rela-\par tionships possible during the preceding eighty years. Only by maintain-\par ing sensitivity to the expectations and goals of the people who in fact\par lived in seventeenth-century Virginia\emdash from their, not our own, van-\par tage point\emdash will we be able fully to understand this impending transfor-\par mation.\par \par The story of Northampton's free blacks is bittersweet. We trace the\par rise of remarkable men out of bondage into positions that brought them\par personal dignity and independence. For a brief moment it seemed, in\par one county, as if black Virginians would form a free peasantry capable\par of holding its own in a developing plantation society. But sometime\par during the third quarter of the seventeenth century the avenue to eco-\par nomic freedom closed. By 1700, people like the slave-holding black\par planter Anthony Johnson no longer appeared in the records, and the\par free blacks who took their places possessed what one historian has un-\par derstandably termed "quasi freedom."7 They were transformed,\par through processes which we shall examine, into objects of pity and\par scorn. They were people who had been used up and cast aside, persons\par driven to petty thievery in order to survive. Freedom for such marginal\par figures was desperately insecure and many probably did not regard it as\par a significant improvement over slavery.\par \par Property made the difference. The black peasants of mid-century\par Northampton owned sizable tracts of land, competed with white neigh-\par \par 6\tab - "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par bors in the marketplace, built up impressive herds of livestock, and from\par time to time, purchased dependent laborers. Property provided a liveli-\par hood as well as immunity from depredation. It gave them identity\par before the law and security in times of trouble. The county records con-\par tain many examples of the free blacks' spirited sense of their own lib-\par erty. Few, however, are so vivid as Edwyn Conaway's deposition taken\par in open court in 1645. Conaway, then clerk of the Northampton\par County court, reported that a man identified only as "Anthony the\par negro" and Captain Philip Taylor had gone out to view a cornfield in\par which both held an interest. Upon seeing them return, Conaway asked\par Anthony what had occurred, and the black farmer responded, "Mr.\par Taylor and I have devided our Corne And I am very glad of it [for] now\par I know myne owne, hee finds fault with mee that I doe not worke, but\par now I know myne owne ground and I will worke when I please and play\par when I please."8 No Virginia yeoman could have stated the point\par more forcefully. Without the right to achieve the necessary conditions\par of liberty, to know one's "owne ground," freedom becomes a hollow\par concept, no less so in the twentieth century than it was in the seven-\par teenth.\par \par 1\par \par Patriarch\par on Pungoteague Creek\par \par Anthony Johnson would have been a success no matter where he lived.\par He possessed immense energy and ingenuity. His parents doubtless\par never imagined that their son would find himself a slave in a struggling,\par frontier settlement called Virginia. Over his original bondage, of\par course, Johnson had no control. He did not allow his low status in the\par New World to discourage him, however, and in his lifetime he man-\par aged to achieve that goal so illusive to immigrants of all races, the\par American dream. By the time Johnson died he had become a freeman,\par formed a large and secure family, built up a sizable estate, and in the\par words of one admiring historian, established himself as the "black patri-\par arch" of Pungoteague Creek, a small inlet on the western side of North-\par ampton County.1\par \par Despite his well-documented accomplishments, Johnson has fared\par poorly in the hands of historians. For the most part, the reasons for this\par oversight are obvious. Before the American Revolution, Virginians paid\par scant attention to the colony's past. The seventeenth century seemed\par filled with failures, massacres, and stupidity, and even if Robert Bever-\par ley or William Stith had examined the manuscript records of North-\par ampton County, they would not have found Johnson's story edifying.2\par At the end of the eighteenth century, Virginians invented a history\par filled with dashing cavaliers who, according to local legend, had been\par exiled to the Chesapeake for their loyalty to Charles I.3 Again, there was\par no place for Johnson, a black man, in this nostalgic reconstruction.\par Anthony Johnson and his free black neighbors entered the historical lit-\par \par 8\tab "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par erature early in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, their discovery\par occurred at a time of heightened race consciousness, and even the\par ablest scholars appeared perplexed by Johnson's economic success. Phi-\par lip Alexander Bruce, for example, was a careful researcher, but his\par racial biases shaped his views of Johnson's activities. The Northampton\par colonist was one of "a number of persons of African blood in the Col-\par ony, who had raised themselves to a condition of moderate importance\par in the community."4 Despite his condescending tone, Bruce alerted\par other historians to Johnson's existence. John H. Russell's The Free\par Negro in Virginia 1619-1865, first published in 1913, contained a\par more detailed, sensitise account of the Pungoteague blacks, but even\par Russell registered surprise at the size of Johnson's estate.5 The experi-\par ence of this particular black planter was juxtaposed against that of colo-\par nial slaves, and by that standard his accomplishments seemed strikingly\par anomalous, evidence to be explained away rather than investigated. In-\par deed, even in subsequent scholarship, Johnson remained something of\par an oddity. One of the more sympathetic treatments of his life con-\par eluded with the observation, "The question concerning the economic\par activities of the Negro inhabitants of Pungoteague and other Virginia\par communities is not one of major historical significance." Johnson rose\par from obscurity only to become a curiosity.6\par \par Before relegating Johnson to historical miscellany, we should re-\par view exactly what is known about his life. A reinvestigation of this mate-\par rial serves several ends. First, it brings together scattered pieces of infor-\par mation about the Johnson family and therefore helps us to place specific\par events into the context of a long and complex life history. And second,\par by viewing this evidence from an ethnographic perspective, we discover\par that seemingly antiquarian reports and observations actually hold con-\par siderable cultural significance.7 Johnson's experiences, in fact, demon-\par strate dramatically the interpretive problems facing the historian of race\par relations in mid-seventeenth-century Virginia.\par \par Johnson arrived in Virginia sometime in 1621 aboard the James.\par People referred to him at this time simply as "Antonio a Negro," and\par the overseers of the Bennett or Warresquioake (Wariscoyack) plantation\par located on the south side of the James River purchased him to work in\par their tobacco fields.8 In a general muster of the inhabitants of Virginia\par made in 1625, Anthony appeared as a "sen-ant," and while some histo-\par rians argue that many early blacks were indentured servants rather than\par slaves, Anthony seems to have been a slave.9 Like other unfree blacks in\par \par PATRIARCH ON PUNGOTEAGUE CREEK\tab 9\par \par seventeenth-century Virginia, he possessed no surname. Had he been\par able to document his conversion to Christianity\emdash preferably by provid-\par ing evidence of baptism\emdash he might have sued for freedom, but there is\par no record that he attempted to do so. He settled on Bennett's planta-\par tion, no doubt more concerned about surviving from day to day than\par about his legal status.10\par \par The 1620s in Virginia were a time of great expectations and even\par greater despair. The colony has been described as "the first American\par boom country," and so it was for a very few men with money and power\par enough to purchase gangs of dependent laborers.11 For the servants and\par slaves, however, the colony was a hell. Young men, most of them in\par their teens, placed on isolated tobacco plantations, exposed constantly\par to early, possibly violent, death, and denied the comforts and security of\par family life because of the scarcity of women, seemed more like soldiers\par pressed into dangerous military service than agricultural workers. They\par would certainly have understood Lytton Strachey's poignant phrase,\par "the abridgment of hope."12\par \par Immediately before Johnson arrived at Warresquioake, the Virginia\par Company of London launched an aggressive, albeit belated, program to\par turn a profit on its American holdings. Sir Edwin Sandys, the man who\par shaped company policy, dreamed of producing an impressive array of\par new commodities, silk and potash, iron and glass, and he persuaded\par wealthy Englishmen to finance his vision.13 One such person was Ed-\par ward Bennett, possibly a man of Puritan leanings, who won Sandys's af-\par fection by writing a timely treatise "touching the inconvenience that the\par importacon of Tobacco out of Spaine had brought into this land [En-\par gland]."14 Sandys dispatched thousands of settlers to the Chesapeake to\par work for the company, but favored individuals like Bennett received\par special patents to establish "particular plantations," semi-autonomous\par economic enterprises in which the adventurers risked their own capital\par for laborers and equipment and, in exchange, obtained a chance to\par collect immense returns. Bennett evidently sent his brother Robert and\par his nephew Richard to Virginia to oversee the family plantation.15 At\par one time, the Bennetts owned or employed over sixty persons.\par \par On Good Friday, March 22, 1622, the Indians of Tidewater\par Virginia put an end to Sandys's dream. In a carefully coordinated at-\par tack, they killed over three hundred and fifty colonists in a single morn-\par ing. Fifty-two of these people fell at the Bennett plantation, and in the\par muster of 1625 only twelve servants were reported living at War-\par \par 10\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND-\par \par PATRIARCH ON PUNGO'IEAGUE CREEK\par \par 11\par \par resquioake, which perhaps to erase the memory of the attack was now\par renamed Bennett's Welcome. One of the survivors was Anthony.\par Somehow he and four other men had managed to live through the In-\par dian assault; the other seven individuals listed in 1625 had settled in\par Virginia after the Indian uprising.16 Johnson revealed even at this early\par date one essential ingredient for success in Virginia: good luck. In 1622\par the Margrett and John brought "Mary a Negro Woman" to War-\par resquioake. She was the only woman living at Bennett's plantation in\par 1625, and at some point\emdash we do not know when\emdash she became An-\par thony's wife.17 He was a very fortunate man. Because of an exceedingly\par unequal sex ratio in early Virginia, few males, black or white, had the\par opportunity to form a family.18 Mary bore Anthony at least four chil-\par dren, and still managed to outlive her husband by several years. In a so-\par ciety in which marriages were routinely broken by early death, Mary\par and Anthony lived together for over forty years.19 The documents reveal\par little about the quality of their relationship, but one infers that they\par helped each other in myriad ways that we can never recapture. In 1653\par Anthony Johnson and Mary "his wife" asked for tax relief from the\par Northampton County court. The local justices observed that the two\par blacks "have lived Inhabitants in Virginia (above thirty yeares)" and had\par achieved widespread respect for their "hard labor and known service."\par The interesting point is that both Mary and Anthony received recogni-\par tion; both contributed to the life of their community.20\par \par Johnson's movements between 1625 and 1650 remain a mystery.\par Court records from a later period provide tantalizing clues about his life\par during these years, but they are silent on how "Antonio a Negro" be-\par came Anthony Johnson. Presumably someone named Johnson helped\par Anthony and Mary to gain freedom, but the details of that agreement\par have been lost. In 1635 John Upton, living "in the county of War-\par resquioake," petitioned for 1,650 acres of land based on thirty-three\par headrights. Included on his list were "Antho, a negro, Mary, a\par negro."21 While these two blacks were probably the Johnsons, we have\par no reason to conclude that they were still slaves in 1635. Men like\par Upton saved or purchased headrights until they could make a sizable\par claim, and the headrights for Anthony and Mary may have circulated in\par the area for a decade.