The History of Virginia Part 20

CHAPTER X.

OF THE SERVANTS AND SLAVES IN VIRGINIA.

-- 50. Their servants they distinguish by the names of slaves for life, and servants for a time.

Slaves are the negroes and their posterity, following the condition of the mother, according to the maxim, _partus frequitur ventrem_. They are called slaves, in respect of the time of their servitude, because it is for life.

Servants, are those which serve only for a few years, according to the time of their indenture, or the custom of the country. The custom of the country takes place upon such as have no indentures. The law in this case is, that if such servants be under nineteen years of age, they must be brought into court to have their age adjudged; and from the age they are judged to be of, they must serve until they reach four and twenty; but if they be adjudged upwards of nineteen, they are then only to be servants for the term of five years.

-- 51. The male servants, and slaves of both s.e.xes, are employed together in tilling and manuring the ground, in sowing and planting tobacco, corn, &c. Some distinction indeed is made between them in their clothes, and food; but the work of both is no other than what the overseers, the freemen, and the planters themselves do.

Sufficient distinction is also made between the female servants, and slaves; for a white woman is rarely or never put to work in the ground, if she be good for anything else; and to discourage all planters from using any women so, their law makes female servants working in the ground t.i.thables, while it suffers all other white women to be absolutely exempted; whereas, on the other hand, it is a common thing to work a woman slave out of doors, nor does the law make any distinction in her taxes, whether her work be abroad or at home.

-- 52. Because I have heard how strangely cruel and severe the service of this country is represented in some parts of England, I can't forbear affirming, that the work of their servants and slaves is no other than what every common freeman does; neither is any servant required to do more in a day than his overseer; and I can a.s.sure you, with great truth, that generally their slaves are not worked near so hard, nor so many hours in a day, as the husbandmen, and day laborers in England. An overseer is a man, that having served his time, has acquired the skill and character of an experienced planter, and is therefore entrusted with the direction of the servants and slaves.

But to complete this account of servants, I shall give you a short relation of the care their laws take, that they be used as tenderly as possible:

BY THE LAWS OF THEIR COUNTRY,

1. All servants whatsoever have their complaints heard without fee or reward; but if the master be found faulty, the charge of the complaint is cast upon him, otherwise the business is done _ex officio_.

2. Any justice of the peace may receive the complaint of a servant, and order everything relating thereto, till the next county court, where it will be finally determined.

3. All masters are under the correction and censure of the county courts, to provide for their servants good and wholesome diet, clothing and lodging.

4. They are always to appear upon the first notice given of the complaint of their servants, otherwise to forfeit the service of them until they do appear.

5. All servants' complaints are to be received at any time in court, without process, and shall not be delayed for want of form; but the merits of the complaint must be immediately enquired into by the justices; and if the master cause any delay therein, the court may remove such servants, if they see cause, until the master will come to trial.

6. If a master shall at any time disobey an order of court, made upon any complaint of a servant, the court is empowered to remove such servant forthwith to another master who will be kinder, giving to the former master the produce only, (after fees deducted,) of what such servants shall be sold for by public outcry.

7. If a master should be so cruel, as to use his servant ill, that is fallen sick or lame in his service, and thereby rendered unfit for labor, he must be removed by the church-wardens out of the way of such cruelty, and boarded in some good planter's house, till the time of his freedom, the charge of which must be laid before the next county court, which has power to levy the same, from time to time, upon the goods and chattels of the master, after which, the charge of such boarding is to come upon the parish in general.

8. All hired servants are ent.i.tled to these privileges.

9. No master of a servant can make a new bargain for service, or other matter with his servant, without the privity and consent of the county court, to prevent the masters overreaching, or scaring such servant into an unreasonable compliance.

10. The property of all money and goods sent over thither to servants, or carried in with them, is reserved to themselves, and remains entirely at their disposal.

11. Each servant at his freedom receives of his master ten bushels of corn, (which is sufficient for almost a year,) two new suits of clothes, both linen and woolen, and a gun, twenty shillings value, and then becomes as free in all respects, and as much ent.i.tled to the liberties and privileges of the country, as any of the inhabitants or natives are, if such servants were not aliens.

12. Each servant has then also a right to take up fifty acres of land, where he can find any unpatented.

This is what the laws prescribe in favor of servants, by which you may find, that the cruelties and severities imputed to that country, are an unjust reflection. For no people more abhor the thoughts of such usage, than the Virginians, nor take more precaution to prevent it now, whatever it was in former days.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE OTHER PUBLIC CHARITABLE WORKS, AND PARTICULARLY THEIR PROVISION FOR THE POOR.

-- 53. They live in so happy a climate, and have so fertile a soil, that n.o.body is poor enough to beg, or want food, though they have abundance of people that are lazy enough to deserve it. I remember the time when five pounds was left by a charitable testator to the poor of the parish he lived in, and it lay nine years before the executors could find one poor enough to accept of this legacy, but at last it was given to an old woman. So that this may in truth be termed the best poor man's country in the world. But as they have n.o.body that is poor to beggary, so they have few that are rich; their estates being regulated by the merchants in England, who it seems know best what is profit enough for them in the sale of their tobacco and other trade.

