CHAPTER estate." The prohibition against holding Indians as slaves was also relaxed as to those brought in by water, 1670. a new law having enacted "that all servants, not being Christians, imported by shipping, shall be slaves for life." About this period, and afterward, a considerable number of Indian slaves seem to have been imported into Virginia and New England from the West Indies and the Spanish Main. As a necessary pendent to the slave code, the system now also began of subjecting freed slaves to civil disabilities. It had already been enacted that female servants employed in field labor should be rated and taxed as tithables. Negro women, though free, were now subjected to the same tax. Free negroes and Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold white servants. While the slave code was thus extended, the privileges and political power of the poorer whites underwent a corresponding diminution. During the period of the Commonwealth, the Virginia Assemblies had been chosen for only two years; but this privilege of frequent elections was no longer enjoyed. The Assembly of 1661 was still in existence, such vacancies as occurred being filled from time to time by special elections. Even this small privilege was begrudged to the poorer freemen; and, on the usual pretexts of tumultuous elections, and want of sufficient discretion in the poorer voters, it was now enacted that none but householders and freeholders should have a voice in the election of burgesses. Some replies of Berkeley to a series of questions submitted to him by the plantation committee of the Privy 1671. Council give quite a distinct picture of the colony as it then was. The population is estimated at 40,000, including 2000 "black slaves," and 6000 "Christian XV. servants," of whom about 1500 were imported yearly, CHAPTER principally English. Since the exclusion of Dutch vessels by the acts of navigation, the importation of negroes 1671. had been very limited; not above two or three ship-loads had arrived in seven years. The English trade to Africa, a monopoly in the hands of the Royal African Company, does not seem to have been prosecuted with much spirit; and such supply of slaves as that company furnished was chiefly engrossed by Jamaica and the other sugar colonies. Tobacco, to the quantity of fifteen or twenty thousand hogsheads of three hundred and fifty pounds each, is represented by Berkeley as the only exportable commodity, for the transportation of which, and the supply of the colony with imported goods, there came yearly from England and Ireland some eighty ships, besides a few ketches from New England. The Navigation Act is complained of as cutting off the market for staves, timber, and corn; but this could only be by excluding Dutch and other foreign ships from the colony; for, notwithstanding the navigation acts, the Virginians remained at full liberty to send those articles wherever they pleased. Unluckily, they had no shipping. "There is a gov ernor and sixteen counselors, who have from his sacred majesty a commission of oyer and terminer, who judge and determine all causes that are above £15 sterling; for what is under, there are particular courts in every county, which are twenty in number. Every year, at least, the Assembly is called, before whom lie appeals; and this Assembly is composed of two burgesses out of every county. These lay the necessary taxes, as their exigencies require." It is added, however, that the Indian neighbors of the colony are "absolutely subjected, so that there is no fear of them." "We have forty-eight parishes," adds the governor, "and our min CHAPTER isters are well paid, and by my consent should be better, XV. if they would pray oftener and preach less. But as of 1671. all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us, and we have few that we can boast of since the persecu tion, in Cromwell's tyranny, drove divers worthy men hither. But I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government: God keep us from both !" 1672. Yet grievances Public attention No opposition appears to have been made in Virginia to the establishment à crown custom-house to collect the duties imposed by act of Parliament on the shipment of "enumerated articles" from one colony to another. The Virginians might deem that act to be aimed rather at the New Englanders than at them. from England were not wanting. was soon much engrossed by some proceedings on the part of the king, which might lead the Virginians to question whether even the "tyranny of Cromwell" were not quite as tolerable, on the sacred majesty" Charles II. stead of being applied to the been given away, for a term of years, to one Colonel Norwood, whom Berkeley calls a "deserving servant of the crown;" but wherein his desert consisted does not appear. The whole "northern neck," that is, the peninsula between the Rappahannoc and the Potomac, had been granted to the Earl of St. Alban's, Lord Culpepper, and others, without even excepting the plantations already 1673. settled there. Finally, the entire colony was assigned, Feb. 25. for thirty-one years, to Lords Culpepper and Arlington, including all quit-rents, escheats, the power to grant lands whole, as the rule of "his The royal quit-rents, inbenefit of the colony, had XV. and to erect new counties, the presentation to all church- CHAPTER es, and the nomination of sheriffs, escheators, and surveyors. These noblemen had a very bad character for 1673 rapacity. Arlington was one of the king's ministers, and a member of the famous "Cabal." They could have no object in obtaining this grant except to enrich themselves out of the colony. Perhaps they might question existing land-titles, of which some, it is probable, would hardly bear examination. The Assembly was alarmed, and three agents, Colonel Francis Moryson, late acting governor, Mr. Secretary Ludwell, and Major-general Thomas Smith, were dispatched to England to solicit a modifica- 1674. tion of this extraordinary grant, or to purchase it up for Sept. the benefit of the colony. To provide funds for this purchase, a tax was imposed of a hundred pounds of tobacco per poll, to be collected by two annual installments. To raise the ready money, this tax was to be farmed out at the rate of eight shillings, about two dollars, the hundred, that amount to be paid down at once by the undertakers. As a further and quite original means of filling the empty treasury, a tax of from thirty to seventy pounds of tobacco was imposed upon every unsuccessful suitor in any of the colony courts. Besides this business of buying out Lords Culpepper and Arlington, the commissioners were also instructed to solicit a royal charter for the colony, confirming all landtitles, giving to the governor and council a general power as a criminal court, without the necessity of a special commission of oyer and terminer, and guaranteeing to the Assembly all the authority it had hitherto exercised. The proposed charter was approved by the solicitor and 1675. attorney general; the plantation committee reported in Nov. 16 favor of it; and the king ordered it to be put into form. It encountered, however, some unexplained delays in pass CHAPTER ing the seals. XV. Its progress was finally cut short by news from Virginia of a nature to show that the absence of 1675. free schools was by no means so absolute a guarantee against discontent and rebellion as Berkeley had supposed. Discontents in Virginia had reached, in fact, a high pitch. The colony, county, and parish levies were all raised by poll taxes. Those who paid these taxes had little or no voice in imposing them. There had been no general election since the Restoration, and even in local elections to fill vacancies in the Assembly, a considerable part of the freemen had lost their right to vote. The taxes imposed to keep up the forts, and the late levy to buy out Culpepper and Arlington, caused great discontents, aggravated by the declining price of tobacco. In the selection of vestrymen and county commissioners the people had no voice at all. These local dignitaries, by long continuance in office, had grown supercilious and arbitrary. The compensation to the members of Assembly had been lately fixed at one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco per day, besides near as much more for horses, servants, and boatmen. This amount was deemed excessive by the tax-payers, who accused the members of protracting their sessions for the mere sake of increasing their pay. The public dissatisfaction had 1674. already shown itself in popular disturbances, "suppressed by proclamation and the advice of some discreet persons." Nothing, however, was wanting, except an occasion and a leader, to throw the whole community into a flame. An occasion was soon found in an Indian war; a leader presented himself in Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon was a young man, not yet thirty, lately arrived from London, where he had studied law in the Temple He had estates and influential connections in Virginia. |