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Chapter4 '~dmirable Oeconomy" Robert Beverley's Calculus ofCompensation Near the end of The History and Present State if Virginia (1705), Robert Beverley pauses to remark that the admirable Oeconomy ofthe Beavers, deserves to be particularlyremember'd. They cohabit in one House, are incorporated in a regular Form of Government, something like Monarchy, and have over them a Superintendent, which the Indians call Pericu. He leads them out to their several lmployments, which consist in Felling of Trees, biting off the Branches, and cutting them into certain lengths, suitable to the business they design them for, all which they perform with their Teeth. When this is done, the Governor orders several of his Subjects to joyn together, and take up one of those Logs, which they must carry to their House or Damm, as occasion requires. He walks in State by them all the while, and sees that everyone bear his equal share of the burden; while he bites with his Teeth, and lashes with his Tail, those that lag behind, and do not lend all their Strength. They commonly build their Houses in Swamps, and then to raise the Water to a convenient height, they make a Damm with Logs, and a binding sort of Clay, so firm, that though the Water runs continually over, it cannot wash it away.I Fascinating for their humanlike culture as well as valuable for their pelts, beavers were discussed frequently in colonization literature. Their apparent industry and cooperative behavior were often held up as models for imitation.2 Beverley's access to this topos came by way ofJohn Banister's natural history manuscripts, on which he often drew in writing the History andPresent State.3 Banister, misinterpreting various aspects ofbeavers' behavior, describes their labor as being directed by an "Overseer walking with them, & biting or lashing forward with his tail those that keep not up & bear their equal weight." 4 Beverley deletes the word "overseer" from Banister's text, probably in an effort to generalize the analogy beyond slave labor. He adds a discussion of the beavers' "Government," thereby transforming Banister's observations into a hopeful allegory of colonization . A monarch rules supreme. Particular works are directed by a "Governor " who "walks in State" superintending his "subjects." Beyond the governmental direction oflabor, Beverley is interested in the ends ofthat labor, the beavers' success in shaping their environment. The beavers, ''Admirable Oeconomy" 75 that is, show not only industry but also foresight and perseverance: faced with the dismal prospect of living in a swamp, they build a house as many as "three Stories high," design a dam to turn the swamp into a lake thus making their residence "convenient," and repair the dam as necessary when it is broken, "mak[ing] it perfectly whole again" (312). Apparently, beavers can accomplish almost everything that the Virginians could not during the first century of colonization. Unlike the colonists , who "have not one Place of Cohabitation among them, that may reasonably bear the Name of a Town," the beavers "cohabit" in a way that encourages cooperative projects (58). Despite the tendency of a few to "lag behind" in their labors, they follow the direction of their governors. Their governors in turn showwisdom in their choice ofprojects, directing engagements with the environment so as to suit the needs oftheir society and foster the public good. In this way, Beverley's allegory of the beavers takes up a primary theme of the American georgic. From the True Declaration ofVirginia andJohn Smith's GenerallHistoriethrough ThomasJefferson 's Notes on the State ofVirginia and beyond, the environmental literature of Virginia often criticizes the settler culture's economy while proposing that proper management would sustain a well-ordered commonwealth.5 Motivating but at the same time complicating Beverley's critique was his apparent fascination with the image of America as a new Eden, an image that represented the possibility of a certain kind of human harmony with the environment.6 He remarks, for example, that the Indians "seem'd to have escaped, or rather not to have been concern'd in the first Curse, Ofgetting their Bread by the sweat oftheirBrows" (17, emphasis in original).The "State ofNature" embodied by the Indians contrasts markedly with the industrious, regulated, yet sometimes violent society of the (one would assume at least equally natural) beavers (233). Both models are brought to bear as Beverley turns his attention directly to the Virginia colonists themselves, who exhibit neither the Indians' happiness nor the beavers' industry. Rather, they depend altogether...

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