Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

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Slavery in Virginia
As tobacco plantations expanded, the extent of Negro slavery increased as
well. In 1710, there were 23,000 Negroes in Virginia among 55,000 whites;
in 1750, the colony contained 101,000 Negroes and 130,000 whites. And,
contrary to historical opinion, the Browns have shown that, while the larger
plantations were in the Tidewater area, the proportion of slaves was no
greater in many Tidewater areas than in the Piedmont. In fact, the greatest
proportion of slaves to total population appeared in the land between the
James and Rappahannock rivers, both in the Tidewater and going back well
into the Piedmont area. Similarly, the evidence indicates that the proportion
of the value of slaves in the total assets of the planters was no greater for
large than for small slaveholders.*
The condition of the slaves was what we might expect, where some people
are owned by others as capital. Slaves were kept in compounds where they
were condemned to miserable lives of severe labor, little food, long working
hours, and savage treatment; above all, they lived absolutely and continuously
under the direction of their masters. Torture was systematically used even by
the "kindest" of masters. For instance, Landon Carter, one of the most eminent
planters of the colony, systematically whipped female slaves who were
wasting their time tending their young children or daring to feign pregnancy.
Stealing the master's property was a particularly heinous offense. When two
slaves were caught killing a sheep, Carter ordered them tried and declared
that "one shall be hanged to terrify the rest."** Legal marriages by slaves were
•Robert E. and B. Katherine Brown, Virginia, 170S-17S6: Democracy or Aristocracy?
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1964), pp. 72-77.
**lbid., p. 67.
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