\par \par We do not know when or under what circumstances Johnson\par transferred to Northampton. His former master, Richard Bennett, de-\par veloped complex ties with the Virginia Eastern Shore. Between 1652\par \par and 1655 he spent a good deal of time there keeping watch on suspected\par royalists. Bennett's daughter Elizabeth married Edmund Scarborough's\par eldest son, Charles. The Scarboroughs were the dominant family in\par Northampton County, and by 1652 Charles had already patented 3,050\par acres on Pungoteague Creek. Like his father, he became a leader in\par local and colony politics.22 Bennett may have brought the Johnsons to\par Northampton and then, as governor, looked after their legal and eco-\par nomic interests. The Johnsons may even have named their son after\par Bennett. There is no firm evidence that this occurred, but it is curious\par that the Johnsons appeared in the Eastern Shore records at precisely the\par time that Bennett became a major political force in the area.\par \par During the 1640s the Johnsons acquired a modest estate. Raising\par livestock provided a reliable source of income, and at mid-century,\par especially on the Eastern Shore, breeding cattle and hogs was as impor-\par tant to the local economy as growing tobacco. To judge by the extent of\par Johnson's livestock operations in the 1650s, he probably began to build\par up his herds during the 1640s.23 In any case, in July 1651 Johnson\par claimed that 250 acres of land were due him for five headrights. The\par names listed in his petition were Thomas Bembrose, Peter Bughby,\par Anthony Cripps, John Gesorroro, and Richard Johnson.24 Whether\par Anthony Johnson actually imported these five persons into the colony is\par impossible to ascertain. None of them, with the exception of Richard\par Johnson, his son, appeared in later Northampton tax lists. Like John\par Upton, Anthony may have purchased headright certificates from other\par planters.25 Two hundred and fifty acres was a considerable piece of land\par by Eastern Shore standards, and though the great planters controlled far\par more acreage, many people owned smaller tracts or no land at all.26\par Johnson's 250 acres were located on Pungoteague Creek.\par \par In Feburary 1653 Johnson's luck appeared to have run out. A fire\par destroyed much of his plantation. This event\emdash the Northampton Court\par called it "an unfortunate fire"\emdash set off in turn a complicated series of\par legal actions that sorely tested Anthony's standing within the Pungo-\par teague community, and at one point even jeopardized much of his\par remaining property. The blaze itself had been devastating. After the\par county justices viewed the damage, they concluded that without some\par assistance the Johnsons would have difficulty in the "obtayneing of their\par Livelyhood," and when Anthony and Mary formally petitioned for re-\par lief, the court excused Mary and the Johnsons' two daughters from pay-\par ing "Taxes and Charges in Northampton County for public use" for\par \par 12\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par "their naturall lives." The court's decision represented an extraordinary\par concession. The reduction of annual taxes obviously helped Johnson to\par reestablish himself, and the fact that he was a "Negro" and so described\par during the proceedings seems to have played no discernible part in the\par deliberations of the local justices.27 Moreover, the court did more than\par simply lighten the Johnsons' taxes. By specifically excusing the three\par black women from public levies, the justices made it clear that, for tax\par purposes at least, Mary and her daughters were the equals of any white\par woman in Northampton County. Taxes in seventeenth-century Virginia\par were assessed on people, not on land or livestock. The definition of a\par tithable\emdash someone obliged to pay taxes\emdash changed from time to time. In\par the 1620s the Burgesses had included "all those that worke in the\par grounde." The Virginia legislators apparently intended to exempt the\par wives of white planters. Such women, it was assumed, busied them-\par selves with domestic chores and therefore, did not participate directly in\par income-producing activities. Indeed, it was commonly believed that\par only "wenches that are nasty, and beastly" would actually cultivate\par tobacco. Black women, alone, in other words, demeaned themselves by\par engaging in hard physical labor. In a 1645 act concerning tithables the\par colonial legislators declared: "And because there shall be no scruple or\par evasion who are and who are not tithable, It is resolved by this Grand\par Assembly, That all negro men and women, and all other men from the\par age of 16 to 60 shall be adjudged tithable."28 Why the Northampton\par Court made a gratuitous exception to statute law is not clear. Perhaps\par the Johnsons' economic success coupled with their "hard labor and\par known service" pointed up the need for local discretion in enforcing\par racial boundaries.\par \par Anthony Johnson's next court appearance came on October 8,\par 1653. This time his testimony "concerned a cowe" over which he and\par Lieutenant John Neale had had a difference of opinion. The court\par records unfortunately provide no information about the nature of the\par conflict. The Northampton justices ordered two men familiar with the\par affairs of Pungoteague Creek, Captain Samuel Gouldsmith and Robert\par Parker, to make an "examination and finall determination" of the\par case.29 Since the Neales were a powerful family on the Eastern Shore,\par the decision of the justices reveals the high regard in which Johnson was\par held.30 Had he been a less important person in that society, they might\par have immediately found for Neale. Of greater significance, however,\par was the involvement of Gouldsmith and Parker in Johnson's personal\par \par PATRIARCH ON PUNGOTEACUF, CREEK\par \par B\par \par business. Neither of them was a great planter; but both were ambitious\par men, who apparently concluded after their investigation that Johnson's\par fire losses had left him vulnerable to outside harassment.31\par \par A year after this litigation had been resolved, Captain Gouldsmith\par visited the Johnson plantation to pick up a hogshead of tobacco.\par Gouldsmith presumably expected nothing unusual to happen on this\par particular day. Like other white planters on the Eastern Shore, he\par carried on regular business transactions with Anthony Johnson. Gould-\par smith was surprised, however, for soon after he arrived, "a Negro called\par John Casor" threw himself upon the merchant's mercy. He declared\par with seemingly no prompting that he was not a slave as Johnson\par claimed in public. He asserted that the Johnsons held him illegally and\par had done so for at least seven years. Casor insisted that he entered\par Virginia as an indentured servant, and that moreover he could verify his\par story. An astonished Johnson assured Gouldsmith that he had never\par seen the indenture. Whether Casor liked it or not, he was Johnson's\par "Negro for life."32\par \par Robert Parker and his brother George took Casor's side in the\par dispute. They informed the now somewhat confused Gouldsmith that\par the black laborer had signed an indenture with a certain Mr. Sandys,\par who lived "on the other side of the Baye." Nothing further was said\par about Sandys, and he may have been invented conveniently to lend\par credibility to Casor's allegations. Whatever the truth was, Robert Parker\par led Casor off to his own farm, "under pretense that the said John Casor\par is a freeman," noting as he went that if Johnson resisted, Casor "would\par recover most of his Cows from him the said Johnson."33\par \par The transfer involved a carefully calculated gamble. Parker was\par tampering with another man's laborer, a serious but not uncommon\par practice in mid-century Virginia. Like other enterprising tobacco\par planters, Parker needed fieldhands and he was not overly scrupulous\par about the means he used to obtain them. The House of Burgesses\par regularly passed statutes outlawing the harboring of runaway servants,\par explaining, no doubt with people like Parker in mind, that "complaints\par are at every quarter court exhibitted against divers persons who entertain\par and enter into covenants with runaway servants ... to the great preju-\par dice if not the utter undoeing of divers poor men."34 Regardless of the\par letter of the law, Gouldsmith reported that Johnson "was in a great\par feare." In this crisis Anthony called a family conference and, after con-\par siderable discussion about the Parkers' threats, "Anthony Johnson's\par \par 14\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par sonne-in-law, his wife and his owne twoe sonnes persuaded the old\par Negro Anthony Johnson to set the said John Casor free now."35 The\par word "old" stands out in this passage. In seventeenth-century Virginia,\par few men lived long enough to be called old. When they did so, they en-\par joyed special status as "old planters" or "Antient Livers," people who\par were respected if for no other reason than they had managed to sur-\par vive.36\par \par This dramatic conference revealed the strong kinship ties that\par bound the Johnsons together. The group functioned as a modified ex-\par tended family.37 The members of each generation lived in separate\par homes, but in certain economic matters they worked as a unit. Indeed,\par they thought of themselves as a clan. The bonds between Anthony and\par his sons were especially important. In 1652 John Johnson patented 450\par acres next to his father's lands. Two years later, Richard Johnson laid\par out a 100-acre tract adjacent to the holdings of his father and brother.38\par Both sons were married and had children of their own. In family gov-\par ernment, Mary had a voice, as did the son-in-law, but as all the John-\par sons understood, Anthony was the patriarch. The arguments advanced\par at the family meeting, however, impressed Anthony. Perhaps he was\par just an "old" man who had allowed anger to cloud his better judgment.\par In any case, he yielded as gracefully as possible to the wishes of the\par clan. In a formal statement he discharged "John Casor Negro from all\par service, claims and demands . . . And doe promise accordinge to the\par custome of servants to paye unto the Said John Casor corne and\par leather."39 The inclusion of freedom dues gives us some sense of the\par extent of Johnson's fear. Colony law obliged a master to provide his in-\par dentured servants with certain items, usually food and clothes, at the\par end of their contracts, but it was a rare planter who paid the "custom of\par the country" without wringing some extra concession out of the ser-\par vant.40 Johnson, however, was in no position to haggle.\par \par But the decision did not sit well with Johnson. After brooding over\par his misfortune for three and one-half months, Johnson asked the North-\par ampton County court to punish Robert Parker for meddling with his\par slave and to reverse what now appeared a precipitant decision to free\par Casor. The strategy worked. On March 8, 1655, "complaint was this\par daye made to the Court by the humble petition of Anthony Johnson\par Negro; agt Mr. Robert Parker that he detayneth one Jno Casor a Negro\par the plaintiffs servant under pretense that the said Jno Casor is a free\par man." After "seriously consideringe and maturely weighinge" the evi-\par \par PATRIARCH ON PUNGOTEAGUE CREEK\par \par 15\par \par dence, including a deposition from Gouldsmith, the members of the\par court ruled that "the said Mr. Robert Parker most unjustly kept the said\par . . . Negro (Jno Casor) from his master Anthony Johnson . . . [and]\par the said Jno Casor Negro shall forthwith bee returned unto the service\par of his master Anthony Johnson." As a final vindication of Johnson's\par position, the justices ordered Parker to "make payment of all charges in\par the suite."41 Johnson was elated. Casor was reenslaved and remained\par the property of the Johnson family. In the 1660s he accompanied the\par clan when it moved to Maryland. George Parker, who had taken an\par early interest in the controversy, managed to divorce himself from the\par last round of legal proceedings. His brother, Robert, of course, lost face.\par A few years later Robert returned to England, wiser perhaps but not\par richer for his experiences on the Eastern Shore.42\par \par It is important to recognize the cultural significance of this case.\par Throughout the entire affair the various participants made assumptions\par not only about the social organization of Northampton County and\par their place within that organization but also about the value orientations\par of the other actors. This sort of gambling can be dangerous, as Casor\par discovered. He wagered that he could forge patronage links stronger\par than those which his master had built up over the years. In other words,\par he viewed the controversy largely in terms of patron-client relations.\par Johnson, however, was much more alert to the dynamics of the situa-\par tion than was his slave. Anthony realized that he and the local justices\par shared certain basic beliefs about the sanctity of property before the law.\par None of the parties involved, not even Casor, questioned the legitimacy\par of slavery nor the propriety of a black man owning a black slave. Ten-\par sions were generated because of conflicting personal ambitions, because\par tough-minded individuals were testing their standing within the com-\par munity. In this particular formal, limited sphere of interaction, the val-\par ues of a free black slaveowner coincided with those of the white gentry.