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ONE. "By Hard Labour and Close Economy" Virginia Planters Go To Work
- University of Virginia Press
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13 one “by hard labour and Close economy” Virginia Planters Go to Work W hen thomas Watson took stock of his personal financial holdings in february 1861, he counted forty-four slaves and more than $28,000 worth of real estate in addition to investments , household wares, and agricultural items used at bracketts, his plantation in louisa County, virginia. the secession of the lower south states, however, had “greatly deranged the business affairs” and “impaired the value of all property,” which made it difficult for this virginia planter to assess confidently the value of his family’s assets. fully aware of the economic uncertainty the sectional crisis had already caused, and the possibility for greater market unrest if war were to break out, Watson still supported virginia’s decision to join the Confederacy. he assumed that his home state might face the brunt of any military conflict that developed, but neither he nor his family anticipated the extraordinary level of destruction that would befall their home, their state, and their nation over the next four 14 The Big House after Slavery years.1 in 1860 thomas Watson was a forty-year-old patriarch of a growing family, a large slaveholder, the master of a thriving plantation, and an investor in numerous business schemes both within and beyond his native state, but just ten years later, he would be a master without slaves and the owner of a plantation whose value had dropped by 30 percent. his decline would not end there. by 1880, though Watson had increased the size of bracketts, the plantation would be worth less than half what it was worth in 1860.2 emancipation, no doubt, was a leading factor contributing to the struggles Watson faced on his postwar plantation, and it also helped to bring about a change in the way that bracketts and other virginia plantations operated. Watson still needed laborers to work his fields, but lacking confidence in his ability to procure and pay enough field hands, he hired as few as possible and considered putting his own family to work on the plantation in order to reduce new labor costs. “our troubles with the Darkies multiply ,” he told his niece in 1867. as a result, he aimed to convert his tobacco and wheat plantation in the fertile green springs district of louisa County into a “grazing and hay farm.” With numerous children at home, Watson reasoned, “the girls can milk and churn, and boys and i herd and feed. and hay harvest with a mower will be a frolic!”3 the extent to which he was able to execute this plan and press his family members into agricultural service is unclear, but Watson did gradually abandon the lucrative, laborintensive crop cultivation of his antebellum days to focus instead on animal husbandry. by 1880, not one leaf of tobacco grew at bracketts, whereas twenty years earlier Watson’s slaves had harvested 20,000 pounds of it. instead , cattle, sheep, and poultry became the mainstay of the Watson family plantation in the postwar decades.4 in adapting his business to the world of free labor, Watson himself was changed. out of necessity he became increasingly involved in crop production and animal care, paying closer attention to the work of his field hands and doing more of the labor himself. over time, he even came to find this new work rewarding. “it would do you good to see me stepping briskly out, over the ‘fallow ground, concoctive’—and scattering the golden grain!” he declared in a letter to a relative in 1870.5 but Watson had not always appreciated hard, physical work. trained as an attorney, this gentleman farmer had done all he could to escape the drudgery of military service during the war, first by employing a substitute, then by using [44.211.243.190] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 14:11 GMT) “By Hard Labour and Close Economy” 15 his role as a planter to produce foodstuffs for the army and thereby avoid enlistment. he was finally dragged into the army in the fall of 1864, but lasted only three months before securing a release on the grounds of ill health. apparently, Private Watson could not tolerate the harsh conditions of military camp life. even working as a picket, he claimed that his short time in the service had aged him three years. though he reported feeling unwell and “lowspirited” upon returning home, he certainly was relieved to be liberated from “the absurd position...