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July/August 2003

Questions

This document is an example of a record made regularly in colonial Virginia. We want you to tell us these things about it (focus on the left-hand side of the page!):

1)	What type of record is it?
2)	To whom does it relate, and how do we know this?
3)	What types of things does it tell us about this individual and plantation life in 18th-century Lancaster?

Answers

This document is from the inventory of Robert “King” Carter’s estate. Taken in 1733, the inventory numbered some 37 pages. Though Robert Carter’s name does not appear on this particular section, that this represents part of his inventory can be discerned by looking at the top left of the page, which begins “Hills qr. Charles Jones Overseer.” One of Carter’s forty-eight plantations or quarters, this Hills Quarter is the same Hills Quarter one sees today along Rt. 200 where a golf course and residential community are being constructed.

The inventory tells us much about Carter’s organization and management of his slaves and the life these men, women, and children carved out for themselves in the Northern Neck during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. As on all his plantations, Carter’s overseer was a white man, in this case Charles Jones. Right below Jones’s name appears Ben, the foreman, one of 42 black foremen Carter employed (there were also two indentured servants working as foremen). Foremen were used only on the largest estates in the Chesapeake during the first half of the eighteenth century. Essentially a prime field hand entrusted by the master with some supervisory responsibilities, Ben’s main duty was to help direct and set the pace of work. As for skilled slaves, only one, “Sawyer Billy,” is listed, though it is likely he also worked alongside field hands in the tobacco on a regular basis. With skilled jobs and foremen’s positions going to men, women’s roles were confined to that of field hands.

The inventory lists the other slaves according to their family units. Below Ben appears “John a Man” and “Easter his Wife.” Skipping a section, Sawyer Billy and Arrabella his Wife are listed together, followed by a family headed by a woman named Betty, who has four children ages 7-12 living with her. The five single men on the quarter, perhaps newly-imported Africans, are listed together and probably all resided in one house. Still, as on Carter’s other larger plantations (fifteen or more slaves), slaves at Hills Quarters found greater opportunities to marry and establish families.

Other things, too, stand out in the inventory. Slaves’ status as chattel property is clearly visible: following the names of Hills Quarter’s fifteen slaves are the 60 hogs, 26 sheep, and 97 cattle that occupied the plantation; below these holdings in humans and livestock, the inventory lists all the various household possessions on the property. Slaves’ debased status is also reinforced by the fact that only a first name appears in the inventory, whereas the overseer is listed by his first and surname. Finally, the abbreviation “abt.” is used to approximate the ages of slave children.