\par In other spheres of action\emdash as we shall discover\emdash this value congruence\par did not exist.43 Johnson owed his victory to an accurate assessment of\par the appropriate actions within this particular institutional forum.\par \par In the mid-1660s the Johnson clan moved north to Somerset\par County, Maryland.44 The Johnsons, like many other people who left\par Virginia's Eastern Shore during this period, were in search of fresh,\par more productive land. As in the Casor affair, everyone in the family\par participated in the decision to relocate. None of the Johnsons remained\par at Pungoteague. In 1665 Anthony and Mary sold 200 acres to two\par \par 16\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par PATRIARCH ON PUNGOTEAGUE CREEK\par \par 17\par \par planters, Morris Matthews and John Rowles. The remaining fifty acres\par were transferred to Richard, a gift that may have been intended to help\par their youngest son and his growing family establish themselves in Mary-\par land. Whatever the motive, Richard soon sold the land, his buyer being\par none other than George Parker.45 John Johnson, the eldest son, also\par went to Somerset. He had already acquired 450 acres in Northampton\par and thus, apparently did not require his parents' financial assistance. A\par paternity suit, however, clouded John's departure from Virginia. He\par fathered an illegitimate child, and the local authorities, fearful of hav-\par ing to maintain the young mother and child at public expense, placed\par John in custody, where he stayed until his wife, Susanna, petitioned for\par his release. John pledged good behavior and child support and hurried\par off to Maryland, where he resumed his successful career.46\par \par For reasons that are unclear, the Johnsons closely coordinated their\par plans with those of Ann Toft and Randall Revell, two wealthy planters\par from Virginia's Eastern Shore.47 When Toft and Revell arrived in\par Maryland, they claimed 2,350 acres and listed Anthony, Mary, and\par John Casor as headrights. Whatever the nature of this agreement may\par have been, the Johnsons remained free. Anthony leased a 300-acre\par plantation which he appropriately named "Tonics Vineyard." Within a\par short time, the family patriarch died, but Mary renegotiated the lease\par for ninety-nine years. For the use of the land she paid colony taxes and\par an annual rent of one ear of Indian corn.48\par \par Anthony's death did not alter the structure of the family. John as-\par sumed his father's place at the head of the clan. He and Susanna had\par two children, John, junior, and Anthony. Richard named his boys\par Francis and Richard. In both families we see a self-conscious naming\par pattern that reflected the passing of patriarchal authority from one gen-\par eration to the next. Another hint of the tight bonds that united the\par Johnsons was Mary's will written in 1672. She ordered that at her death\par three cows with calves be given to three of her grandchildren, Anthony,\par Francis, and Richard. She apparently assumed that John, junior, the\par patriarch's son, would do well enough without her livestock.49 The\par Johnsons' financial situation remained secure. John increased his hold-\par ings. In one document he was described as a "planter," a sign that his\par property had brought him some economic standing within the commu-\par nity. One of his neighbors, a white man named Richard Ackworth,\par asked John to give testimony in a suit which Ackworth had filed against\par a white Marylander. The Somerset justices balked at first. They were\par \par reluctant to allow a black man to testify in legal proceedings involving\par whites, but when they discovered that John had been baptized and un-\par derstood the meaning of an oath, they accepted his statement. Even\par Casor prospered in Maryland. He raised a few animals of his own, and\par in 1672 recorded a livestock brand "With the Said Marys Consent."50\par No doubt, Casor had learned an important lesson from his dealings\par with Anthony. Property, even a few cows or pigs, provided legal and\par social identity in this society; it confirmed individuality.\par \par The story of the Johnson family concludes strangely. Around the\par turn of the century, the clan simply dropped out of the records. We\par have no explanation for the disappearance. Perhaps Anthony's grand-\par children left Somerset in search of new opportunities. Perhaps as a\par result of social and demographic changes in the eighteenth century they\par lost their freedom. Or perhaps the records themselves are incomplete.\par All we know is that in 1677 John, junior, purchased a 44-acre tract\par which he significantly called "Angola." The last mention of this small\par Somerset plantation occurred in 1706 when John\emdash a third-generation\par free black\emdash died without heir.51 And with the passing of "Angola" may\par have died the memory of Anthony's homeland, which he left a century\par earlier.\par \par After reading the history of the Johnson family, one can under-\par stand why scholars have had such difficulty interpreting it. Traditional\par categories of analysis fail to comprehend the experiences of people like\par Anthony, Mary, and John Johnson. On one level, of course, it is\par tempting to view them as black Englishmen, migrants who adopted the\par culture of their white neighbors, who learned to handle complex legal\par procedures and market transactions, and who amassed estates that im-\par pressed even their contemporaries. From this perspective we can make\par sense out of Anthony's victory over Robert Parker in the Northampton\par County court. Indeed, once the surprise of discovering that Johnson\par owned a black slave has worn off, we realize that in matters of personal\par property Casor's race counted for very little. Anthony was in competi-\par tion with white planters who regularly exploited laborers, black, red,\par and white, for immediate economic returns. In this world, Anthony\par more than held his own, and the story of the Pungoteague patriarch and\par his sons becomes an early chapter in the saga of Old World immigrants\par "making it" in America.\par \par Somehow this analysis seems incomplete. Pieces of the puzzle\par remain unaccounted for, and we know from a growing body of histori-\par \par 18\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par cal literature that European and African migrants reacted creatively to\par their new environments, preserving some traditions, dropping others,\par but in all cases, resisting assimilation except on their own terms.52 If the\par Johnsons were merely English colonists with black skins, then why did\par John, junior, name his small farm "Angola"? His action, admittedly a\par small shred of evidence, suggests the existence of a deeply rooted sepa-\par rate culture. Moreover, there is the family itself. The Johnsons formed\par extraordinarily close ties. The clan was composed entirely of black men\par and women, and while one might argue that the Johnsons were con-\par strained by external social forces to marry people of their own race, they\par appear in their most intimate relations to have maintained a conscious\par black identity.\par \par The Johnsons knew they were "different" from their white neigh-\par bors. Their origins, the exclusive monopoly of slave status for blacks\par (dramatized by Casor's case), the ordinary presumption against blacks\par testifying unless there were countervailing circumstances of a highly un-\par usual nature, all underscored on a daily basis their continual depriva-\par tion. But within this circumscribed environment, as the Johnsons' story\par vividly suggests, possibilities for advancement existed in 1650 that by\par 1705 were only a memory.\par \par 2\par \par Race Relations\par as Status and Process\par \par The status of black people in seventeenth-century Virginia has gen-\par erated fierce debate among historians. In part, the intense interest in the\par subject, especially since World War II, resulted from contemporary\par concerns about race relations. Trie efforts of black Americans to achieve\par full equality inevitably raised questions about the origins of racial dis-\par crimination in this country, and scholars became curious whether the\par racist attitudes they encountered in their own society could be traced\par back to the first colonists. What exactly had been the relationship be-\par tween black slavery and white prejudice? Which came first?1 Since\par Virginia was the earliest English mainland colony to legalize bondage\par on the basis of race, it seemed logical that the records of this colony\par would provide the answers.\par \par The general outline of the black experience in seventeenth-century\par Virginia has not been in dispute. The first migrants of African descent\par arrived in the colony late in August 1619. John Rolfe was the only colo-\par nist to record this event, and even he did not think the sale of "20. and\par odd Negroes" warranted more than a few lines in a long letter to Lon-\par don officials.2 Over the next forty years, Virginia's black population\par grew slowly, and at mid-century it numbered only about three hundred.\par At the time of Bacon's Rebellion the figure stood slightly above two\par thousand, principally from Barbados and New Netherland. At no point\par before 1690 did blacks comprise more than a small fraction of the total\par population.\par \par The relatively small number of blacks living in Virginia did not\par \par 20\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par dampen subsequent controversy over their legal status. If in 1619 the\par House of Burgesses had defined the Negro's standing in law, the re-\par searcher's task would have been much easier. But the colonial legisla-\par ture did not address such matters until the 1660s. Before that date some\par blacks were slaves for life. Others, however, appeared to have been in-\par dentured servants serving somewhat longer terms than did their white\par counterparts. Since Virginians employed words like "slave" and "ser-\par vant" loosely, often to describe the nature of the work itself rather than\par its legal standing, historians had trouble documenting patterns of dis-\par crimination.3 Oscar and Mary Handlin, for example, argued that blacks\par were treated essentially like white indentured servants. In other words,\par during the first half of the seventeenth century, status was only margin-\par ally a function of color.4 Other historians, like Carl N. Degler, have in-\par sisted that the English settlers always viewed the blacks as lesser beings,\par and thus, their legal status "was worked out within a framework of dis-\par crimination."5 The resolution of this interpretive difference seemed im-\par portant during the great civil-rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s, for as\par Winthrop D. Jordan explained, "if whites and Negroes could share the\par same status of half freedom for forty years in the seventeenth century,\par why could they not share full freedom in the twentieth."6\par \par The search for the colonial roots of present-day race problems\par yielded inconclusive results. Historians uncovered only a few docu-\par ments that spoke directly to the question of the blacks' status before\par 1660. A small number of ambiguous examples appeared repeatedly in\par scholarly essays. By the time Jordan wrote his magisterial White Over\par Black: America Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (1968), the\par debate over the legal status of early black Virginians suffered from inani-\par tion. Jordan stated what others had come to suspect, "For the crucial\par early years after 1619 there is simply not enough evidence to indicate\par with any certainty whether Negroes were treated like white servants or\par not." He concluded that prejudice and slavery reinforced one another\par over the seventeenth century, or as he phrased the point, the two ele-\par ments "may have been equally cause and effect, constantly reacting\par upon each other, dynamically joining hands to hustle the Negro down\par the road to complete degradation."7 The question of status had been\par settled, albeit indecisively, and interpreters of the black experience\par shifted their attention to more recent, certainly better documented\par periods of American history. In 1971 Wesley Frank Craven reviewed\par the literature on early seventeenth-century Virginia race relations and\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par 21\par \par suggested, somewhat obliquely, that scholars may have placed their em-\par phasis on the wrong topics. "I have been struck," Craven wrote, "by the\par thought that American historians have been so largely concerned with\par the question of the Negro's status, with the origins of the institution of\par slavery, as to be indifferent to other questions they might have investi-\par gated."8 Craven did not explain what kinds of projects he had in mind.\par Perhaps he merely intended to spark a thorough reexamination of the\par assumptions about race and race relations that had reigned unchal-\par lenged for nearly twenty-five years.