A Child of the Revolution: William Henry Harrison and His World, 1773–1798

2 An Education Manqué

an education manqué 15 chapter two An Education Manqué t William Henry Harrison’s difficult relationship with his father, the most important person in his early life, can be best evaluated by considering it in the context of the world in which he grew up—the rich, complex world of the great Virginia and Maryland planters. The culture of what Allen Kulikoff has called Chesapeake society is so well known and its child-rearing philosophy so clearly anatomized in the work of scholars from Louis B. Wright and Edmund Morgan to Rhys Isaac, T. H. Breen, and Daniel Blake Smith that one need only assemble the scattered fragments of information about Harrison’s early life and match them against the ideal model to grasp how he resembled the typical young Virginia gentleman, and how and why he differed. Chesapeake culture centered on the ownership of large tracts of farmland, each with a manor house as its nerve center; each manor house was a consciously fashioned copy of the homes of the gentry and lesser nobility of England. Such manors embodied an ideal, as Breen puts it, of “complete personal independence,” including financial and judicial control of one’s own realm: the fields of tobacco that brought in money from England, the scores of African slaves laboring to produce the tobacco, the family members and employees inhabiting and working in the small clusters of buildings that, like English villages, surrounded each “great house.” “Patriarchs,” these gentlemen sometimes goodhumoredly called themselves, in mock-biblical reference to their rural, semiwilderness surroundings, but in fact their standard of reference was 15 Booraem text.indb 15 5/22/12 1:53 PM 16 a child of the revolution that of English royalty and nobility. An English visitor in 1760 found them “haughty and jealous of their liberties.”1 Sovereigns, as these Chesapeake gentlemen saw it, ruled under the favor of God and the king, and had a duty to represent their superiors by ruling virtuously. Thus a planter was supposed to maintain his plantation responsibly, attending closely to business and riding around his acres to supervise and assess the farming, as Roman masters in the classics he read had overseen theirs; he was supposed to take a leading part in the affairs of his neighborhood, his church, and his colony; and in his everyday actions, he was expected to exemplify gracious, educated behavior.2 Control, David Hackett Fischer stresses in Albion’s Seed, began with self-control; a male of the planter class was on stage all the time, whether dancing, riding, attending church, dining with his family , or disciplining his slaves; he had to learn early to “bend his will” to exhibit proper behavior.3 The proper raising of a great planter’s son, the future ruler of a domain, was a serious matter, and one to which planters gave serious thought. A son was expected to master the extensive code of manners that governed social relationships; to be familiar with the classics in their original language and with the most approved modern authors; and to know and understand the texts and rituals of the Anglican communion, which was seen in Virginia less as a matter of personal salvation than as an important part of the social order. Often a planter father made the education of his sons a central project of his life. He taught them horsemanship, which was a major part of a man’s appearance, and he took them from an early age around the plantation and neighborhood to acquaint them with its operations. They accompanied him to local social occasions—Anglican worship, court sessions, horse races, fish fries—to meet neighboring planter families and to get a clear idea of gender roles. The father sought out proper teachers to drill his sons in the languages, mathematics, and dancing, and periodically reviewed their progress. This was the ideal, and it was realized, or approximated, surprisingly often.4 All this was only the formal part of a son’s education. Equally important was the education he received from the family, friends, and dependents in his daily orbit. From the women in his family, typically, he learned current standards of dress and manners and, often, basic literacy. From his playmates, companions, and servants among the slaves, he learned simple diversions and knowledge of the natural world Booraem text.indb 16 5/22/12 1:53 PM an education manqué 17 as...