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Introduction
- University of Virginia Press
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5 The origins, growth, and influence o f Virginia’s upper class have long fascinated scholars and t he wider public. Louis B. Wright writing in 1940 set forth what is the generally accepted view: “The tight little aristocracy that developed in Virginia in the later years of the seventeenth century quickly gained a power and influence far in excess of the numerical importance of its members, who were vastly outnumbered by the ye oman class. Planter-aristocrats ruled Virginia as by prescriptive right and from the ranks of their descendants came statesmen who helped weld thirteen colonies into a nation.”1 Others before and after Wright have devoted much attention to this group.2 And there is no denying their importance in Virginia and t he nation, a p oint cogently argued by Charles Sydnor in his Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in W ashington’s Virginia.3 Here I examine this Virginia elite between 1680 and 1790 in their political, social, and economic context. I do so through the history of twenty-one families , all but one of whom h ad two or mor e members on t he Council of S tate in the seventeenth and eig hteenth centuries (table 1). The Council of S tate, composed usually of twelve men appointed by the reigning monarch, was the advisory body to the governor, the upper house of the General Assembly, and the court of last resort in Virginia, and it wielde d powerful authority. Men of wealth who desired to combine political, social, and economic power and thus Introduction Few of “the topping people” have a house . . . of their own in Williamsburg, but they all “live on their Estates handsomely and plentifully.” —Lord Ad a m Gordon, 1 765 2 A “ Topping P eople” Table 1 Tw ent y-on e e l it e Virg in ia fa mil ie s Family Approximate date of arrival Place of origin Virginia residence Beverley 1663 Yorkshire Middlesex Burwell 1640 Bedfordshire Gloucester Byrd Before 1670 London Henrico Carter 1635 London Upper Norfolk or Nansemond to Lancaster Corbin 1654 Warwickshire / London Maryland to Middlesex Custis 1650 Gloucestershire / Rotterdam Northampton Digges 1650 Kent York Fitzhugh 1670 Bedfordshire Stafford Grymes 1644 ? Gloucester to Lancaster / Middlesex Harrison 1632 Northamptonshire James City / Surry Jenings 1680 Yorkshire York Lee 1639 Worcestershire / London Charles River (York) to Northumberland Lewis 1653 Monmouthshire Gloucester Lightfoot 1670/ 71 Northamptonshire Gloucester Ludwell 1648 Somerset James City Nelson 1705 Cumberland York Page 1650 Middlesex York Randolph 1670 Warwickshire Henrico Robinson 1660 Yorkshire Middlesex Tayloe Before 1681 Gloucestershire? Richmond Wormeley 1636 Yorkshire Lancaster / Middlesex Sources: Cynthia Miller Leonard, The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 161 9–January 16, 1978: A Bicentennial Edition (Richmond, 1978); Earl Gregg Swem, Virginia Historical Index (Roanoke, VA, l934– 36);Cavaliers and Pioneers. I have used the VMHB and the WMQ to supplement Swem’s index, which ended in 1936. [34.228.7.237] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 11:52 GMT) I ntroduction 3 become the most influential people in the colony sought membership in this select body. Wealth is d ifficult to a ssess precisely in V irginia because, unlike Maryland, few probate records are extant. But in Jackson Turner Main’s study of the one hundred wealthiest Virginians, gleaned from the land tax and personal property records of 1787 and 1788, sixteen of the twenty-one families emerge, and what had happened to the remaining six is known. I also draw information from another group of twenty families.4 Members of t hese families also held ot her appointive positions and w ere elected to t he House of B urgesses. But using long-term membership on t he Council of S tate simplifies the selection of a r epresentative elite group. The Fitzhugh family had only one me mber on t he colonial Council of S tate, but William Fitzhugh and his descendants were very wealthy, and his letters, along with those of William Byrd I, are among the few surviving records left by the seventeenth-century Virginia elite. The Blair and Parke families, both of whom had two members on the council, are in the second group. James Blair served almost continuously from 1694 to 1 743, and his nephew John from 1745 to 1 770. James had no ch ildren and left a con siderable fortune to J ohn. Daniel Parke served from 1670 to 1678; his son Daniel served from 1695to 1697, but he left Virginia in the latter year and...