\par \par Three aspects of the literature on the seventeenth century deserve\par special reconsideration: first, a ideological assumption that since black\par people have generally been ill-treated in our society, the colonial histo-\par rian's primary responsibility is collecting early cases of discrimination in\par hopes of better understanding later more virulent forms of racism; sec-\par ond, a perception of race that regards a man's color as sufficient expla-\par nation for his values as well as behavior; and third, a tendency to substi-\par tute abstract, often lifeless categories such as slavery for the study of\par actual race relations. Certainly a successful recasting of the debate over\par the character of race relations in seventeenth-century Virginia must take\par these themes into account.\par \par Let us turn initially to the problem of teleology. As we have al-\par ready noted, contemporary historians sometimes assume that decisions\par made in early colonial times were directly responsible for current racial\par tensions in the United States. They take for granted an unilinear devel-\par opment from 1619 to the present, a long chain of unhappy events lead-\par ing inevitably to chattel slavery, lynching, and institutional racism.\par Such a view of the past at least offers a convenient sorting device. If one\par knows in advance how the story will turn out, then one has little prob-\par lem establishing a research design. Teleology provides direction, and\par the historian's job\emdash whether he admits it or not\emdash becomes one of busily\par collecting examples of racial discrimination. Lawyers call this approach\par the "leading case" method; Herbert Butterfield labeled an analogous\par approach the "Whig interpretation of history." In any form, it grossly\par simplifies causal links, making actual men and women living 300 years\par ago the servants of historical forces about which they possessed not the\par slightest knowledge.\par \par The teleological interpretation becomes particularly obtrusive\par when we turn to the sparse records of early Virginia. It is not difficult to\par select laws from the colony's published statutes that specifically deny to\par \par 22\par \par "MYNF. OWNE GROUND"\par \par black people rights enjoyed by whites. Someone with a sharp eye can\par even ferret out signs of racial discrimination long before the appearance\par of the first statutory references to slavery in the 1660s. The point here is\par not to assert that discrimination was insignificant in early Virginia or\par that the blacks were treated better than we imagined. Rather, we want\par to stress that there was nothing inevitable about the course of race rela-\par tions, and when we study free black colonists within the context of their\par own society, we discover that they lived their lives, made personal\par decisions, and planned for the future in the belief that they could in fact\par shape their physical and social environment. If one misses this point\par and insists that these people were the victims of forces beyond their con-\par trol, then one will not be able to make much sense out of the behavior\par of Northampton's free blacks.\par \par A second assumption running through current writing on race rela-\par tions is that in colonial times, if not in all of American history, blacks\par and whites formed solid, largely self-contained blocs. For obvious rea-\par sons this might be termed the monolithic perception of race. The litera-\par ture contains many examples of this type of thinking. The very title of\par Jordan's White Over Black suggests the persistence of sharp racial\par boundaries over more than two centuries. And in a more recent, widely\par discussed publication, the racial categories are spelled out even more\par definitively. As A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., explains in the introduc-\par tion to In the Matter of Color, "In treating the first 200 years of black\par presence in America, this book will demonstrate how the entire legal\par apparatus was used by those with the power to do so [i.e., the whites] to\par establish a solid legal tradition for the absolute enslavement of blacks."9\par In studies like these, race itself becomes a sufficient cause for behavior.\par The logic, of course, is circular. White men and women think white\par thoughts and hold white prejudices because they are white. On the\par other hand, blacks subscribe to black thought patterns, and thus, once\par we know a person's skin color, we can explain his or her attitudes on a\par broad range of racially sensitive issues.\par \par This form of argumentation creates considerable interpretive prob-\par lems, not the least of which is that it flies in the face of social reality.\par To be sure, at a very high level of abstraction a scholar may generalize\par about the experiences of blacks and whites, treating them, in other\par words, as ideal types. However, the closer we examine specific biracial\par communities, either in the present or past, the more we discover that\par gross generalizations about race are misleading, if not altogether incor-\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par 23\par \par rect. We find ourselves confronted with too many exceptions, with\par blacks and whites who stubbornly refuse to behave as blacks and whites\par are supposed to behave. Sociologist William Julius Wilson recognized\par this difficulty and explained that "It is difficult to speak of a uniform\par black experience when the black population can be meaningfully stra-\par tified into groups."10 The same case for differential behavior within a\par racial group can be advanced for whites. According to George M.\par Fredrickson, "Recent sociological investigations suggest that there is no\par simple cause-and-effect relationship between stereotyped opinions about\par a given group and discriminatory actions or policies. It is quite possible\par for an individual to have a generalized notion about members of an-\par other race or nationality that bears almost no relation to how he actually\par behaves when confronted with them." n Someone who understands the\par diversity of human responses to external factors will realize that certain\par activities\emdash black slave-holding for example\emdash do not need to be ex-\par plained away as examples of social pathology.\par \par Other factors besides race influenced the frequency and intensity of\par human interaction. Since whites and blacks came into regular contact\par throughout the colonial period, there is no legitimacy to the claim that\par each group developed cultural and social forms in relative isolation. As\par Herbert G. Gutman explained with specific reference to slaves, "The\par African slave learned much about New World cultures from those who\par first owned him, and the significant culture change that occurred be-\par tween 1740 and 1780 has been obscured because so much of that in-\par teraction had been encased in snug and static historical opposites such\par as 'slave' and 'planter' or 'black' and 'white'."12 Gutman's observation\par holds for the seventeenth century and for free blacks as well as slaves. At\par any given time, the character of race relations in early American was a\par function of demography (how many persons of each race were present in\par the society?), spatiality (how was the black and white population distrib-\par uted over a region?), ethnicity (where exactly in Europe and Africa did\par these people originate?), and wealth (how did economic standing affect\par racial attitudes?). When one includes such elements in an analysis of a\par multiracial society like Northampton, one finds that allegedly sharp\par racial boundaries were actually blurred and constantly shifting.\par \par Several examples taken from the historiography of seventeenth-\par century Virginia reveal the subtle\emdash and sometimes not so subtle\emdash ways\par in which the monolithic perception of race influences the scholar's\par imagination. We shall consider the value of colony law for the study of\par \par 24\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par race relations, the controversy over arms and race, the problem of\par mixed racial groups of runaways, and finally, the manner in which the\par Northampton County clerk noted a person's race in the local records.\par First, there is the law itself. Historians have gained much of their\par knowledge about race relations in colonial times from statute law, in\par this case from William Waller Hening's collection of Virginia laws pub-\par lished early in the nineteenth century. A question immediately occurs\par about the limitations of this particular source. Presumably statutes\par passed in the House of Burgesses tell us something significant about per-\par ceptions of race in colonial Virginia. But what is it? Whose perceptions\par are reflected in the collected laws? If the answer is all "white" Virgin-\par ians\emdash and that is usually assumed to be the case\emdash then the source most\par certainly has been misinterpreted.\par \par When Winthrop Jordan wrote his book on American attitudes\par toward the Negro, he was keenly aware of this problem. He attempted\par to negotiate it by admitting that "while statutes usually speak falsely as\par to actual behavior, they afford probably the best single means of ascer-\par taining what a society thinks behavior ought to be." He also noted that\par unlike the settlers in French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies, "En-\par glishmen had representative assemblies in America [which] makes it\par possible for the historian to ascertain communal attitudes."13 In other\par words, English colonial society revealed its collective attitudes through\par the deliberations of representative assemblies. Since the particular polit-\par ical society or community we have been studying obviously did not\par include blacks, we must infer that the laws provide meaningful insight\par only into the white mind of Virginia. The problem here is that many\par whites were indentured servants, who were so unhappy about their con-\par dition in the New World that they regularly resisted the authority of\par their masters. In 1670, in fact, Governor William Berkeley and the\par members of the House of Burgesses became sufficiently worried about\par the unruliness of the colony's landless white freemen that they disfran-\par chised them. Moreover, we know that blacks and whites cooperated\par under certain conditions\emdash some even united in an attempt to overthrow\par the royal governor. While it is likely that poor whites and indentured\par servants shared the race prejudices of the great planters who actually\par wrote the laws, we cannot assume on the basis of statutes alone the exis-\par tence of an undifferentiatcd white response to black Virginians.14\par \par Clearly, assumptions about race solidarity have influenced our un-\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par 25\par \par derstanding of the blacks' right to bear arms. Historians recognize that a\par gun was an essential possession in seventeenth-century Virginia.15 This\par was a violent society, and an unarmed black risked intimidation, if not\par physical harm, from aggressive whites as well as hostile Indians. A gun\par gave a man a sense of personal independence, a voice in local affairs\par that carried weight even when logic failed. It seemed self-evident to\par modern commentators that the House of Burgesses would not arm the\par members of an oppressed race. Unfortunately for curious scholars,\par Virginia lawmakers did not pay much attention to this issue before the\par 1660s. The only act in which Negroes and firearms were linked passed\par the legislature in 1640. It simply advised "all masters of families [to]\par . . . use their best endeavours for the firnishing of themselves and all\par those of their families wch shall be capable of arms (excepting negros)\par with arms both offensive and defensive."16 Largely on the basis of this\par act, historians have drawn a number of conclusions about race relations\par in early Virginia. Moreover, the claims made for this particular piece of\par legislation have undergone a striking inflation over the last thirty years.\par Oscar and Mary Handlin gave only passing mention to the topic in their\par essay "Origins of the Southern Labor System," which first appeared in\par 1950.17 After reviewing the Virginia laws, they found no evidence of a\par trend toward the systematic disarmament of blacks, and they did not\par even bother to quote the 1640 act. Carl Degler, however, disagreed\par with the Handlins' analysis. He argued that the arms law demonstrated\par how "Negroes and slaves were singled out for special status in the years\par before 1650. "18\par \par In an article published four years later, Winthrop Jordan decided\par that the statute was even more significant than Degler had thought.\par "Virginia law," he explained, "set Negroes apart ... by denying them\par the important right and obligation to bear arms. Few restraints could in-\par dicate more clearly the denial to Negroes of membership in the white com-\par munity."19 In other words, this law provided important insight into the\par growth of white prejudice, and we can only infer that the possession of\par guns must have been a means of establishing well-defined racial bound-\par aries. Degler later returned to the subject in a comparative study of race\par relations in Brazil and the United States. By this time, he had trans-\par formed the 1640 act from proscriptive legislation into a description of\par actual social practice.20 The whites of Virginia owned guns; the blacks\par did not. We have moved in this escalating interpretation from a single,\par \par 26\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par somewhat ambiguous case of racial discrimination to a general state-\par ment about white attitudes toward all blacks and, finally, to a complete\par disarmament of the colony's black population.