-- 54. When it happens, that by accident or sickness, any person is disabled from working, and so is forced to depend upon the alms of the parish, he is then very well provided for, not at the common rate of some countries, that give but just sufficient to preserve the poor from perishing; but the unhappy creature is received into some charitable planter's house, where he is at the public charge boarded plentifully.

Many when they are crippled, or by long sickness become poor, will sometimes ask to be free from levies and taxes; but very few others do ever ask for the parish alms, or, indeed, so much as stand in need of them.

-- 55. There are large tracts of land, houses, and other things granted to free schools, for the education of children in many parts of the country; and some of these are so large, that of themselves they are a handsome maintenance to a master; but the additional allowance which gentlemen give with their sons, render them a comfortable subsistence.

These schools have been founded by the legacies of well inclined gentlemen, and the management of them hath commonly been left to the direction of the county court, or to the vestry of the respective parishes. In all other places where such endowments have not been already made, the people join, and build schools for their children, where they may learn upon very easy terms.

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE TENURE BY WHICH THEY HOLD THEIR LANDS, AND OF THEIR GRANTS.

-- 56. The tenure of their land there is free and common soccage, according to custom of east Greenwich; and is created by letters patents, issuing under the seal of the colony, and under the test of the governor in chief for the time being. I don't find that the name of any other officer is necessary to make the patent valid.

-- 57. There are three ways of obtaining from his majesty a t.i.tle to land there, viz: 1. By taking a patent upon a survey of new land. 2. By pet.i.tion for land lapsed. 3. By pet.i.tion for land escheated. The conditions of the two former are the entry of rights; the condition of the third a composition of two pounds of tobacco for every acre.

-- 58. A right is a t.i.tle any one hath by the royal charter to fifty acres of land, in consideration of his personal transportation into that country, to settle and remain there; by this rule also, a man that removes his family is ent.i.tled to the same number of acres for his wife, and each of his children; a right may be also obtained by paying five shillings, according to a late royal instruction to the government.

-- 59. A patent upon land for survey is acquired thus: 1. The man proves his rights; that is, he makes oath in court of the importation of so many persons, with a list of their names. This list is then certified by the clerk of that court to the clerk of the secretary's office, who examines into the validity of them, and files them in that office, attesting them to be regular, or he purchases them at five shillings each as aforesaid. When the rights are thus obtained, they are produced to the surveyor of the county, and the land is showed to him; who, thereupon, is bound to make the survey if the land had not been patented before. These rights to land are as commonly sold by one man to another, as the land itself; so that any one, not having rights by his own importation, may have them by purchase.

It is the business of the surveyor also to take care that the bounds of his survey be plainly marked, either by natural boundaries, or else by chopping notches in the trees, that happen in the lines of his courses; but this is done at the charge of the man that employs him.

This survey being made, a copy thereof is carried, with a certificate of rights to the secretary's office, and there (if there be no objection) a patent of course is made out upon it, which is presented to the governor and council for them to pa.s.s; the patentee having no more to do but to send for it when it is perfected, and to pay the fee at the first crop to the sheriff of the county, by whom annually the fees are collected.

This patent gives an estate in fee simple, upon condition of paying a quit rent of twelve pence for every fifty acres, and of planting or seating thereon, within three years, according to their law; that is, to clear, plant, and tend three acres of ground for every fifty, and to build an house, and keep a stock of cattle, sheep, or goats, in proportion to the meaner part of the land in the patent.

-- 60. Lapsed land, is when any one having obtained a patent as before, doth not set or plant thereon within three years, as the condition of the patent requires; but leaves it still all or part uninhabited and uncultivated. In such case it is said to be lapsed, and any man is at liberty to obtain a new patent in his own name of so much as is lapsed, the method of acquiring which patent is thus.

The party must apply himself by pet.i.tion to the general court, another to the governor, setting forth all the circ.u.mstances of the lapse. If this pet.i.tion be allowed, the court makes an order, to certify the same to the governor, in whose breast it is then to make a new grant thereof to such person if he thinks they deserve it, upon the same condition, of setting or planting within three years, as was in the former patent.

Thus land may be lapsed or lost several times, by the negligence of the patentees; who, by such omission, lose not only the land, but all their rights and charges into the bargain.

But if within the three years after the date of the patent, or before any new pet.i.tion is preferred for it, the patentee shall set or plant the said land, as the law directs; it cannot afterwards be forfeited, but by attainder, or escheat, in which case it returns to his majesty again.

Also when it happens, that the patentee dies within the three years, leaving the heir under age, there is farther time given the heir after he comes of age to set and save such land.

-- 61. When land is suggested to escheat, the governor issues his warrant to the escheator, to make inquest thereof: and when upon such inquest, office is found for the king, it must be recorded in the secretary's office, and there kept nine months, to see if any person will lay claim to it, or can traverse the escheat. If any such appear, upon his pet.i.tion to the general court he is heard, before any grant can be made.