University of Virginia Library

53. Slavery in Virginia
LETTERS OF PETER FONTAINE (1757)

As to your query, whether enslaving our fellow creatures be a practice agreeable to Christianity, I shall only mention something of our present state here. Like Adam we are all apt to shift off the blame from ourselves and lay it upon others, how justly in our case you may judge. The negroes are enslaved by the negroes themselves before they are purchased by the masters of the ships who bring them here. It is to be sure at our choice whether we buy them or not, so this then is our crime, folly, or whatever you will please to call it.

Our Assembly, foreseeing the bad consequences of importing such numbers amongst us, hath often attempted to lay a duty upon them which would amount to a prohibition, such as ten or twenty pounds a head;[197] but no Governor dare pass such a law, having

instructions to the contrary from the Board of Trade at home.[198] By this means they are forced upon us, whether we will or will not. This plainly shows the African Company hath the advantage of the colonies, and may do as it pleases with the Ministry

Since we have been exhausted of our little stock of cash by the war, the importation of slaves has stopped; our poverty then is our best security There is no more picking for their ravenous jaws upon bare bones; but should we begin to thrive they will be at the same business again.

All our taxes are now laid upon slaves and on shippers of tobacco, which the English wink at while we are in danger of being torn from them; but we dare not do it in time of peace, it being looked upon as the highest presumption to lay any burden upon trade.[199]

This is our part of the grievance, but to live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible. Before our troubles, you could not hire a servant or slave for love or money; so that, unless you are robust enough to cut wood, to go to mill, to work at the hoe, etc., you must starve, or board in some family where they both fleece and half starve you. There is no set price upon corn, wheat, and provisions, so they take advantage of the necessities of strangers, who are thus obliged to purchase some slaves and land. This of course draws us all into the original sin and curse of the country of purchasing slaves. This is the reason we have no merchants, traders, or artificers of any sort who do not become planters in a short time.

A common laborer, white or black, if you can be so much favored as to hire one, is a shilling sterling or fifteen pence currency per day;[200] a bungling carpenter

two shillings or two shillings and sixpence per day; beside diet and lodging. That is, for a lazy fellow to get wood and water, £19. 16. 3, current per annum; add to this seven or eight pounds more and you have a slave for life.

Nevertheless I cannot help expressing my concern at the nature of our Virginia estates, so far as they consist in slaves. I suppose we have, young and old, one hundred and fifty thousand of them in the country, a number, at least, equal to the whites. It is a hard task to do our duty towards them as we ought. We run the hazard of temporal ruin if they are not compelled to work hard on the one hand and on the other, that of not being able to render a good account of our stewardship in the other and better world, if we oppress and tyrannize over them.

Besides, according to our present method, which every body appears afraid to go out of, it seems quite necessary to lay most stress on that useless weed, tobacco, as our staple commodity. This is the reason that all other useful trades and occupations are neglected. Every Virginia tradesman must be at least half a planter, and, of course, not to be depended upon as a tradesman.