\par \par Considering the notoriety of the 1640 legislation, we should begin\par our reassessment with the text of the law itself. Even a cursory reading\par of the act reveals that the claims that have been made for it are unsup-\par ported. There is no indication here, for example, of an effort by the\par white colonists to disarm the black population, be they free or enslaved.\par The legislation speaks specifically in terms of families. Masters are ex-\par pected by a certain future date to have armed everyone "of their fami-\par lies" except Negroes. These black men presumably were slaves or in-\par dentured servants working on particular plantations. The law does not\par prohibit a black master such as Anthony Johnson from possessing a\par firearm, nor for that matter, does it order all blacks regardless of their\par status to surrender their weapons to the state. And finally, the law does\par not make it illegal for blacks to engage in offensive or defensive war-\par fare.21 It is true that the members of the House of Burgesses separated\par some blacks out for special treatment, but little more can be said with\par authority about the act. The Handlins were correct. The 1640 law\par seems to have been an ad hoc decision related more directly to taxation\par than to domestic security, and since the legislature did not raise the\par question of the blacks' right to bear arms again for more than two de-\par cades, it does not appear warranted to interpret the act as strong evi-\par dence of white over black.\par \par Examples drawn from different types of colonial records sustain\par these suspicions. In July 1675 the Northampton County court issued a\par warrant against William Harman, a successful free black farmer, "con-\par cerninge a Gunne found in the possession of the said Harman." A\par white planter named William Grey had appeared before the local jus-\par tices complaining that the firearm belonged to him. Harman insisted that\par he had legally purchased the gun from Grey's wife, and after hearing\par the evidence the members of the court found for Harman. The black\par man kept the weapon, while an unhappy Grey paid court costs.22 Noth-\par ing was said in this case about the defendant's race, and if we are\par surprised by the Northampton judgment, it is probably because histo-\par rians have misinterpreted the 1640 act rather than because black Virgin-\par ians were actually disarmed.\par \par The problems with the monolithic interpretation of race relations\par become even more evident when we consider the active role that armed\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\tab 27\par \par blacks played during Bacon's Rebellion. Again, the failure to appreciate\par their participation in this political upheaval can be traced back to the\par 1640 legislation. Thomas Grantham, an English sea captain, arrived in\par Virginia just as the rebel forces were crumbling. Nathaniel Bacon had\par recently died, and apparently sensing an opportunity for easy glory,\par Grantham volunteered to negotiate in Governor Berkeley's name with\par several rebel bands that remained in the field. At the plantation of Col-\par onel John West, supposedly the rebel army's "Chiefe Garrison and\par Magazine," the Captain found about four hundred "English and Ne-\par groes in Armes." Grantham no doubt exceeded his authority when he\par told "the negroes and Servants that they were all pardoned and freed\par from their Slavery." But despite the "faire promises" and despite a large\par quantity of brandy, "eighty Negroes and Twenty' English . . . would\par not deliver their Arms."23 Such figures reveal the danger of attempting\par to describe social practice on the basis of statute law.24\par \par With hindsight the Governor's supporters may have wished that\par they had, in fact, disarmed the blacks in 1640. In an act entitled "Pre-\par venting Negroes Insurrections," the House of Burgesses in 1680 ordered\par that "it shall not be lawful for any negroe or other slave to carry or arme\par himselfe with any club, staffe, gunn, sword or any other weapon of\par defense or offence." The Virginia legislators made no reference to a fail-\par ure to enforce the earlier law. And even in 1680, with the memory of\par armed blacks in open rebellion fresh in their minds, the Burgesses did\par not attempt to disarm all black men. The act specifically concerned\par "negroe slaves," and it does not appear that freemen such as William\par Harman ran much danger of being left weaponless.25 Indeed, it was not\par until 1738 that the Virginia legislators declared that "all such free mu-\par lattos, negros, or Indians, as are or shall be listed [in the militia] . . .\par shall appear without arms."26 By that time, of course, the social and\par demographic elements affecting the character of race relations had\par changed substantially, and the monolithic view of race may have corre-\par sponded to social reality more closely in this period than it did in the\par mid-seventeenth century.\par \par The racially determinative interpretation of behavior has also af-\par fected our understanding of the ways in which Virginia courts punished\par runaway laborers. In the mid-seventeenth century, dependent\par workers\emdash slaves and servants\emdash frequently left their masters' service with-\par out permission. They did so for a variety of reasons. They resented the\par terrible work conditions, especially poor diet and clothing; stories of bet-\par \par 28\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par ter opportunities in other colonies also lured them away. Since tobacco\par was a labor intensive crop and since good workers were both rare and\par expensive, the House of Burgesses devised ways to track down and\par punish servants who slipped away.27 None of these controls was suf-\par ficient, however, to discourage desperate men and women from at-\par tempting to escape from the drudgery of plantation life. Sometimes\par blacks and whites ran away together, and when local authorities man-\par aged to recapture them, they meted out stiff punishments. The cases in-\par volving blacks and whites have played a major role in shaping our un-\par derstanding of early American race relations. They have provided\par scholars with unusual situations in which persons of different races\par violated the same statutes. Historians have discovered that in general the\par court's treatment of offenders varied, depending on a person's skin\par color, the white runaways faring better than did the blacks. This has\par been interpreted as clear evidence of the white community's race preju-\par dice, a deep-seated antipathy toward blacks that generated systematic\par discrimination long before the legislature got around to writing Negro\par slavery into law.28\par \par Two cases adjudicated in 1640 have received particular attention.\par Because of their historiographical importance, we should consider them\par closely. In one case, three of Hugh Gwyn's servants appeared before a\par colony court. They had run away to Maryland, causing Gwyn consider-\par able "loss and prejudice." The two white laborers, one a Scot and the\par other a Dutchman, were given thirty lashes, a harsh punishment even\par in seventeenth-century Virginia, as well as four years' extra service. The\par third man in this trio, "a negro named John Punch," received not only\par the "thirty stripes" but also was ordered to "serve his said master or his\par assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere."29 As Carl\par Degler points out, Punch's treatment appears gratuitiously severe.30 The\par black endured the pain and embarrassment of a public whipping, but\par unlike the white culprits, he lost his freedom for life. "No white servant\par in America," Winthrop Jordan observed, "so far as is known, ever\par received a like sentence."31\par \par The second case involved a complicated conspiracy. In July 1640\par Captain William Pierce complained before open court that six of his\par servants and a Negro owned by a "Mr. Reginolds" had attempted to flee\par to "the Dutch plantation," presumably New Netherland. The group\par planned their escape with great care. The enterprise required courage,\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par 29\par \par patience, and secrecy. The conspirators communicated between two\par plantations, gathered "corn powder and shot and guns," and then stole\par a skiff belonging to Pierce. They set off on a "Saturday night," and by\par the time they were apprehended they had sailed a considerable distance\par down the Elizabeth River. The chief organizer, a Dutchman named\par Christopher Miller, received the harshest punishment, a whipping,\par branding, shackling, and extended service. The other five white servants\par were given somewhat milder sentences, but they too suffered terribly for\par their bid for freedom. "Emanuel the Negro" was given thirty stripes, a\par letter "R" burnt into his cheek, and shackling for at least a year\emdash all\par things which had been inflicted upon his co-conspirators as well. Un-\par like the whites, however, Emanuel did not have to serve extra time.32\par Degler argues, no doubt correctly, that the black runaway "was already\par serving his master for a life-time\emdash i.e., he was a slave."33 The court's\par actions demonstrated that some colonists, simply because of the color of\par their skins, found themselves reduced to a status below that of any white\par Virginian.\par \par This analysis is persuasive to a point. Court decisions inform us\par about the interests and beliefs of the colony's white leaders, those\par planters who by 1640 owned large gangs of dependent laborers. Unfor-\par tunately, in their attempt to document the growing separation of the\par races, historians have ignored the highly instructive interracial coopera-\par tion to which these cases also speak. The conspiracy of the Elizabeth\par River servants is a good example of a much overlooked form of race\par relations. No one in Virginia regarded the crime of running away\par lightly. The chances of failure were great, and the seven laborers must\par have known that they risked extraordinarily severe punishments. Cer-\par tainly, they could expect no compassion, for as the court explained,\par they had created "a dangerous precident for the future time."34 The\par conspirators trusted one another. They had no other choice. Without\par secrecy, the project was doomed, and so far as the six whites were con-\par cerned, it did not much matter if Emanuel was black so long as he\par faithfully executed his instructions.\par \par The need for cooperation increased once the group set out on its\par journey. The laborers had lived in the colony only a short time, and\par their knowledge of the winds and currents was consequently limited.\par The irresponsibility of any man placed the lives of all in jeopardy. The\par importance of strong personal ties would not have been reduced if these\par \par If\par \par 30\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND-\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par 31\par \par runaways had taken to the woods, where Indians waited to capture or\par kill the fugitives. Moreover, if the workers did not husband their provi-\par sions well, they could starve.\par \par Despite these formidable obstacles, blacks and whites persisted in\par running away together. In 1661 the House of Burgesses attempted to\par stop these joint ventures by ordering "That in case any English servant\par shall run away in company with any negroes who are incapable of mak-\par ing satisfaction by addition of time [i.e., slaves], Bee itt enacted that the-\par English so running away in company with them shall serve for the time\par of the said negroes absence as they are to do for their owne."35 There is\par no evidence that this legislation was an effective deterrent. The possibil-\par ity of large-scale, interracial cooperation continued to worry the leaders\par of Virginia. When a group of fugitive slaves frustrated all attempts to re-\par take them in 1672, the planters' greatest concern was that "other ne-\par groes, Indians or servants . . . [might] fly forth and joyne with\par them."36 These cases, of course, reveal only extreme actions, desperate\par attempts to escape, but for every group of mixed runaways who came\par before the courts there were doubtless many more poor whites and\par blacks who cooperated in smaller, less daring ways on the plantation.\par These forms of interaction did not mean that white servants such as\par Christopher Miller necessarily regarded Negroes as their equals, nor for\par that matter, that Emanuel thought any better of Miller because he was\par white. The low legal status of an Emanuel or John Punch, however,\par did not preclude their forging close relationships with certain white col-\par onists.37\par \par A final example taken from the records of the Northampton\par County court reveals how thoroughly modern perceptions of race soli-\par darity have permeated our understanding of black and white in seven-\par teenth-century Virginia. As we have seen, researchers using these and\par similar documents from other parts of the colony have collected cases in\par which a clerk jotted next to a man or woman's name the word\par "Negro."38 Without such racial indicators, it would be virtually impos-\par sible for scholars to write about race relations. Indeed, it is only because\par of this assistance that we know for certain that a John Punch or an\par Anthony Johnson was black. No doubt, because the term "Negro" ap-\par peared so regularly throughout the pages of various colony and local\par records, historians assumed that seventeenth-century clerks were racists.\par No one stated the point quite so baldly, but they obviously believed that\par \par Virginia officials classified people chiefly in terms of race. And thus, if a\par name appeared on a tax list or in a court proceeding without clear racial\par designation, one stated with a high degree of confidence that the person\par in question was white. It was difficult for the historian to imagine that\par in a society supposedly so anxious about setting the blacks apart from\par the whites any other system of record keeping would have been in\par operation. The problem with this racial logic is that in Northampton at\par least, the clerks did not always conduct their affairs by twentieth-century\par rules. Sometimes they carefully inserted "Negro" near an individual's\par name, but often, they simply recorded a person's identity without a\par racial tag. Perhaps the clerks were lazy; perhaps they regarded it a waste\par of time to write out "Negro" when everyone in the county knew full\par well that William Harman and Francis Payne were blacks? Or perhaps,\par they were not as racially conscious as some have surmised. Whatever\par their reasoning, many routine items\emdash the sale of land and livestock, for\par example\emdash did not carry the convenient racial indicators. Once the his-\par torian realizes that certain men and women were black, even when they\par were not so described, he can follow their lives more fully, studying\par economic transactions as well as the sexual and criminal activities that\par presently occupy a disproportionate place in the analysis of early Ameri-\par can race relations.\par \par A third general problem in the literature on race relations in colo-\par nial Virginia requires only brief mention. There is a tendency in some\par recent studies to substitute classificatory categories for real human be-\par ings. The reasons for this are complex. Such a strategy clearly lends it-\par self to certain types of quantitative analysis, but whatever the justifica-\par tion, it usually leaves one with a sense that one knows a great deal more\par about an abstract category\emdash slavery, the family, the plantation\emdash and not\par much about the cultural and social interdependencies that gave mean-\par ing to people's lives. We may read at length, for example, about the in-\par stitutional development of slavery without ever learning how specific,\par often idiosyncratic, patterns of master-slave relations shaped the\par planter's world as well as that of the dependent laborer. It is the human\par content of social arrangements that helps us to understand in what ways\par Carribean slavery differed from that of the Chesapeake, or how nine-\par teenth-century Virginia slavery contrasted with that of the seventeenth-\par century colony. These observations about the contextual definition of\par slavery obviously hold for the free blacks. Freedom, like slavery, ac-\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par quired social meaning not through statute law or intellectual treatises,\par but through countless human transactions that first defined and then\par redefined the limits of that condition.\par \par II\par \par This book focuses upon the lives of a particularly well-documented\par group, the free blacks of Northampton County. Even from this some-\par what narrow perspective, we can explore general patterns of race rela-\par tions and in so doing present ways of avoiding the interpretive problems\par that we have discussed in this chapter. In our attempt to pursue Profes-\par sor Craven's suggestion that historians should push beyond questions of\par social and institutional status, we have made two assumptions. First, we\par regard race relations in this county\emdash indeed, in all human relations\emdash as\par a process, a series of personal interactions which in themselves generate\par meaningful definitions of status. It is the actual participants who do the\par defining and, as we have already seen, formal laws may or may not\par reflect the character of these continuing exchanges. A second, closely\par related point is that social groups, regardless of racial or ethnic com-\par position, should whenever possible be studied within the context of the\par society of which they were a part.39 An analysis of Northampton's free\par blacks, for example, without reference to other people with whom they\par came into regular contact would miss the complicated and creative\par methods by which these men and women shaped their world through\par interaction with persons of a different race and economic standing. The\par nature of our approach will become clearer as we examine specific evi-\par dence from the Eastern Shore. At this point, however, we should note\par the kinds of questions that we asked of the Northampton documents.\par Instead of searching for the origins of slavery or racism, we inquired\par into the ways the free blacks dealt with the local gentry; with middling\par white people; with slaves; with free blacks in Northampton? What was\par the purpose of these different types of interaction? What economic, en-\par vironmental, and social conditions helped to determine the character\par and intensity of various personal exchanges?\par \par After the passage of more than three centuries, we cannot recap-\par ture the varieties of behavior that one expects to find in the work of a\par good ethnographer. Nevertheless, we can speculate about the conditions\par that contributed to the formation of interdependencies, when, for ex-\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par 33\par \par ample, economic and familial considerations weighed more heavily in a\par relationship than did color. Certainly, face-to-face contacts in seven-\par teenth-century Virginia were not random. They involved choice.\par Within the constraints of custom and environment, people selected\par forms of behavior appropriate for various social transactions. In some\par relations, one or both participants regarded it as expedient to under-\par articulate his own culture. Compromises like these facilitated com-\par munication; they furthered social tranquility. Under other conditions,\par the same persons overstated their values. As anthropologist Fredrik\par Earth explains, "agreement on a definition of the situation must be es-\par tablished and maintained to distinguish which of the participants' many\par statuses should form the basis for their interaction. The process of main-\par taining this agreement is one of skewed communication: over-com-\par municating that which confirms the relevant status positions and rela-\par tionships, and under-communicating that which is discrepant."40 In\par this sense, the forms of interaction (and race relations) were situational.\par They were defined within specific social settings, and while a certain\par type of relationship may have been associated in the participant's mind\par with an institution such as the church or court, the differential articula-\par tion of culture was usually highly personal and non-institutional in\par character.\par \par Social transactions took place on three distinct levels. In mid-cen-\par tury Northampton free blacks and whites entered into patron-client rela-\par tionships. Anthropologists refer to these arrangements as "lop-sided\par friendships" because the two parties involved possess unequal influence,\par status, or wealth. The nature of patron-client relationships varies from\par society to society, but several generalizations seem universally valid.\par However unequal the patron and client may be, maintenance of their\par relationship requires reciprocity. On his part, the patron\emdash sometimes\par termed a broker or gatekeeper\emdash provides the client with access to distant\par markets, with information about the outside world, with protection\par from external, largely impersonal government demands, and with ad-\par vocacy in local legal proceedings. The client often has few material\par goods to offer in return. Nonetheless, he is expected to support the pa-\par tron, perhaps through public displays of deference or vociferous political\par backing.41\par \par With reference to seventeenth-century Northampton, two aspects\par of these arrangements merit special attention. First, virtually all free\par colonists\emdash even prominent members of the gentry\emdash stood as clients to\par \par 34\tab "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par someone. In the case of the great planter, the patron might be the royal\par governor of Virginia or a powerful London merchant. The various\par groups within this county community, like those in some contemporary\par Latin American countries, formed complex chains of dependency\par reaching from the center of metropolitan authority to the homes of\par peasant farmers.42 Second, for the patron-client relationship to function\par smoothly, the broker must deliver the services that his clients expect. If\par he fails them, then the bonds of the personal contract dissolve and the\par clients seek out as best they can another and more reliable advocate. On\par the other hand, the client must be able to hold up his side of the\par bargain no matter how modest his efforts might appear.\par \par The second sphere of interaction\emdash at least, so far as the free blacks\par were concerned\emdash involved family members and intimate friends. It is\par essential to see that this level of activity existed completely separate from\par patron-client relationships. Dealings within this second sphere were at\par once more intense and more informal than those associated with pa-\par trons and clients. Family and friends, of course, provided love, fulfill-\par ment, recreation, and security. While the forms of these personal con-\par tacts sometimes involved trade, the sale of a horse or pig, they were not\par primarily economic in character. On this level of human transaction,\par free blacks appear to have sought out other free blacks. In other words,\par racial identity figured much more importantly in this sphere than it did\par in the vertical exchanges with brokers. Possibly, common ethnic back-\par ground as well as color increased the cohesive-ness of the Northampton\par free black community. We shall speculate about the nature of these\par bonds more fully in a later chapter.\par \par The importance of the distinction between these two spheres of ac-\par tivity becomes clearer when we consider the continuing scholarly debate\par over the survival of African culture in the New World. Until quite\par recently, researchers tended to interpret the survival of African customs\par as a dichotomous phenomenon, either black migrants preserved frag-\par ments of an Old World culture more or less intact or they lost meaning-\par ful contact with African folkways, imitating as best they could the cul-\par ture of their white masters. From our point of view, of course, such a\par sharp distinction is artificial. When the free blacks we studied dealt with\par patrons, for example, they adopted forms of behavior suitable for that\par particular transaction. They dealt with leading planters in terms that the\par white colonists understood. In this sphere the free blacks attempted to\par transform themselves into black Englishmen; they purposely under-\par \par RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\tab 35\par \par articulated whatever differences may in fact have separated them from\par other settlers. But within the second sphere, the same black man or\par woman may have expressed African values more forthrightly. These\par people were not behaving in a schizophrenic or disingenuous manner.\par Rather, within various spheres of experience they responded creatively\par to situational demands.43 We would not assume, therefore, that a man\par like Anthony Johnson was necessarily out of touch with African values\par simply because he became a successful planter in a white -dominated so-\par ciety.\par \par On a third level, the Northampton free blacks formed relationships\par with white indentured servants, poor to middling white freemen, and\par local Indians. Transactions with members of these groups varied in\par character to some degree, but in general, they were ad hoc, casual and\par ephemeral. Men exchanged goods and services for convenience and did\par not thereby establish reciprocal obligations. While these contacts were\par seldom dramatic, they revealed much about the extent of the free\par blacks' economic liberty at mid-century. Particularly interesting was the\par spatial dimension of the relationships that were formed within this third\par sphere.\par \par Fach sphere of interaction was equally important in the lives of the\par Northampton free blacks. It would be a mistake, therefore, to perceive\par this model as a series of concentric circles, the inner ring representing\par intense interaction among kin and close friends, and each additional\par circle depicting different and presumably less significant kinds of rela-\par tionships. In point of fact, the spheres merged; they complemented each\par other.44 Contacts with brokers, for example, were sources of economic\par and legal security that allowed this particular group of black Virginians\par to make decisions about family and friends without unusual fear of in-\par terference. This interweaving of transactional networks lay at the heart\par of the Anthony Johnson story. He recognized that well-developed ties\par with the members of the Northampton County court gave him strength\par and independence. Johnson and his family conducted private business\par as they saw fit. In the achievement and maintenance of a distinct social\par identity, the spheres played mutual roles.\par \par 114\par \par "MYNE OWNE GROUND"\par \par white peasantry. The small planters did not establish a distinct niche in\par the society, an identity like that of the gypsies or the executioners in\par modern European societies, that might have insulated them from far-\par reaching social change.4\par \par As in several Caribbean societies, the expanding plantation system\par in Virginia gradually undermined the position of the free planters.\par Many causes\emdash far more than can be mentioned here\emdash contributed to\par their slow destruction. The great planters achieved greater efficiency as\par time passed, and as tobacco prices fell over the century, they increased\par productivity. They secured better, more reliable relations with large En-\par glish merchant houses. And most important, the local gentry acquired a\par steady supply of black slaves. To compete against the great planters be-\par came increasingly difficult. These powerful people monopolized large\par tracts of land, forcing marginal cultivators and landless freemen to leave\par the colony if they wanted to establish independent farms or to obtain\par fertile acreage to replace worn-out ground.5 By the 1670s it would have\par been nearly impossible for a slave to work his way out of slavery in the\par manner that Francis Payne had done. The doors to economic opportun-\par ity were either shut or fast closing by that time. It was not that Payne's\par successors were less astute or energetic than he had been. Rather, they\par lost the possibility to acquire property, the basis of genuine freedom in\par this society.\par \par 8.\par \par Notes\par \par INTRODUCTION\par \par David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, 1966),\par \par 15.\par \par Ibid., chap. II.\par \par Philip D. Curtin, "The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1800," in J. F. Ade\par \par Ajayi and Michael Crowder, eds., History of West Africa (2 vols., New\par \par York, 1976), I, 302-330.\par \par For a brief, up-to-date survey of the South Atlantic system, see, Philip Cur-\par \par tin, Steven Feierman, Leonard Thompson, and Jan Vansina, African His-\par \par tory (Boston, 1978), 215-224.\par \par Joseph C. Miller, "The Congo-Angola Slave Trade," in Martin Kilson and\par \par Robert Rotberg, eds., The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays (Cam-\par \par bridge, Mass., 1976), 76-113.\par \par Cited in Davis, Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, 40.\par \par George M. Frederickson, "Toward a Soc'ial Interpretation of the Develop-\par \par ment of American Racism," in Nathan I. Huggins, Martin Kilson, and\par \par Daniel M. Fox, eds., Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience (2 vols.,\par \par New York, 1971), I, 274.\par \par Susie M. Amcs, ed., County Court Records of Accomack-Northampton,\par \par Virginia, 1640-1645 (Charlortesville, 1973), 457. (Hereafter cited as CCR,\par \par 1640-1645.)\par \par 1 PATRIARCH ON PUNGOTEAGUE CREEK\par \par 1. James H. Brewer, "Negro Property Owners in Seventeenth-Century\par Virginia," William and Mary Quarterly (hereafter cited as W&MQ), 3rd\par Ser., XII (1955), 578.\par \par \par \par 116\par \par 2\par \par NOTES\par \par T. H. Breen, "Of Time and Nature: A Study of Persistent Values in Colo-\par nial Virginia," in Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in\par Early America (New York, 1980), chap. ix.\par \par 3. Wesley Frank Craven, The Legend of the Founding Fathers (Ithaca, 1965),\par 129-133.\par \par 4. Philip A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century\par (2 vols., New York, 1907), II, 126.\par \par 5. Reprinted 1969.\par \par 6. Brewer, "Negro Property Owners," 580.\par \par 7. See, Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of\par Culture," in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), 3-30.\par \par 8. John Camden Hotten, ed., The Original Lists of Persons of Quality . . .\par (London, 1874), 241.\par \par 9. Alden T. Vaughan makes a persuasive case that even if these first Virginia\par blacks were not slaves, they held "a significantly inferior position ... in\par the social structure of white Virginia" ("Blacks in Virginia: A Note on the\par First Decade," W&MQ, 3rd Ser., XXIX (1972), 476). Vaughan, however,\par identifies an "Antoney Negro" living at Elizabeth City in 1624 as Anthony\par Johnson. The Elizabeth City Antoney was married to Isabella and fathered\par a child named William (ibid., 475-476; John H. Russell, The Free Negro\par in Virginia 1619-1865, (Baltimore, 1913), 24-25). A more solid argument\par can be advanced for "Antonio" of Bennett's plantation. As we shall see,\par Anthony Johnson's wife was Mary, a woman who arrived in Virginia in\par 1622, and while they had several sons, none was named William. The\par confusing element, of course, is the name "Antonio." There was also an\par Anthony located at a James River plantation, and while he may have\par become Mary's husband, it seems more likely that "Antonio" of War-\par resquioake simply Anglicized his name.\par \par 10. Sec, Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery \emdash American Freedom: The Or-\par deal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975), 101-102, 115.\par \par 11. Ibid., 108-130.\par \par 12. Cited in Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modem Memory (New York,\par 1975), 3.\par \par 13. The fullest account of Sandys's ambitious plan remains Wesley Frank Cra-\par ven, The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1607-1689 (Baton\par Rouge, 1949), 93-137.\par \par 14. Susan M. Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London\par (4 vols., Washington, D.C., 1906-35), I, 446.\par \par 15. "Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents," Virginia Magazine of History and Bi-\par ography, III (1896), 53-56. (Hereafter cited as VMHB.)\par \par 16. Richard L. Morton, Colonial Virginia (2 vols., Chapel Hill, 1960), I, 68,\par 73-76; John Smith, Travels and Works, ed. by Edward Arber (2 vols., Ed-\par inburgh, 1910), II, 582-583; Hotten, ed., Original Lists, 241.\par \par \par \par NOTES\par \par 117\par \par 17. Ibid., 241.\par \par 18. Irene W. D. Hccht, "The Virginia Muster of 1624/5 as a Source for\par Demographic History," W&MQ, 3rd Scr., XXX (1973), 70-84; Herbert\par Mollcr, "Sex Composition and Correlated Cultural Patterns of Colonial\par America," ibid., II (1945), 113-153.\par \par 19. See, Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, "The Planter's Wife: The Ex-\par perience of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland," ibid.,\par XXXIV (1977), 542-571; Darrett B. and Anita H. Rutman, " 'Now-Wives\par and Sons-in-Law': Parental Death in a Seventeenth-Century Virginia\par County," in Thad W. Tate and David A. Ammerman, eds., The\par Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society\par & Politics (New York, 1979), 153-182.\par \par 20. Northampton County Court Records, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 4,\par 1651-1654, fol. 162 (Virginia State Library, Richmond, Virginia).\par (Hereafter cited as NHCR.)\par \par 21. "Isle of Wight County Records," W&MQ, 1st Ser., VII (1899), 283.\par \par 22. Craven, Southern Colonies, 234, 254-269; Morton, Colonial Virginia, I,\par 151, 171-179, 225; Jennings C. Wise, Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke (Rich-\par mond, 1911), 85-86, 125-128, 143-149, 164, 294; CCR, 1640-1645,\par 311; Babette M. Levy, "Early Puritanism in the Southern and Island Colo-\par nies," Proceedings, American Antiquarian Society, LXX (1960), pt. 1,\par 139-142; VMHB, VI (1898-99), 413-414.\par \par 23. Morgan, American Slavery\emdash American Freedom, 136-140; Wesley N.\par Laing, "Cattle in Seventeenth-Century Virginia," VMHB, LXVII (1959),\par 143-164; Susie M. Ames, Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Sev-\par enteenth Century (Richmond, 1940), 51-53.\par \par 24. Brewer, "Negro Property Owners," 576.\par \par 25. This complex and often misunderstood process is explained in Edmund S.\par Morgan's "Headrights and Head Counts: A Review Article," VMHB,\par LXXX(1972), 361-371.\par \par 26. Ames, Eastern Shore, 16-42. The Johnson real estate holdings are much\par more impressive if we consider the lands of his two sons, Richard and John.\par In 1652 John presented eleven headright certificates and patented 550\par acres. And in 1654 Richard obtained 100 acres, bringing the Johnson fam-\par ily's Pungoteague estate to 900 acres (ibid., 103).\par \par 27. NHCR, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 4, 1651-1654, fol. 162.\par \par 28. William W. Hening, ed., Statutes at Large (13 vols., Richmond,\par 1819-23), I, 144, 292 (emphasis added); John Hammond, Leak and Ra-\par chel, or, the Two Fruitful Sisters Virginia, and Mary-land (London, 1656)\par in Peter Force, comp., Tracts (4 vols., Washington, D.C., 1836-46), III,\par 9; Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the\par Negro, 1550-J8J2 (Chapel Hill, 1968), 77.\par \par 29. NHCR, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 4, 1651-1654, fol. 205.\par \par \par \par 118\par \par 30\par \par NOTES\par \par Susie M. Ames, ed., County Court Records of Accomack-Northampton,\par Virginia 1632-1640 (Washington, D.C., 1954), xxxvi-xxxvii. (Hereafter\par cited as CCR, 1632-1640).\par \par 31. Ralph T. Whitelaw, Virginia's Eastern Shore (2 vols., Gloucester, Mass.,\par 1968), I, 676; Wise, Kingdome of Accawmacke, 116-17; Nell M. Nugent,\par cd., Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants\par 1623-1800 (2 vols., Richmond, 1934), I, 223.\par \par 32. NHCR, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 4, 1651-1654, fol. 226.\par \par 33. Ibid.; 'The Parkers of Virginia," VMHB, V (1897-98), 444-446; VI\par (1898-99), 412-413; Nugent, ed., Cavaliers and Pioneers, I, 185, 193,\par 307, 400.\par \par 34. Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, 1, 253, 439; II, 239.\par \par 35. NHCR, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 4, 1651-1654, fol. 226.\par \par 36. Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, I, 124, 172, 197, 263, 460; Carvillc V.\par Earle, The Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System: All Hallow's\par Parish, Maryland, 1650-1783 (Chicago, 1975), 191.\par \par 37. See, Philip J. Greven, "Family Structure in Seventeenth-Century Andover,\par Massachusetts," W&MQ, 3rdSer., XXIII (1966), 234-256.\par \par 38. Ames, Eastern Shore, 103.\par \par 39. NHCR, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 5, 1654-1655, fol. 35.\par \par 40. Morgan, American Slavery\emdash American Freedom, 223.\par \par 41. NHCR, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 4, 1651-1654, fol. 226a.\par \par 42. "The Parkers of Virginia," VMHB, VI, 413.\par \par 43. See, Chapter II.\par \par 44. Our knowledge of the Johnsons' experiences in Maryland comes from Ross\par M. Kimmel's fine essay, "Free Blacks in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,"\par Maryland Historical Magazine, LXXI (1976), 19-25. Also see, "Anthony\par Johnson, Free Negro, 1622," Journal of Negro History, LVI (1971), 71-75.\par \par 45. Whitelaw, Virginia's Eastern Shore, I, 671.\par \par 46. Kimmel, "Free Blacks," 24.\par \par 47. Ames, Eastern Shore, 25, 28, 30, 141.\par \par 48. Kimmel, "Free Blacks," 23-24. Kimmel argues that the Johnsons served as\par "retainers" to Toft and Revell.\par \par 49. Ibid., 23.\par \par 50. Ibid., 23-24.\par \par 51. Ibid., 25.\par \par 52. See, Sidney W. Mint/, and Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach to\par the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective, ISHI Occasional Papers\par in Social Change, No. 2 (Philadelphia, 1976), 1-21.\par \par NOTES\par \par 119\par \par 2 RACE RELATIONS AS STATUS AND PROCESS\par \par See, Winthrop D. Jordan, "Modern Tensions and the Origins of American\par \par Slavery,"The Journal of Southern History, XXVIII (1962), 18-30.\par \par Kingsbury, ed., Records of the Virginia Company, III, 243. Also, Wesley\par \par Frank Craven, White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth-Century Virginian\par \par (Charlottesville, 1971), 73-103.\par \par One can find an example of this confusion in a letter written by a certain\par \par Mr. Moray in February 1665. Moray, a loyal Scot, explained that Virginia\par \par contained many of his countrymen, who "living better then ever ther for-\par \par fathers, and that from so mean a beginning as being sold slavs here, after\par \par Hamiltons engagment and Worster fight are now herein great masters of\par \par many servants themselves . . ." ("Letters Written by Mr. Moray,"\par \par W&MQ, 2nd Ser., II (1922), 160 (emphasis added)).\par \par Oscar and Mary Handlin, "Origins of the Southern Labor System," ibid.,\par \par 3rd Ser., VII (1950), 199-222.\par \par Carl N. Degler, "Slavery and the Genesis of American Race Prejudice,"\par \par Comparative Studies in Society and History, II (1959), 52.\par \par Jordan, "Modern Tensions," 20. Also see, Peter H. Wood, " 'I Did the\par \par Best I Could for My Day': The Study of Early Black History During the\par \par Second Reconstruction, 1960 to 1976," W&MQ, 3rd Ser., XXXV (1978),\par \par 206-210.\par \par 7. Jordan, "Modern Tensions," 22, 29. Also, White Over Black, 71-82.\par \par 8. Craven, White, Red, and Black, 76.\par \par 9. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., In the Matter of Color: Race and the American\par Legal Process: The Colonial Period (New York, 1978), 14.\par William J. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Chang-\par ing American Institutions (Chicago, 1978), x.\par \par Fredrickson, "Toward a Social Interpretation ... of American Racism,"\par 242-243.\par \par Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom,\par I750-J925 (New York, 1976), 335.\par \par Jordan, White Over Black, 588. Jordan's argument on the use of statutes is\par enthusiastically endorsed by Higginbotham in Matter of Color, 7-8.\par See, T. H. Breen, "A Changing Labor Force and Race Relations in\par Virginia 1660-1710," Journal of Social History, VII (1973), 3-25. This\par discussion raises the complex problem of gentry hegemony. To what degree\par did a planter elite set the cultural standards for less affluent whites? To an-\par swer this question adequately would take us far beyond the temporal limits\par of this book. We are convinced, however, that the strength of planter\par hegemony varied throughout the colonial period. Before 1680 a group of\par wealthy families had not achieved undisputed dominance over the institu-\par \par 5.\par \par 6.\par \par 10.\par \par 11.\par \par 12.\par \par 13.\par \par 14.\par \par 120\par \par NOTES\par \par tional structure of the colony. There were successful men in Virginia, to be\par sure, but often these people died young or returned to England. Only after\par this date were certain major families in a position not only to secure eco-\par nomic and political power but also to pass it on to their children. More-\par over, the sudden expansion of the black population at the end of the eigh-\par teenth century helped to create a sense of white solidarity that had not been\par present before Bacon's Rebellion. These demographic changes coupled\par with a long period of modest economic growth allowed gentry leaders to\par build beautiful mansions and courthouses, in other words, to create impres-\par sive stages on which to express competitive and individualistic values before\par an appreciative white audience. After 1750, gentry hegemony was seriously\par challenged, most dramatically by local religious dissenters. (See, Bernard\par Bailyn, "Politics and Social Structure in Virginia," in James Morton\par Smith, cd., Seventeenth-Century America: Essays in Colonial History\par (Chapel Hill, 1959), 90-115; John C. Rainbolt, "The Alteration in the\par Relationship Between Leadership and Constituents in Virginia, 1660 to\par 1720," W&MQ, 3rd Ser., XXVII (1970), 411-434; Edmund S. Morgan,\par "Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox," Journal of American His-\par tory, LIX (1972), 5-29; Rhys Isaac, "Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the\par Baptists' Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765 to 1775,"\par W&MQ, 3rd Ser., XXXI (1974), 345-343; T. H. Breen, "Horses and Gen-\par tlemen: The Cultural Significance of Gambling Among the Gentry of\par Virginia," ibid., XXXIV (1977), 239-257.)\par \par 15. Morgan, "Slavery and Freedom," 21-22.\par \par 16. W&MQ, 2nd Ser., IV (1924), 147. A much abridged version of this law\par appeared in Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, I, 226.\par \par 17. Handlins, "Origins of the Southern Labor System," 199-222.\par \par 18. Degler, "Slavery and the Genesis of American Race Prejudice," 57.\par \par 19. Jordan, "Modern Tensions," 27.\par \par 20. Carl N. Degler, Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in\par Brazil and the United States (New York, 1971), 75-81.\par \par 21. W&MQ, 2nd Ser., IV (1924), 147.\par \par 22. NHCR, Order Book, 1674-1679, fol. 58.\par \par 23. Captain Thomas Grantham's "Account of My Transactions," Coventry\par Papers, LXXVII, fo. 301 (microfilm, Library of Congress); Charles M.\par Andrews, ed., Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690 (New York,\par 1915), 92-96; Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A His-\par tory of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia (Chapel Hill, 1957), 87-89; Thomas\par Grantham,' An Historical Account of Some Memorial Actions . . . [Lon-\par don, 1716], ed., R. A. Brock (Richmond, 1882).\par \par 24. See, Breen, "Changing Labor Force," n. 63, 22.\par \par 25. Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, II, 481.\par \par NOTES\par \par 121\par \par 26. Ibid., V, 17.\par \par 27. See, H. R. Mcllwaine, ed., Minutes of the Council and General Court\par (Richmond, 1924), 467-468; Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, I, 254-255,\par 401, 440, 517-518; II, 21, 266, 273-274, 277-278, 299.\par \par 28. Degler, "Slavery and the Genesis of Race Prejudice," 58; Jordan, "Modern\par Tensions," 23-24.\par \par 29. Mcllwaine, cd., Minutes of Council, 466.\par \par 30. Degler, "Slavery and the Genesis of Race Prejudice," 58.\par \par 31. Jordan, "Modern Tensions," 23-24.\par \par 32. Mcllwaine, ed., Minutes of Council, 467.\par \par 33. Degler, "Slavery and the Genesis of Race Prejudice," 58.\par \par 34. Mcllwaine, ed., Minutes of Council, 467.\par \par 35. Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, II, 26, 117.\par \par 36. Ibid., 35, 299.\par \par 37. In White Over Black, Jordan suggests that the black man in the two 1640\par cases was "possibly the same enterprising fellow" (75). The records, how-\par ever, specifically name two different persons, and there appears to have\par been no connection between the two cases.\par \par 38. Winthrop D. Jordan provides a full analysis of the racial terminology em-\par ployed by English planters in the mainland colonies in "American Chiar-\par oscuro: The Status and Definition of Mulattoes in the British Colonies,"\par W&MQ, 3rd Ser., XIX (1962), 183-220.\par \par 39. John Rex provides an excellent discussion of the problems of defining and\par interpreting what he calls a "race relations situation" in his Race Relations\par in Sociological Theory (London, 1970). Very important in helping us to un-\par derstand the "interactionist" model were Fredrik Earth's "Introduction" to\par Ethnic Croups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Dif-\par ference (Boston, 1969), 9-38; Fredrik Barth, "Economic Spheres in Dar-\par fur," in Raymond Firth, ed., Themes in Economic Anthropology (London,\par 1967); Norman Long, An Introduction to the Sociology of Rural Develop-\par ment (London, 1977), 119-20; Gerald D. Berreman, "Scale and Social\par Relations," Current Anthropology, XIX (1978), 225-237; Thomas Bender,\par Community and Social Change in America (New Brunswick, N.J., 1978),\par 122-128.\par \par 40. Models of Social Organization, Royal Anthropological Institute, Occasional\par Papers, No. 23 (1966), 3; also, Erving Goffrnan, The Presentation of Self in\par Everyday Life (Edinburgh, 1958).\par \par 41. Eric R. Wolf, "Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client Relations in Com-\par plex Societies," in Michael Banton, ed., The Social Anthropology of Com-\par plex Societies, A.S.A. Monographs 4 (London, 1966), 16-17; John Dun-\par can Powell, "Peasant Society and Clientelist Politics," American Political\par Science Review, LXIV (1970), 411-425.\par \par 122\tab NOTES\par \par 42. Robert R. Kaufman, "The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics:\par Prospects and Problems," Comparative Studies in Society and History, XVI\par (1974), 284-308.\par \par 43. Mintz and Price, Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past.\par \par 44. Earth wrote extensively about "sectors as spheres of exchange" in his paper\par Models of Social Organization. He developed the concept in order to ana-\par lyze economic exchanges, but he seemed prepared to extend it to include\par other types of interaction. "We may adopt this view [the concept of separate\par spheres of activity]," Barth explained, "not only on what we conventionally\par regard as 'economic' exchanges, but look at all the prestations that circulate\par in a society in terms of what are their appropriate reciprocals, and thus ob-\par serve the resultant patterns by which value in its different forms flows. Just\par as yams and kula objects in the Trobriands belong in different market\par spheres and thus flow in different circuits, so one might say in our society\par that political prestations, though they imply reciprocity, belong to a dif-\par ferent sphere from that of sex, or from that in which money circulates, and\par cannot legitimately be reciprocated for in such forms of value" (17).\par \par 3 NORTHAMPTON COUNTY AT MID-CENTURY\par \par 1. Two excellent studies of the ecology of the Eastern Shore are William W.\par Warner, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay\par (Boston, 1976) and Boyd Gibbons, Wye Island (Baltimore, 1977). We ap-\par preciate Brooks Miles Barnes's willingness to share with us his "A Selected,\par Annotated Bibliography of the Eastern Shore of Virginia for the Colonial\par Period" (unpublished Master's thesis, University of North Carolina, 1977).\par This is the fullest guide to the literature on Virginia's Eastern Shore avail-\par able.\par \par 2. A Perfect Description of Virginia . . . , in Eorce, comp., Tracts, II, No.\par 8, 7. See, J. H. Hexter, "Storm Over the Gentry," in his Reappraisals in\par History (New York, 1963), 117-149.\par \par 3. Colonel [Henry] Norwood, A Voyage to Virginia [London, 1649], in\par Force, comp., Tracts, III, No. 10, 28-29. Fortunately for Norwood, he\par had read Captain John Smith's description of Virginia. When Norwood\par reached the mainland, he found himself confronted with a group of East-\par ern Shore Indians. After fumbling for a way to communicate with these\par people, "it came at last into my head, that I had long since read Mr. [John]\par Smith's travels thro' those parts of America, and that the word Werowance\par . . . was in English the king" (30).\par \par 4. Jcnnings C. Wise in his anecdotal local history, Kingdome of Accawmacke,\par provides a "Translation of Certain Indian Names," but we have no way to\par verify the authenticity of Wise's claims. For what it is worth, he believed\par \par NOTES\par \par 123\par \par that Pungoteague meant "sand-fly river" (371). Another antiquarian histo-\par rian reported "Tradition tells us that a canoe load of pioneers crossed the\par great Chesapioque from Jamestown soon after Captain Smith's discovery;\par intermarried with the tribe of Nassawattox, and were found enjoying semi-\par civilization and savagery when the tide of immigration trended eastward in\par 1615"(VMHB, V(1897), 128).\par \par 5. Smith, Travels and Works, II, 413.\par \par 6. Cited in Wise, Kingdome of Accawmacke, 21.\par \par 7. See, Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Ches-\par apeake Bay in the Colonial Era (Newport, Virginia, 1953), 33.\par \par 8. CCR, 1640-1645, 26-27.\par \par 9. H. R. Mcllwaine, ed., Journals of the House Burgesses of Virginia\par 1659/60-1693 (Richmond, 1914), 101.\par \par 10. Charles B. Clark, cd., The Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia (3\par vols., New York, 1950), I, 30-33; Smith, Travels and Works, II, 413.\par \par 11. Climatic Atlas of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1968), 1-23.\par \par 12. Smith, Travels and Works, II, 413; Clark, ed., Eastern Shore, I, 34-35;\par The National Atlas of the United States of America (Washington, D.C.,\par 1970), 75, 78-79.\par \par 13. Norwood, A Voyage to Virginia, 48.\par \par 14. National Atlas, 97; Laing, "Cattle in Seventeenth-Century Virginia," 146.\par \par 15. CCR, 1640-1645, 272-273, 441; National Atlas, 90-91.\par \par 16. Norwood, Voyage to Virginia, 36-48.\par \par 17. Morgan, American Slavery\emdash American Freedom, 415.\par \par 18. Ames, Eastern Shore, 51-53.\par \par 19. Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1693-96, 519.\par \par 20. Smith, Travels and Works, II, 569.\par \par 21. Amcs, Eastern Shore, 7-8.\par \par 22. Norwood, Voyage to Virginia, 45; CCR, 1632-1640, xx.\par \par 23. Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680, eds. B. James and J. Franklin\par Jamcson (New York, 1913), 120. See, Earle, The Evolution of a Tidewater\par Settlement System, 142-169.\par \par 24. NHCR, Order Book, No. 9, 1664-1674, fol. 9; Wise, Kingdome of Accaw-\par macke, 291-292.\par \par 25. CCR, 1632-1640, 54.\par \par 26. Wise, Kingdome of Accawmacke, 291-292.\par \par 27. CCR, J632-1640, xlv.\par \par 28. CCR, 1640-J645, 182, 188, 327, 355, 386, 455.\par \par 29. Smith, Travels and Works, II, 413.\par \par 30. Mcllwaine, ed., Minutes of the Council, 445.\par \par 31. Smith, Travels and Works, II, 570.\par \par 32. Ames, Eastern Shore, 4-5. The most useful general account of this trou-\par \par 1\par \par }